Other marks besides changeover cues

[Bing Breep]

Everyone who has watched movies has seen those dots flash in the upper right hand corner, the motor start cue followed by the picture switch over to the other projector cue.

But there are a few others I've seen that I am baffled about.


- On some old filmed commercials from the 1970s, sometimes there are numbers that flash at the corners and the sides that would've been cropped out by the CRTs of the day, but are plainly visible on modern flat panel displays. Some sort of production code?

- On 16mm film leaders, you sometimes see 5 big black dots on a white background flash by. It looks just like the 5 side of dice.

- Also, sometimes a thick black vertical bar with round cornrrs flashes by, with points on the sides at the middle. I call it the "popsicle stick". Something to do with picture alignment?

[Scott Dorsey]

Bing Breep <bing...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Everyone who has watched movies has seen those dots flash in the upper right hand corner, the motor start cue followed by the picture switch over to the other projector cue.

That's in the frame, and it is the only thing you should see that is in
the frame.

> But there are a few others I've seen that I am baffled about.
>
>
>- On some old filmed commercials from the 1970s, sometimes there are numbers that flash at the corners and the sides that would've been cropped out by the CRTs of the day, but are plainly visible on modern flat panel displays. Some sort of production code?

How far? Outside of the frame you will see edge numbers, which either are
printed optically on the film at the manufacturer, or edge-stamped on the
negative after processing. Sometimes you will see handwritten edge numbers
which will usually be the normal frame numbers but occasionally will be shot
numbers.

Sometimes a shot number will be hand-inked on the frame line for 35mm but
there isn't enough room on 16mm to do that.

>- On 16mm film leaders, you sometimes see 5 big black dots on a white background flash by. It looks just like the 5 side of dice.
>
>- Also, sometimes a thick black vertical bar with round cornrrs flashes by, with points on the sides at the middle. I call it the "popsicle stick". Something to do with picture alignment?

Google "SMPTE Universal Leader" or "Academy Leader" and there should be a
description of all the parts of the timing leader and what they are for.

Roberts and Sharples "A Primer for Filmmaking" is a good reference for general
editing information.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."