Research: Intertitles

According to Wikipedia, intertitles can be defined as: "then known simply as 'titles', were a mainstay of silent films once the films became sufficient length and detail to necessitate dialogue and/or narration to make sense of the enacted or documented events".

Intertitle from The Mortal Instruments

Intertitle from The Mortal Instruments

Essentially intertitles are used throughout a film at any point where the characters exchange dialogue or a new scene cuts in which needs an establishing title to inform the audience of this. However, intertitles aren't as common in films today since they were implemented during the silent era where films heavily relied on this narrative device. Instead they are implemented more usefully in trailers where a lot of the time they are used for dramatic effect to outline important points in a film's narrative. For example, in the trailer for The Mortal Instruments you'll find there are two types of intertitles common to a trailer. One type of intertitle outlines a definitive point in the plot which we see in the shot above (left) and from this we get the reading that the film involves violence and conflict and that this is between a group of antagonists and protagonists. As for the second screenshot of an intertitle, you'll see that rather than detailing the plot, the intertitles provide the audience with a reason to watch the film- critical acclaim. So in trailers there are two forms of intertitles you're likely to come across.

As for short films, I have taken the example of a scene from a film featuring the  famous actor and comedian, Charlie Chaplin. In short films such as this it's easy to find that short films use intertitles to mimic the characters' speech and as said, act as a narrative device. For example, in the screenshots on the left one shot says, 'A successful retreat' whilst another shot shows the dialogue from one of the characters. Since it was during the same, silent era of film where nearly every film used intertitles, the typography was very similar. A formal, sophisticated font would have been used, just as is seen in this short, Particularly in the shot without dialogue we can see the 'A' has been written using a calligraphic-style. In some cases, films have used an equally 'fancy' border around the text. White text is also used on a black background, clearly very standardised. As for sound and editing these intertitles would commonly cut into the shot and have no sound motif attached, only the continued sound bridge of non-diegetic (incidental) music.

Just like the Chaplin film, you find that each film in the silent era similarly used, as said, the same typography and way of editing the intertitles into a film. Other examples include the two below which we can see have used a similar, formal font and use of the black background and white text, used because it was conventional of films to do this at the time.

The Cradle Snatchers by Howard Hawks (1927) 

The White Sister (1923)