Timing Motor Ramp-Ups for Accurate Leader Start Frame

[Ryan Gallagher]

(I've been away for a couple of days)
Yes, you can just slide the solenoid plunger-thingy in and out to open & close
the changeover shutter manually. Just make sure to close it again. You don't
want to get caught with your zipper open!

Good one sir. lol.

[Jesse Crooks]

Where one really benefits from knowing motor specific timing is when you are missing footage after the c/o cue mark. Without knowing how accurate your changes are, a typical "fix" would be to put your own motor and c/o cue marks earlier on the print. But perhaps not needed if you know you know what "minimum" footage beyond the c/o you need reaction times, and can be confident about the next reel's picture being in the gate too based on your start frame practices (assuming complete leaders).

The folks at the Chicago Film Society told me that they tested their own response time and found that they could reliably hit the changeover without re-cuing if there were at least six frames of picture between the last cue and the tail. I've been sticking with that ever since and it has worked fine for me.

Also, please don't add tape to countdowns to renumber them. Just do the math and write the correct threading position on your run sheet! It drives me crazy when I receive a print with a bunch of unnecessary tape that hides the actual numbers. And half of the time the "corrected" numbering is wrong.

[Ryan Gallagher]

For sure. I only added tape numbers beyond 11 for my goofy testing reel that is ours. At the time I was considering framing at a high enough number to see what countdown number was onscreen at the change. That was the alternative to my stopwatch method.