Something occurred to me during a screening of Chaplin’s The Immigrant (1917) that I was accompanying for a school group several years ago. I knew the scene at the beginning where the boat is rocking was shot with the camera… Read More »Charlie Chaplin and a Stationary Horizon
One of the main reasons a silent film is often run at a more gooey speed is that a decision had been made that it should have “natural motion”. Usually a projection speed in the 18 fps neighborhood. Even without… Read More »Natural Movement and Don Juan
My rule of thumb with projection speeds and silent comedy films used to be guided by whether there were audience laughs or not. Later, once I’d done a lot of research into the difference between taking speed and projection speed… Read More »The Speed Is Mutual
Some years ago, I made a project of deconstructing Buster Keaton’s The Goat (1921) in a series of undercranking studies that I posted to YouTube. In one of the segments, I’d pointed out a moment where an elision of time… Read More »Beating Someone To the Punch With an Edit