I have been watching some 80’s movies lately. I was watching Robocop (1987?) and noticed those flickering black spots. I notice them alot in 80’s film.
At some point these flickering spots stopped showing up in film (except at the theatre) Nobody notified me or held a press conference. They just went away.
3 questions:
What causes the spots?
I find it hard to believe they didn’t have the technology in the 80’s to make movies without the spots. Whats the deal?
When did the spots go away?
Imperfections on film. The answer is they didn’t have the technology in the 80’s to make movies without the spots. Or, at least it wasn’t in general use.
“Flickering black spots” isn’t much of a descriptor, but if they are what I think then they are cue marks, which are marks deliberately added to the film that allow projectionists to change film smoothly.
http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020515.html
As for why they stopped a-ppearing, I never noticed that they ever did appear except at the cinema and illegal reproduction videos made from cinema reels.
Perhaps digital technology made them obsolete.
not cue spots. these are grainy looking flickering black things
The grainy looking flickering black things is what I was refering to in my post. They couldn’t be eliminated with technology of that day.
Then the ability must have been lost somewhere. I was a movie projectionists in 1941-43 and movies of that day didn’t have spots resulting from imperfection on the film.
Even a long time ago, those “imperfections” depended on the condition (and age) of the print. So a new print in the 40s, never used before, would probably have looked “cleaner,” I think.
If you’re watching a video tape of a movie from the 80s, it also depends upon the condition of the print or negative from which it was made, and, I’d presume, of the quality of the production process in general. I believe producation techniques have advanced a lot recently, especially with digital processes. (I can’t really describe the details, because I haven’t really looked into it.) So maybe it just depends on when and how the video tape was made.
If you’re watching 80s films in a theater, who knows what kind of condition the print will be in? I guess it can vary greatly.
Semi-hijack: What about the black dots that appear in modern movies playing in big theaters? In many recent movies I’ve seen, a black splotch or two will appear at random times in the movie and then disappear after a second or so. What causes those? Still the technology?
A new analog movie comes to a theater from the movie company(as opposed to a local theater-to-theater transfer which is usually done as a whole movie on a platter) in a form of several reels (5 to 8 is common). The projectionist then builds up the movie and does a dry run before the first showing. The build up is done by reeling all the movie reels onto a big horizontal platter and taping the movie together at the splice points. More often than not this process can introduce minor imperfections into the print, especially if the projectionist is inexperienced.
Also, a head wrap or a movie repair(if it was burned or scratched badly) can cause minor scratches that are not usually repaired and are visible as sudden splotches on the screen.
In the very first few frames of the movie, imperfections can appear because of the way it is threaded through the projector.
Hope this helps.
The reasons mentioned by groman make it difficult sometimes for a former projectionist to properly enjoy a movie in a theater.
When I watch a film, I notice all of the dirt near the splice points (between the 6 or so reels). I notice all of the splices from repairs (the film jumps slightly when the splice passes through the gate). Of course, I can’t bear to watch a film that is slightly out of focus. I notice if the masking is properly centered on the screen (almost a given at a quality theater). I notice if the xenon bulb is aging or if it was not focused when it was installed.
IMHO, the most egregious defect is the thin line that indicates that the entire film has been scratched. When a careless projectionist allows crud to build up in the projector or threads the projector so that the film comes in contact with a stationary part, it is possible to scratch the film through its length. If you scratch the non-emulsion side, you get a very thin black line (bearable); if you scratch the emulsion side, you get an annoying green line. I would consider replacing a scratched first-run film.
Are you talking about a grouping of maybe six or eight dots in what looks like a braile pattern which show up from time to time? Those are security markings which are supposedly unique to each print of the film. It’s used to track down piracy – if a studio comes across pirated copies of a film, they can find the frames where those dots appear, review the pattern, and thereby figure out which print the copy was made from. Then they can check their list to find out where that print went, and that helps them track down who leaked it.
–Cliffy
There is one possible difference between theater movies now and in the '30’s and '40’s. Way back then all theater projectors were 35 mm. Now they are often 16 mm which needs a lot more magnification to fill the theater screen. Any imperfections would probably be more noticible with greater magnification.
Are you kidding? Is this some recent development? I last showed films in '91, and I never heard of 16mm film in modern theaters.
According to the movie “Fight Club” the black spot up in the corner is called a “cigarette burn”.
Actually they work quite well to identify theatres that seem to have a problem with security. When a theatre is identified as a problem theatre the MMPA can hire security guards to work that theatre. Some people have been caught cam cording but it also seems to chase the pirates to another location and the process starts all over.
It surprises me that this still works, since it has been so widely publicized. It seems that all the pirates have to do is get ahold of two copies of the film from different locations and use the two to crack the security enough to obfuscate the origin of the prints. I suppose it makes it twice as hard to pirate movies, but that’s about it.
But the heat is on the theater not the pirates, in this case. The pirates can just switch theaters.
Our local theater switched to 16 mm about 30 years ago. Since then a new theater has been built and I don’t know what they use.
What’s the motivation behind the change–cost savings? In our era of supersized everything and demand for razor-sharp clarity, the 16-mm bandwagon certainly seems counterintuitive.
I remember seeing the original Star Wars in 70 mm. Wow!
I don’t know but I would suppose money. I agree that changing to small film size for a theater sounds bad. I’m not sure that I ever went to the movies at that theater after the changeover. I’ve sort of lost interest in movies.
I believe the 70 mm is for the extra wide screen projection with a large aspect ratio for the frames.