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 <harald@alvestrand.no>
Sent by: ltru-bounces@ietf.org
09/27/2005 06:53 AM

        To:     "John.Cowan" <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
        cc:     ltru@ietf.org
        Subject:        Re: [Ltru] Tagging of silent films (was: Re: el truth?)

--On tirsdag, september 27, 2005 09:25:39 -0400 "John.Cowan" 
<jcowan@reutershealth.com> 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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