Intertitle

An intertitle, also called a title card, is a piece of filmed and printed text edited into a film or video at a particular point in the action, a technique that let silent era filmmakers convey dialogue through what are called dialogue intertitles or supply narrative and descriptive information through expository intertitles. Because silent films had no recorded spoken dialogue, intertitles served as the eras essential way of carrying story information and character speech directly on screen between shots of the photographed action. The same basic device survives in modern filmmaking and television in a reduced form, as text or logo material inserted near the start or end of a program.