Before movies had synchronized soundtracks, they had no real standard framerate. Indeed, the framerate of silent movies could depend on the projectionist. This is why silent movie buffs talk about number of reels rather than length in minutes. The average speed of silent film was 16 frames per second, although the fact that cameras were hand cranked meant the actual speed could vary greatly, even within individual films. With the coming of sound, the speed was standardized to the current 24 frames per second.