Early Film Technology Quiz

Early Film Technology

• Camera Obscura/Pinhole Camera: A dark box with a hole, allowing light to project an upside-down image. Early predecessor to a camera.
• Daguerreotype (1839): First publicly available photographic process. Involved a light-sensitive metal plate, requiring long exposures (up to 10 minutes). Famous example: "Boulevard du Temple."
• Heliograph (1826): First image capturing and reproducing device, utilizing a camera obscura and a polished tin plate coated with asphalt.
• Daumenkino/Flip Books: Series of images appearing to move when rapidly flipped.
• Laterna Magica: Precursor to modern slide/film projection, operating on the opposite principle to the camera obscura.
• Zoetrope (1834): Cylinder with slits, displaying sequential images to create an illusion of motion.
• First Film: "Roundhay Garden Scene" (1888), an experimental short film by Louis Le Prince, considered the oldest extant film.
• First Fictional Film: Georges Méliès's "Le Voyage dans la Lune" (1902), a significant early fictional film of 14 minutes.

Silent Films

• Silent Film Characteristics: Often accompanied by live music at cinemas. Popular genres included comedy and horror. Editing and censorship were common practices. Early German films were sometimes more successful compared to Hollywood.
• Lumière Brothers: Developed equipment and film around the late 19th century, presenting the first public films around 1895. Their films were typically 50 seconds long. Invented the kinematograph (camera/projector) in 1895.
• Intertitles: Printed/filmed text added to silent films, easily changeable.

Sound Film Era

• Talkies: Moving pictures with synchronized sound/dialogue (late 1890s-1920s). Soundtracks existed, but dubbing wasn't possible. Actors often had to learn dialogue in multiple languages.
• First Sound Films: "Don Juan" (1926) and "The Jazz Singer" (1927) were among the first.
• Early Dubbing: Films dubbing into German (or other languages), began around 1930s. Typically richer countries (Germany, etc.) did the dubbing for their people's benefit.
• Subtitles/Captions: Differentiation existed between captioning in the US (caps) and subtitles in the UK or abroad.
• Timecodes: Precise indication of video time frame using HH:MM:SS:FF format

Subtitling and Dubbing Differences

• Dubbing: Original audio is replaced with new audio in a different language. Can be more expensive, can lose original performance, and not always accurate.
• Subtitling: Provides translated/transcribed text onscreen. Usually cheaper, offers a closer match to the original text, and can support SDH/HoH viewers.
• Audio Description: Provides visual description of the action for people who are visually impaired.

Subtitling Methods and Technology

• Live Subtitling: Real-time transcription of spoken language into subtitles. Uses techniques like stenography, voice recognition software, and/or "respeaking."
• Costs: Dubbing can be costly (up to $75+ per minute).
• Visual Aspects of Subtitles: Layout factors, such as scrolling subtitles (usually 3 lines), insert subtitles in the bottom third of the screen or top of the screen, centred to ease readability etc
• Voice Over: Dubbing in which original speech serves as background audio, with subtitles over-laying the speech. More common in documentaries.
• Closed Captions: Can be turned on or off (separate file).
• Open Captions: Cannot be turned off (integrated into video pixels).
• Subtitles for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH): Specific subtitles for this target group.
• Other Terms: McGurk Effect demonstrates the combination of hearing and vision for speech perception. Surtitles are subtitles for musical performances.
• Sign Language: Valuable for broader viewer inclusivity compared to subtitles (ASL), providing tone, nuance, and inflection.