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Flickers & Tintypes Motion, one still at a time.

Held to the Light: How Frames and Sources Are Checked

Updated

An old film is checked by holding the strip up to the light and looking at what is actually there. This page sets out the same habit in writing: what each claim on Flickers & Tintypes rests on, how it is labeled, and what a page will not claim. Mistakes can be reported through Contact; fixes are dated on Corrections.

Reading the cards at the top of a page

Each article opens with a frame card. Its first row, In one line, answers the page's main question in a sentence, with the same limits the article itself uses ("in this copy", "per the maker's catalog"). The other rows are fixed:

  • Source: the copy, scan or collection record the page is built on.
  • Year: the date of the work, given as a range when the evidence does not support a single year.
  • Format: film gauge, print type, page size or object type.
  • Length or Size: running time or footage for a film, measurements for an object.
  • Access: where a lawful copy or the collection record can be seen.
  • License: the rights status of the main image.

Entries on a format or process add a second card with Name, Date range and evidence, Size or running time, Process or material, How to recognize it, Often confused with and Where to see one. Card values are read from the same data file that is offered for download, and the article text is checked against that file.

A copy is not the film

A silent film survives as copies: prints, reductions, paper prints rephotographed onto film, video transfers, digital files. Copies differ: scenes go missing or change order, the picture gets squeezed, titles are added. So every frame on this site is tied to one identified copy, and the page says in this copy rather than "in the film".

For each copy, the record notes the item page, the archive or library behind it, its generation when the source states it, its length and frame rate, and any known treatment such as speed changes, re-editing, new music or added color. A copy of unclear origin or treatment never proves the original color, projection speed or editing order; those need a collection record, a period catalog, a named study, or several independent copies that agree.

Before a film is taken apart frame by frame, its copy has to pass five tests:

  1. The scenes are compared with the maker's catalog of the time, and any gaps or changes of order are stated.
  2. The shape of the picture is settled from the copy itself. If the proportions cannot be settled, the frames are not published.
  3. Details the catalog describes but the copy does not show clearly are marked not visible in this copy.
  4. Title cards added by an archive or a later distributor, and the opening and closing slates of a transfer, are left out.
  5. Frames showing real children are not used. Children drawn in comics, prints or toy strips are not affected.

Timecodes and frame counts

A timecode such as 13:14.5 points to a moment in one specific digital file. The file's checksum is recorded with it, so a timecode on this site always refers to that exact file; a different download of the same film may run differently, and its timecodes would have to be worked out again.

Digital transfers often repeat frames to fill out 24 or 30 frames per second. Repeats are found by comparing neighboring frames, and the pattern is stated (for example, frames shown once and twice, mostly alternately, which spreads 16 images a second over 24). Counts are given as distinct images in this copy, and neither that count nor the copy's frame rate is presented as the original projection speed.

Frames are resized and compressed for the web. Beyond that, nothing is recolored, sharpened, retouched or filled in; any crop or label added on top is listed in the image credit, together with the copy and the timecode.

Films without a reliable copy

Some films have no copy that can be traced well enough: the available versions are restorations, disc rips, reposts or files of unknown origin. Those films are written about from the maker's catalog, original drawings and trade papers of the time, without a frame-by-frame breakdown, and a page says when a description comes from a catalog or a review rather than from the picture. A film that does not survive is described only through period reports or surviving stills, and the page says the film itself is lost.

How the loops are built

Every loop on the site is built from stated numbers: frame count, frame rate and the spacing between positions, with the motion model named (for example, a simple free fall with air resistance ignored). The numbers are published beside the loop and in a downloadable table. Spacing can show acceleration but cannot by itself prove a physical claim, which is why the model is named.

A loop is published only after four checks:

  1. Full speed. Played without labels, the principle has to be recognizable.
  2. Frame by frame. All frames laid side by side have to match the spacing and stretch figures in the text.
  3. With and without. Where a principle can be shown by contrast, a second loop removes it so the difference is visible.
  4. The seam. The jump from the last frame back to the first must not skip; a three-frame strip of the seam is shown.

Loops last two to four seconds, each has a play and pause button, and each shows as a row of still frames when the browser asks for reduced motion or scripts do not run. Nothing in a loop flashes more than three times a second. Principles about how drawings are made, such as straight ahead and pose to pose, are shown as working steps. The twelve principles are listed by name, explained in this site's own words, and the standard books on animation are cited by title.

Reading a comics page

When a page draws a reading order over a comics page, the overlay is labeled "Suggested reading path — editorial analysis, not eye-tracking data", and the grounds are given: panel order, balloon placement, layout conventions of the time. Where more than one order is reasonable, the alternatives are drawn side by side. What readers' eyes actually do is reported only from named eye-tracking studies.

Dating a photograph

The process behind a photograph is named only from the holding collection's label or a period manual, never from appearance alone; without a label, a page gives the possibilities and the reasons for each. Taking, printing, mounting and writing can each belong to a different year, so they are dated separately. Every date comes out as a range, a place and a strength of evidence:

  • Strong: a collection record, or dated records of the photographer's business.
  • Medium: several features of the object that agree.
  • Weak: a single feature.

Which sources come first

When sources disagree, they are ranked in this order:

  1. The holding institution's own record for the object or the copy.
  2. Named histories of film, photography and comics.
  3. Trade papers, catalogs and manuals of the time.
  4. General encyclopedias, used only as leads and never cited as the basis for a claim.

When two sources of the same rank disagree, both are given, and the page does not choose between them without new evidence. Old catalogs and manuals are quoted from the scanned page itself. Some modern books are cited by title without quotation; when a page sums up one of them, it says whose view it is. Statements that could go out of date carry a year.

Public domain and licenses

A film, comic or print is shown only if it is in the public domain in both the United States and the European Union. In the United States, as of 2026, that means works first published in 1930 or earlier. In the European Union, protection lasts 70 years after the death of the last surviving author, and for a film the authors counted are the director, the writers of the screenplay and dialogue, and the composer; those dates are recorded film by film.

Collection images are used only under CC0, a Public Domain Mark, CC BY or CC BY-SA, checked one file at a time; an institution's general open-access policy is a lead, not proof for a particular image. Every collection image links back to the page it was taken from; where the holding institution's own record could not be consulted directly, this site's source notes for that image say so. The exact terms are on Reuse and credits.

Data tables

Tables can be downloaded as CSV files. Each row stands on its own, with the claim, who made it and the source in the same row, and ranges and qualifiers in their own columns.

Illustrations

The few illustrations are labeled Illustration and never stand in for a real frame, comics page, photograph or person. Anything that depends on scale or exact shape is drawn as a diagram instead.

What these pages do not do

  • Put a price on a photograph or give advice on buying, selling or collecting.
  • Name a single "first" for a technique without a range and the rival claims.
  • Explain how to open, run, splice, clean or store nitrate film; nitrate stock can burn and decays on its own, and it belongs with a film archive. Darkroom recipes and chemical cleaning of photographs are left out for the same reason.
  • Display machine-colorized or interpolated versions as restorations.