Q&A: The origin of ‘footage’

Each week here at the Australian Writers’ Centre, we dissect and discuss, contort and retort, ask and gasp at the English language and all its rules, regulations and ridiculousness. It’s a celebration of language, masquerading as a passive-aggressive whinge about words and weirdness. This week, we're putting our best foot forward..

Q: Hi AWC, I have a question about videos.

A: We told you – just dance along to the music, then upload it. It’s simple.

Q: Nooo, I was referring to a specific word relating to videos.

A: Oh, okay.

Q: It’s the word “footage” – why do we call recorded material that?

A: Good question. And thankfully the answer is fairly straightforward – relating to the measurement of a foot. 

Q: But everyone has different sized feet! My uncle is a size US17. He has so much trouble finding ballet shoes that fit.

A: Sorry to hear that. But in this case, it’s the imperial measurement of a foot – 12 inches or 30.48cm to be precise in metric.

Q: Ah right, that makes more sense. Well, it does and it doesn’t.

A: Sure, in this age of digital footage, it has little relevance, but you have to remember how film first started out.

Q: Silent!

A: Yes, that’s true. And also on ACTUAL film, that could be measured in feet. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the term dates back to 1916, so definitely still in the silent era of 35mm film, where everything was measured in feet and frames.

Q: So it was basically a measure of how long the film was?

A: Or a scene. Physically, it was the total number of running feet of motion-picture film used. Film wasn’t cheap, and it made a difference to talk about footage in this way.

Q: Did people really measure out film like that though?

A: They did. In fact, Merriam-Webster Dictionary quotes an account of a fundraiser after the Hiroshima bomb, where “people would buy ten feet of ‘footage’ from American photographers for one thousand yen”.

Q: And I suppose it just stuck around even when we stopped using actual film tape?

A: That’s right. While it started out literal, today “footage” is used in a figurative way to describe “material recorded on a film or video camera, either on film, tape or digitally” – according to Macquarie Dictionary.

Q: So not only did it outgrow its literal meaning, but we also no longer use the imperial measuring system here in Australia!

A: That’s true. Another example of that would be the word “mileage” – again, fairly clear where it comes from in relation to the rate of miles travelled or the amount of fuel used per mile. Even today, with everything in kilometres here, “mileage” continues to be used.

Q: I suppose “kilometerage” is quite the mouthful.

A: Indeed. Of course, like “footage”, “mileage” also gained a more figurative meaning, relating to usefulness or derived benefit – dating back to 1860. An example might be: “we seem to be getting a lot of mileage out of this topic”.

Q: Nice. So why end these kinds of words with “–age”?

A: It came from Old French “-age”, and Late Latin “-aticum” before that. Meaning “belonging to or related to”. 

Q: And what about the term “found footage”?

A: That is the term for a cinematic technique first coined back in 1975 by US film critic Roger Ebert. He described “found footage” as a horror sub-genre made up of mostly fake archival footage edited together for suspense. 

Q: Example?

A: The 1999 movie The Blair Witch Project took the idea of “found footage” mainstream.

Q: Surely if the term had been around since the 1970s, it can’t take all the credit, right?

A: Well, okay, the first “found footage” film came out in 1961. But let’s put it this way: in the next 38 years before The Blair Witch Project, only 13 films were classed as using this technique. 

Q: And since then?

A: A whopping 192 films!

Q: Wow, they’ve sure got a lot of mileage out of that kind of footage haven’t they!

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