Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Subliminal Messages

This is topic Subliminal Messages in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 12-24-2003, 07:41 AM:

While watching the B&W trailer for "IT! The Terror from Beyond Space" a bit ago, I noticed some dark letters momentarily flash on the screen. At 1st I thought it was some printer screw-up, and then it happened again several more times.

Naturally, I thought about the subliminal thingy, so I looked for those frames. Sure enough, in about 7 places there were 5 frames of black-lettered “Don’t Miss IT!” or “See IT!” superimposed over the live action. While I seem to remember from “Columbo” that subliminal messages are much shorter than 5-frames, it did inspire me to look it up on the web Here .

This is the 1st time I have ever seen this technique in person, so to speak, and found it really interesting.

Anyone know of any other films/trailers using subliminal?

>>> Phil

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 12-24-2003, 08:40 AM:

I remember reading about where they used the film Picnic as a test to see how subliminal messages worked and there effects. They put things like Visit the concession stand You want a coke You want popcorn. Apparently concession sales did run higher during the experament.

Posted by Andrew Lee (Member # 1330) on 12-24-2003, 10:32 AM:

Apparently there was a subliminal message in Gigli. It stated "Leave the theatre, go home, and stick your finger down your throat". [puke]

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-24-2003, 11:35 AM:

Phil, that's one of my favorite Columbo episodes (Double Exposure).

Anything longer than one frame can be seen (at 24fps). Even one frame can be seen, if it's in the middle of a shot and involves a completely different composition (i.e., not superimposed over the original scene). The only time most people can NOT see a single frame is when it's on a cut.

I hear this subliminal thing was all a hoax anyway. Forget where I read that, but it was some guy trying to sell his research/methods. (Maybe William Castle's book.)

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 12-24-2003, 12:19 PM:

You are right, Tim, the whole 'subliminal movie snack bar ads' are indeed a hoax perpetrated by the fraudulent data-passed-on-as-gospel by James Vicary.

From Snopes:

"Vicary's studies were largely forgettable, save for one experiment he conducted at a Ft. Lee, New Jersey movie theater during the summer of 1957. Vicary placed a tachistoscope in the theater's projection booth, and all throughout the playing of the film Picnic, he flashed a couple of different messages on the screen every five seconds. The messages each displayed for only 1/3000th of a second at a time, far below the viewers' threshold of conscious perceptibility. The result of displaying these imperceptible suggestions -- "Drink Coca-Cola" and "Hungry? Eat Popcorn" -- was an amazing 18.1% increase in Coca-Cola sales, and a whopping 57.8% jump in popcorn purchases. Thus was demonstrated the awesome power of "subliminal advertising" to coerce unwary buyers into making purchases they would not otherwise have considered."

"Or so goes the legend that has retained its potency for more than forty years. So potent a legend, in fact, that the Federal Communications Commission banned "subliminal advertising" from radio and television airwaves in 1974, despite that fact that no studies have ever shown it to be effective, and even though its alleged efficacy was based on a fraud."

"You see, Vicary lied about the results of his experiment. When he was challenged to repeat the test by the president of the Psychological Corporation, Dr. Henry Link, Vicary's duplication of his original experiment produced no significant increase in popcorn or Coca-Cola sales. Eventually Vicary confessed that he had falsified the data from his first experiments, and some critics have since expressed doubts that he actually conducted his infamous Ft. Lee experiment at all."

"As usual, the media (and thereby the public) paid attention only to the sensational original story, and the scant coverage given to Vicary's later confession was ignored or quickly forgotten. Radio and television stations began airing subliminal commercials, leading to two congressional bills to ban the practice being introduced in 1958 and 1959 (both of which died before being voted upon). In 1973, Dr. Wilson B. Key picked up where Vicary left off, publishing Subliminal Seduction, an indictment of modern advertisements filled with hidden messages and secret symbols -- messages and symbols that only Dr. Key could discern (including the notorious example of the word "S-E-X" spelled out in the ice cubes pictured in a liquor advertisement). The old "subliminal advertising" controversy was stirred up again by Dr. Key's book, leading to the 24 January 1974 announcement by the FCC that subliminal techniques, "whether effective or not," were "contrary to the public interest," and that any station employing them risked losing its broadcast license."

"For neither the first nor the last time, a great deal of time and money and effort was expended on "protecting" the public from something that posed no danger to them. As numerous studies over the last few decades have demonstrated, subliminal advertising doesn't work; in fact, it never worked, and the whole premise was based on a lie from the very beginning. James Vicary's legacy was to ensure that a great many people will never be convinced otherwise, however."

-Aaron

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 12-24-2003, 12:29 PM:

Tim and Aaron, that is the same conclusion at the link I posted. More info is available there such as the gov & CIA response to this "threat"... it is hilarious!

I'm surprised Maj. Keyhole didn't chime in on that one... [Wink]

Tim: That's one of my favorite episodes as well. It's fun to see the "errors" like the lamphouse ammeter reading zero on the online projector. [beer]

>>> Phil

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-24-2003, 01:26 PM:

Phil, well, duh! [Roll Eyes]

Guess I should have read the whole thing. Thanks, Aaron. I knew I'd read that somewhere. Some guy who went to USC film school argued with me, just about to the point of blows, that the subliminal stuff was real. He made a big deal about having "some professors who would disagree" with me! What a bozo.

Phil, I didn't catch that in the Columbo episode, I'll have to watch it again! The episode where the lady producer (Trish VanDevere) murders her partner between reels has a bunch of stuff like that in it, too.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 12-24-2003, 02:04 PM:

That's another good one, Tim. I think that is the episode I was thinking about. It was the one with the big LED footage counters on the rear of the lamphouses.

>>> Phil

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-24-2003, 03:35 PM:

Yeah-yeah-yeah! That's it. That one shows the bulb coming on twice on a cut (and like you said, the ammeter reading zero in some shots). ORC 1600s. That episode is called "Make Me a Perfect Murder".

The "Double Exposure" episode had Super CoreLites and Norelcos (would love to know where that booth was). It also had a booth later in the show with Peerless Magnarcs, for the scene where the projectionist (Chuck McCann) was murdered.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 12-24-2003, 05:58 PM:

PHIL, I don`t think that is possible to SEND subliminal messages. For ME, they wouldn`t work anyway. But maybe that doesn`t apply to ALL. Maybe it works in YOUR case. But I think it it would be an illegitimate way to make MONEY.

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 12-24-2003, 06:11 PM:

I knew exactly where these frames were in The Rescuers. I inspected these closely on the rewind bench but could never catch this onscreen when projecting the print.

quote:
Oh, look what someone did! Poor Disney! On January 8 1999, Disney announced a recall of the the 1977 home video The Rescuers because it was found, it contained an "objectionable background image."

Well, well. This part of Disney even has it's own conspiracy theory.

The Rescuers was Disney's most commercially successful animated feature at the time, making over $40 million at the theater. The Washington Post called it, "certainly the best Disney feature since 'Mary Poppins"'. When the video was released, people bought it by the millions.

The Points in Question (no pun intended) happen about 38 minutes into the film. Lady Bianca and Bernard charter a flight on their Albatross friend and are flying through the city. As they pass the windows of an apartment building, a woman can be seen standing at one of them naked from the waist up. Well, sort of seen. It was pointed out that judging by the reaction of Lady Bianca and Bernard, they sure saw it. But until Disney made the announcement that these shocking and unacceptable two-frames had been found in the movie, pretty much no one knew. Unless you were sitting and looking at the movie frame by frame, you wouldn't have seen it since it went by in less than half a second. There is a whole underground of people who (especially now with DVDs) go through movies one frame at a time, looking for these tidbits (remember the "Three Men and a Baby "ghost") .. but Disney? Who was worrying about a 25 year old animation? Well, all of a sudden this Peep Show was common knowledge as Disney very loudly and with great fanfare said the video was being recalled. The frames were put there during the original creation of the movie back in 1977 by some Smart Ass and when it was brought to their attention, they were on it like ticks on a coon dog. They were sooooooooo sorry. They also said that we could all rest assured that these two frames were most definitely not in the re-released 1992 movie, since it had been made from a different print, further raising the question, OK, then why are we bothering? Because they were Disney dammit and no one was going to besmirch their solid family values in their fine products. They were recalling all 3.5 million copies of every video sold. Only right! This was not acceptable! They were soooooo sorry!
Most everyone went, "huh?" and then rushed out to buy the video before it got recalled. sales boomed. Everyone looked at the Ta Tas in the Window. The Email flew. Conspiracy theories cropped up saying Disney staged the whole thing to try to salvage their tarnished image. There was so many other giggle-snort filthy questionable stuff going on in Disney's videos and with Disney Company itself, this was a blip. But since this was undeniably obvious, Disney could call this up as a prime example of just how fast they would act if they did find something untoward - so see? They weren't purposely doing anything untoward because look how fast they acted when they found something untoward! And they're soooooooooo sorry!

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-24-2003, 08:10 PM:

Jeffry, I think that was only done in a video release. I had two odd reels of the original release of that picture (mono yet), one of which contained that scene. When this story broke, I checked it out on the bench and the "peek-a-boo" shot wasn't in it.

I'd scan the frames and post them, but I sold the reels earlier this year -- I'd been lugging them around for 25 years.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 12-24-2003, 11:13 PM:

Sorry Mike... Have NO money, to SEND to you. ME thinks YOUR thoughts on the CASH scheme are RIGHT on target...

I guess I'll go NOW and watch a non-subliminal movie. [Razz]

>>> Phil

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 12-25-2003, 01:23 AM:

In about 5 minutes I'm going to turn on WGN-TV to catch the beginning of the Yule Log* which they will air til early morning. I wonder if there are any subliminal messages in it.

* video of a log burning in a fireplace. A tradition that started at WPIX in NYC in 1966.

-----

Dang...it's a gas log. Well that sure kills the story arc.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-25-2003, 10:17 PM:

Hey, I watched that on WPIX today for the first time. My wife says she remembers it from when she was a kid. I'd never heard of it before, except for a similar videotape that was sold a few years back.

I watched it for about 2 minutes, but the story just didn't grab me, so I changed channels.

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 12-26-2003, 11:36 AM:

Those two frames were there in the 35mm release prints. That's what I was trying to say in my previous post. While inspecting the reel on the rewind bench I found the frames. But there's so much action onscreen during that sequence, I could never see the "woman in the window" during projection.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-26-2003, 12:33 PM:

They weren't in my 1977 (or was it 78?) print. It was just a normal window.

Posted by Dennis M Dow Jr (Member # 1970) on 12-26-2003, 12:34 PM:

I remember the yule log as far back as I can remember... was a standard Xmas thing on WPIX.

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 12-27-2003, 04:43 PM:

Hay, are those new crap-code dots not dots at all, but some sort of subiminal message? OK, OK; I know I'm getting an early start on my "holiday cheer" [beer]

for new years eve, but just look at them. They look like small pizzas. Has anyone noticed an increase in pizza sales right after those things show up on screen? Hay pizza and beer, I'm hungary! [Roll Eyes]

Happy New Year everyone.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 12-27-2003, 06:22 PM:

Hmmmm...me thinks Bruce was visiting Brad and stopped to smoke some of that I-30 stuff.

Everyone knows those are mini-me salami NOT whole pizza! Jeeze Bruce!

OBTW: Happy (belated) B'day! You don't look a day over 55. [evil]

>>> Phil