According to Phillips (1914, Ch. IV), what is a caption, when should a photoplay writer use one, and what misuses does he warn against?
1914 practice (Phillips, a US trade manual for silent photoplays): the caption (his preferred word for what others call leader or sub-title) is an action-title, written by the author and shown intact. His rule is to translate a point into action first and caption only what is essential to continuity but too subtle to act; his stated purposes are economy, a lapse of time, and a mental process. He warns against captions that tell what the next scene shows, mere labels, and poetic titles in a harshly realistic play. Chapter IV gives no word or footage limit (the 15-word figure is in Chapter IX, see C3-B259-S74-05).
1914 practice (Phillips, a US trade manual for silent photoplays): the caption (his preferred word for what others call leader or sub-title) is an action-title, written by the author and shown intact. His rule is to translate a point into action first and caption only what is essential to continuity but too subtle to act; his stated purposes are economy, a lapse of time, and a mental process. He warns against captions that tell what the next scene shows, mere labels, and poetic titles in a harshly realistic play. Chapter IV gives no word or footage limit (the 15-word figure is in Chapter IX, see C3-B259-S74-05).
Curator qualifications: Caption rules: action first, stated purposes, tone.
Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
{
"citations": [
{
"url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70937/pg70937.txt",
"note": "candidate evidence excerpts"
}
]
}Evidence claims
- [sourced_fact] 1914 practice (Phillips, a US trade manual for silent photoplays): the caption (his preferred word for what others call leader or sub-title) is an action-title, written by the author and shown intact. His rule is to translate a point into action first and caption only what is essential to continuity but too subtle to act; his stated purposes are economy, a lapse of time, and a mental process. He warns against captions that tell what the next scene shows, mere labels, and poetic titles in a harshly realistic play. Chapter IV gives no word or footage limit (the 15-word figure is in Chapter IX, see C3-B259-S74-05). · locator: candidate evidence excerpts source
Rights
| component | license | hosting | redistribution | modification | training | Evidence and notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| documentation | unknown | permitted | permitted | unknown | unknown | Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources. |