Subject: RE: [Ltru] Tagging of silent films (was: Re: el truth?)

From: "Peter Constable" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 13:42:13 -0700

At the risk of straying off topic...
 
If you are distinguishing between audio tracks and subtitles, then I
would think you could have a film in which there is no audio track, but
there are subtitles. For such a film, <audio lang="no linguistic
content"> and <subtitle lang="English"> are plausibly valid choices. But
I guess the case of silent films is special since there is no spoken
linguistic content in the audio track while there is written linguistic
content, only not in subtitles but in the video content itself.
 
So, in such a case, it would seem to me that that written content is in
some language such as English that should be specified - e.g., "The Gold
Rush" is definitely silent but also definitely in English - and that
separately you might have a *separate* metadata categorization to
indicate "silent" as a particular category of film, with implications
both wrt genre and date as well as wrt how dialogue and narration are
represented.
 
What do you do in modern cases in which a film presents prologue or
epilogue content in writing, such as "In a galaxy far, far away..."?

Peter
 
________________________________

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
[email-masked]
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 10:29 AM
To: Harald Tveit Alvestrand
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [Ltru] Tagging of silent films (was: Re: el truth?)

I discussed whether to request a formal tag for this usage with the MPA.
We figured if we registered it, we would need to dilute the meaning to
make it more global and define it, as Peter suggests, as "no linguistic
content" or "no language present." 

But this is semantically different from "silent," which is very specific
to our industry. Consider the difference between a silent film --
defined as a film with an actor mouthing words that features title cards
to indicate what the actor is saying -- to films like Baraka,
Koyaanisqatsi, and the Triplets of Belleville, which feature no language
at all. (Belleville does have songs in French, but that's slightly
different.) Also, the Library of Congress genre list defines "actuality"
films as those early films that wowed viewers by merely showing a train
entering a station. These latter examples would fall under the "no
language present" classification, but not the "silent" classification. 

In other words, it's possible we may need both tags -- silent AND no
language present. 

I don't consider silent to be a modal classification -- spoken, written,
and signed are modes. And I'll even admit this is a somewhat impure use
of language data. (Another reason why I don't think this should be
registered.) Ideally, this metadata should be a boolean value. Silent or
not silent. But within our industry, for compliance with external
standards and product definition, we must define this as a language. 

I think und-silent is an oxymoron. If it's undetermined, how do you know
it's silent? You've determined that the film features an actor mouthing
the words, and you may have defined the title cards as being in French,
English, or Sio. That doesn't seem undetermined to me. (If you don't
mind, I'd prefer to gloss over the lipreaders issue.) 

At present, we have no plans to register this tag and prefer to use
"qsi" over "x-silent." I do think if the private use tags cannot be used
for this purpose, what good are they? Do you really want me to request
formal tags for both "silent" and "no language present"? That's my
potential business need. That could set a precedent for other weird tags
from other industries to enter the registry. Silent seems very
industry-specific to me and this seemed to be an appropriate use case
for the private use tag. 

Karen Broome
Metadata Systems Designer
Sony Pictures Entertainment
310.244.4384 

Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]> 
Sent by: [email-masked] 
09/27/2005 06:53 AM 
        
        To:        "John.Cowan" <[email-masked]> 
        cc:        [email-masked] 
        Subject:        Re: [Ltru] Tagging of silent films (was: Re: el
truth?)

--On tirsdag, september 27, 2005 09:25:39 -0400 "John.Cowan" 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Harald Tveit Alvestrand scripsit:
>
>> However, they ARE guaranteed to conflict with other private use of
those
>> codes.
>>
>> Don't standardize private-use codes - not even in an "industry-wide
>> agreement". It hurts.
>
> I think that use of private tags by a group is precisely what they are
> for.  If private tags can't even be used by private agreement (between
> film people), they are useless.

That logically follows, of course - consider what happens when the film 
people adopt "qsi" for silent movies, the car people adopt "qsi" for a 
"test" voice on the car guidance system, and you insert a disk into the
car 
entertainment system.....

Outside of use inside a single system/database, private tags are
useless, 
IMHO.

>> i-silent is no longer available for public registration, methinks.
>
> Technically it still is, since we are in the RFC 3066 regime.  In the
> RFC 3066bis regime, the equivalent would be simply "silent", a non-639
> language subtag.

I certainly wouldn't encourage creating more interim  registrations.....

>> und-silent would be a valid code, if "silent" is registered as a
variant
>> subtag with "und" as its prefix.
>
> Yes, that is registerable in both regimes.  It's a little paradoxical,
> though, since "und" represents ignorance on the part of the tagger, to
> qualify ignorance with something specific.  OTOH, people in silent
films
> are generally speaking in some language, but viewers don't know or
care
> what it is.

I'm told that deaf people often laugh in the most bizarre spots when 
watching silent movies - they are used to lip-reading the dialogue :-)

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---

From: r&d afrac <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 00:23:32 +0200

At 22:42 27/09/2005, Peter Constable wrote:
>Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
>Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
>         boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C5C3A3.F09A402A"
>
>At the risk of straying off topic…
>
>would think you could have a film in which there is no audio track, 
>but there are subtitles. For such a film, <audio lang="no linguistic 
>content"> and <subtitle lang="English"> are plausibly valid choices.

I agree that staying away from langtag structure is a convenient 
solution. But could we stay in the langtag business?
I still do not understand how you simply structure the complete 
corresponding langtags. I am a dumb stupid programer. I have a sscanf 
and I need to understand how I organise my if then else? Sorry, but 
this is a genuine, simple, clear question for somebody reading 
(writing) and RFC.

>But I guess the case of silent films is special since there is no 
>spoken linguistic content in the audio track while there is written 
>linguistic content, only not in subtitles but in the video content itself.
>
>So, in such a case, it would seem to me that that written content is 
>in some language such as English that should be specified – e.g., 
>"The Gold Rush" is definitely silent but also definitely in English 
>– and that separately you might have a *separate* metadata 
>categorization to indicate "silent" as a particular category of 
>film, with implications both wrt genre and date as well as wrt how 
>dialogue and narration are represented.
>
>epilogue content in writing, such as "In a galaxy far, far away…"?

??? It just says it in the language of the picture. In that remote 
place and time English was not yet invented.
jfc

>
>
>Peter
>
>
>----------
>From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf 
>Of [email-masked]
>I discussed whether to request a formal tag for this usage with the 
>MPA. We figured if we registered it, we would need to dilute the 
>meaning to make it more global and define it, as Peter suggests, as 
>"no linguistic content" or "no language present."
>
>But this is semantically different from "silent," which is very 
>specific to our industry. Consider the difference between a silent 
>film -- defined as a film with an actor mouthing words that features 
>title cards to indicate what the actor is saying -- to films like 
>Baraka, Koyaanisqatsi, and the Triplets of Belleville, which feature 
>no language at all. (Belleville does have songs in French, but 
>that's slightly different.) Also, the Library of Congress genre list 
>defines "actuality" films as those early films that wowed viewers by 
>merely showing a train entering a station. These latter examples 
>would fall under the "no language present" classification, but not 
>the "silent" classification.
>
>I don't consider silent to be a modal classification -- spoken, 
>written, and signed are modes. And I'll even admit this is a 
>somewhat impure use of language data. (Another reason why I don't 
>think this should be registered.) Ideally, this metadata should be a 
>boolean value. Silent or not silent. But within our industry, for 
>compliance with external standards and product definition, we must 
>define this as a language.
>
>I think und-silent is an oxymoron. If it's undetermined, how do you 
>know it's silent? You've determined that the film features an actor 
>mouthing the words, and you may have defined the title cards as 
>being in French, English, or Sio. That doesn't seem undetermined to 
>me. (If you don't mind, I'd prefer to gloss over the lipreaders issue.)
>
>"qsi" over "x-silent." I do think if the private use tags cannot be 
>used for this purpose, what good are they? Do you really want me to 
>request formal tags for both "silent" and "no language present"? 
>That's my potential business need. That could set a precedent for 
>other weird tags from other industries to enter the registry. Silent 
>seems very industry-specific to me and this seemed to be an 
>appropriate use case for the private use tag.
>
>Karen Broome
> >> However, they ARE guaranteed to conflict with other private use of those
> >> codes.
> >>
>"test" voice on the car guidance system, and you insert a disk into the car
>Outside of use inside a single system/database, private tags are useless,
>IMHO.
>
> >> und-silent would be a valid code, if "silent" is registered as a variant
> > qualify ignorance with something specific.  OTOH, people in silent films
> > are generally speaking in some language, but viewers don't know or care
> > what it is.
>