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Topic: Do foil cues have any effect on Xetron cue detectors?

Steve Kraus
Film God

Posts: 4094
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 02-21-2004 01:35 AM

There are ways to run changeovers without on-screen dots. But besides alternative ways to alert the operator I'd love it if each reel had a precise length in feet and frames marked upon it and there was an automation into which this information could be entered for a perfect reel change right down to the last frame.

But speaking more generally I suppose as a viewer I accept C/O cues as simply part of the presentation largely because it's been done that way for a century. If it was something new I suppose I would take offense. Automation cues going by onscreen are a (relatively) new detriment to the viewing experience.

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-21-2004 04:43 AM

manny (or anyone), would you see a well-made splice if there were no c/o cues? probably only if you looked damn hard and didn't happen to blink, and it happened on a relatively bright shot. they're so easy for us folks to see normally because we know to expect them a second after the second cue.

i'd really like these not to be printed by the lab, at least, as is the case with many french films. platter houses have no use for these cues (with rare exceptions), and c/o houses could be encouraged to use removable cues. better yet, no onscreen cues at all. i can think of several ways of doing this, although i'm not a c/o projectionist so take that with a grain of salt.

i always count reels when watching a film, and the difficulty i have doing this is a good indicator of the presentation level.

carl

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 02-21-2004 04:50 AM

A well made tape splice? Yes, always. The horizontal "tape edge lines" are far too noticeable. Now if you're talking an ultrasonic splice, then no it would pass through without being noticed.

Changeover cues I never miss though. They are far too large and obnoxious not to see.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 02-21-2004 08:18 AM

Manny,

Quick math...how long is a piece of sensing tape on a screen if on the frame line? The answer

a: 1/24th of a second (.042)
b: 1/12th of a second (.083)

If you guessed "a", you are WRONG. It is "b" and to add insult to injury...it jumps from the top of the screen to the bottom just in insure it is seen.

All you are doing is to justify or rationalize a bad practice.

I would prefer a non-visible reel change cue as well. As Steve said it does have a 100-year history though and probably not worth chaning now since it is the studios and screening rooms that use them most.

Steve

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-21-2004 09:09 AM

maybe this is something for another thread, but...

do changeover cues really have a 100-year history? 100 years ago there weren't features as we know them. there were one and two reelers. i would think a title card would have sufficed as a cue. many early features are divided into "acts" which i always supposed to mirror the original reel configuration. so you know when "end of act 2" pops on screen, it's time to roll "act" 3. i know some projectionists (not to mention accompanists) had very detailed outlines of the action, and might even vary projector speed as appropriate.

is there any historical documentation on cue usage? it seems like the kind of thing noone would have thought to commit to record at the time. you can't go by the fact that old prints have cues now.

carl

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-21-2004 10:47 AM

quote:
I would prefer a non-visible reel change cue as well. As Steve said it does have a 100-year history though and probably not worth chaning now since it is the studios and screening rooms that use them most.

Steve: "All you are doing is to justify or rationalize a bad practice."

Fascinating!

As for the "math lesson" the apparent solution is to modify the practice so that the cue is placed along the edge of the frame line so it is off to one side. It might be more visible on that one frame but at least it won't last for a whole twelfth of a second. [Roll Eyes]

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-21-2004 11:00 AM

It's hard to give an unbiased evaluation when you know you're biased.

Changeover cues have uses beyond just changeovers, though. There's value in being able to be able to refer to what reel a given defect is on, and reels are a convenient way to do that. (E.g.: "There was a nasty lab splice on reel 3," or "whoa, you should replace reel 5, there was lots of soundtrack redeveloper present on the left edge of the picture.") Yeah, its possible to count splices and figur eout reel boundaries without cues.

While perhaps not enough to solely justify the existance of cues, I do think it helps to buttress the argument for keeping them.

--jhawk

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Jeffry L. Johnson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 809
From: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 02-21-2004 11:06 AM

quote:
"It was about the time of Good News [(1930, MGM)] that the studios devised cue marks for the ends of reels, to help projectionists make smooth changeovers. "In the future, and until further notice, all changeover signals will be visual," said the small print on the bottom of the Good News cue sheet. "These signals appear at the end of the reel in the form of a round, black spot appearing steady in the upper right hand corner of the screen during four consecutive frames. On a very dark screen or fadeout, the spot has a white line around it. The signal is fashioned so that it is clearly visible if watched for, but not particularly noticeable to an audience. Two sets of signals appear on the end of each reel. The FIRST SET is the signal to start the motor of the incoming machine, and the SECOND SET is the signal to cut over picture and sound..." When MGM said "until further notice," they probably didn't think they were referring to the next seventy years, for cue marks have remained the norm to the present day."

AMIA-L message archive

quote:
* To: AMIA-L@LSV.UKY.EDU
* Subject: Re: [AMIA-L] Cue marks
* From: "Richard P. May" <Rpmay1@AOL.COM>
* Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 18:09:44 -0400
* Comments: To: AMIA-L@LSV.UKY.EDU|Association
* Message-id: <7D9F6E72.54FBDC74.00053BAA@aol.com>
* Reply-to: Association of Moving Image Archivists <AMIA-L@LSV.UKY.EDU>

Cue marks were standardized in 1930, along with the "Academy" leader. Before that, I think it would be a fair guess that projectionists placed similar marks on prints to expidite changeovers.
Up until 1937, features were cued for 1000 ft. reels. Since almost all feature prints were shipped on 2000 ft. reels, prints were then made to be combined as A and B sections, spliced together in the exchange when received from the labs, with cues only at the end of the B section.
Several years ago, we found at the old MGM studio some cards to be enclosed with prints, detailing the outgoing scenes of each reel, so the projectionist could make the changeover based on the content on screen. The last shot of each reel was held for what seemed like forever so any overlap would not matter. This type editing can be seen in early MGM sound films like MADAME X (1929).

DM

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Steve Kraus
Film God

Posts: 4094
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 02-21-2004 11:47 AM

It's a good bet that changeover cues originated very shortly after films got longer than about a thousand feet which is probably very, very early. No doubt originally they simply took a break while the operator loaded the next reel but soon thereafter there would have been a convergence of the filmmakers' desire to avoid the interruption and the exhibitor wanting to get through these new, longer shows faster and still get in so many showings per day and willingness to get a second machine to be able to do so.

The main thing I get from Jeffry's material is that it's surprising how long it took them to standardize the cues--perhaps 15-20 years.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 02-21-2004 04:28 PM

quote:
It might be more visible on that one frame but at least it won't last for a whole twelfth of a second.

So Manny 1/24 of a second is ok for something to flash on the screen? Why if that's the case, then you don't need ANY film cleaners at all! Think about it, all those nasty black blobs of dirt couldn't possibly be seen or bothersome at only 1/24 second, which is exactly how long each one of them is on the screen. [Razz]

It's bad form. Naughty Manny!

quote:
Changeover cues have uses beyond just changeovers, though.

John, why not just have Deluxe Labs license their special CRAP code to all of the labs as a replacement to changeover cues? We could eliminate the old fashioned changeover cues and have a certain pattern of CRAP code that the changeover projectionist could look for. At least that way it would match the rest of the movie's distractions. [Big Grin]

(Yes, yes, I know most uses for changeover cues are at screening rooms before the film is released...that was a joke people!)

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-21-2004 05:08 PM

What would be the best way to design a non-visible c/o cue? Footage counts would only work if a given reel had no missing frames in it. If Dolby, DTS, or SDDS have provisions for carrying metadata (I'm pretty sure that the DTS XD-10 could do it), there could be cues in the digital sound system to turn on lightbulbs (or ring bells) in the booth to indicate "motor" and "changeover" (or control automation to actually do the changoever), but that would only work if the theatre in question had digital sound capability. The only other possibility that comes to mind would be notches in the edge of the film which could somehow (optically?) trigger relays to turn on lightbulbs or ring bells. All of these options would require extra equipment, however.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-21-2004 05:18 PM

The problem with dirt is that we're rarely talking about a single rogue offender. Usually, there are bits of dust/dirt "dancing" all over the screen for seconds at a time.

As for the ultrasonic splices. They sure are nice but the splicer is expensive. It's debatable whether it's worth it.

I don't think the average viewer is sufficiently disturbed by any of these things.

I have tried using the small edge cues so as to make them invisible. Personally, I can see the image jump or shift slightly when they go through, so they're no less visible. Furthermore, I've lost a few of them along the way.

Some of us are functioning out here in the real world under less-than-ideal circumstances where things can go wrong and where the lesser of two evils is sometimes not such a bad thing.

Sure, I could go ahead and lie and say that I show every frame and there's never any dirt on my prints. I could make all kinds of outrageous claims with the (relative) security that it would be a longshot that any of you would actually show up for a screening but I don't see where that would be helpful.

I consider it to be a greater glitch to rely on one of those stupid little cues (which still affect the presentation) only to have it fall off and wreck your presentation in far more noticeable ways.

As for coming up with a new c/o system...those are all good possibilities but weigh the cost of implementation versus the perceived benefit.

And, besides, they've been there for over 100 years. (So have dirt, scratches, jump, jitter and weave...but never mind all of that.)

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-21-2004 05:28 PM

quote:
What would be the best way to design a non-visible c/o cue?

to bring this back to foil cues, how about having an fm-35 or similar cue reader read an edge cue, and interface that to a buzzer instead of automation (although you may as well then go all the way and have an automated changeover).

i was thinking more along the lines of having tape on the edge of the film which the operator could watch as it enters the picture head, and then motor up/change over accordingly. to make that workable there would probably have to be an unusually large gap under the feed magazine, and a reliable warning bell so the projectionist knows when to take his eyes off the screen and concentrate on the machines. if the motor cue tape is applied accurately and the projectionist has his/her timing down, there might not be any need for a c/o cue. watching for the first frame of the new reel might suffice.

if tape is on both edges, the sound of it going through the gate would probably work on many machines, and the operator wouldn't have to look away from the screen.

quote:
"The Speed of Sound," by Scott Eyman, ©1997, ISBN 0-684-81162-6, p. 349 footnote: ....

hey, i read that book. i should have known the answer.

carl

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 02-21-2004 05:32 PM

Me thinks Manny is reading these posts a little too seriously this morning. [Razz]

Manny, you need to try Neumade Aucuta II cue tape. I have never seen it fall off when used in this manner, and assuming you are using properly aligned Neumade splicers and your projectors don't have any "issues", then these will pass right by without any glitch in the image.

*No, you do not have to make them this long.

*I have never seen this type of cue placement fail on Kelmar or CE failsafes, regardless of how many months the film is played.

*The biggest trick here is to make sure there is no overlap past the edge of the film. If so, you WILL see an image shift in the gate as it passes. Your splicer must also be able to perfectly punch that tape. (I have only seen this from a properly cared for Neumade.)
*NEVER apply the cue via "wrap-around" technique. [puke]

*ALL cues that come on a "roll" suck. It's those that fail and/or fall off over time. Stick with Neumade. There is no acceptable substitute.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-21-2004 06:04 PM

Looks good.

In fairness, the ones I used that fell off were not that long. That stretch of tape in the photo is about as long as one of my cross cues.

Couple of problems:

1. Don't have Neumade splicers.
2. I once had quite a bit of Accuta II tape but I stopped using it because it pulls the paper backing along with the foil tape. I hate Accuta II tape.

Still, I will make an effort to locate some of the evil Accuta II and try a cue like the one in your picture. I fully expect that there will be some image shifting at cue time but I promise to be honest and report back if it turns out okay.

I suppose we can blame any problems on my splicer and/or gate. [Wink]

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