Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler More artifact sightings..

Hey Allen, here's one for those of us that used to actually 'GO' to the movies..
I'm sure this is nothing you didn't already know about, but just in case..
Have you ever noticed the little X's that appear in the upper right hand corner of an old movie ? Just before a scene change..
That was the way they used to mark the film for the projectionist, so he could time the change over to the next reel..
For those of you that weren't around then, as most all theaters today are computer driven, with hugh reels of film, and do not need such attention, a movie house had at least 2 projectors.. There was no way a full length film would fit on 1 reel, so they had a 2nd projector threaded and ready with the next reel.. And back and forth it went..
Talk about artifacts ! If you were not hip to the 'x' popping up (once u see it, you can't not see it) you might also be treated to any number of old house shenanigans.. Next reel starts out of focus, or with out sound, or the reel is out of order (or not even the SAME movie !) or it's running backwards ! Got to love it..
Needless to say, these all brought the whistles, cat calls, etc..
Oh yeah, my all time fav ? The scene ends, the film runs out, and the screen goes full blown white ! The dude upstairs had fallen asleep !! hahaha.. Man, that's when the place would go nuts.. Popcorn and candy flying
all over the place.. Every body yellin..
For a kid back then, it more than made up for the 25 cents coughed up at the ticket window... Fifty if you were lucky enough to have a date :-)

Hi MIKEY!

YUP yur bringin' up memories alright!!

I'm going to guess that we are about the same age here.

I remember going to the matinee in the late 40s and getting in for 14 cents. I'd stay at the show til either dark, or when the half a buck my Mom gave me ran out!

My Dad was a projectionist in his home town in 1914, and my sub cabinet is the same speaker cabinet we bought in '46 as part of our newer home theater system.......16mm The sad thing about it was that we bought the new 16mm set-up, and then one year later, we bought our first TV. Interestingly, the same folks who flocked to our living room to see movies on our large screen, were the same ones who flocked over to see the fuzzy, unreliable progamming on the small one! The speaker cabinet has been re-drivered since my youngest Grandaughter grabbed a handful of volume a couple years ago.

You're absolutely right about one thing......I never miss the reel change artifacts
Rich.

There are still reel change artifacts--you'll hate me if you read further. I notice them every time.

It's a cigarette burn mark, upper right hand corner. There's one just before the reel change and another immediately after the reel change. Now you know, now you're stuck with it. Muah ha ha!

Many do look like burn marks.........don't they, yeah

Who's this Allen?

Yup...these still exist. They actually talk about it in the movie Fight Club at one point (which I recommend if you haven't seen it)

I suspect that MIKEY is refering to Alan; another of us in the "Light Grey Posse"

When you reach our age, you, uh......

Anyway, bet he can also recall other things: Like paying a realistic "Light Bill" The relative luxury of a "Two Holer"! gettin' milk delivered by a horse drawn wagon(and trash taken away by the same means)

I still call it an "Ice Box" today, but then, it WAS an ice box!(well, WE had a real fridge, but our next door neighbors still recieved ice from the truck, which us kids loved to sneak on when the delivery guy took the ice inside and we could sneak a little shard off the back of the truck on hot days)

Our ring was a simple "three Shorts" but my Aunts was a more involved "Three longs, a Short, and two Longs"(if I remember correctly) And Yes, her phone really did have a crank to alert the operator when she wanted to make a call!!

You could sit, even Stand, anywhere you wanted to in an automobile!

And two or three reelers had artifacts!!

Our ring was a simple "three Shorts" but my Aunts was a more involved "Three longs, a Short, and two Longs"(if I remember correctly) And Yes, her phone really did have a crank to alert the operator when she wanted to make a call!!

You can't be old enough to remember that. Please stop, your giving me a Petticoat Junction/Lassie flashback.

Mikey,

Absolutely! If memory serves, a reel ran about 20 minutes, and you'd know the reel change signal in the upper right corner was coming up, because as the reel neared its end, there would usually be more scratches and dirt visible. This was especially true with older prints and or sloppy projectionists who didn't clean each reel when it's re-wound.

Even worse were some films (you still see this in some art-film houses) where the color values would totally shift when the next reel started, a result of poor control of "timing" when multiple prints were made. The guy who "times" a print is supposed to control the exposure so the color saturation and values remain consistent from reel to reel.

I was fascinated by much of this as a kid and an adult. Amazingly, I've come to know a guy who is an A/V reviewer (Steve Guttenberg) who worked as a projectionist for 15 years in New York. In modern cinemas I think the big reels are called "pans" and use a horizontal feed. For a time, Steve told me that the projectionist would splice together the short reels into one big pan, which eliminated the reel changes.

Regards,

Actually, and now I DO feel old, I do remember that.....cause it's true!

My Aunt and uncle lived on a farm in Illinois and were only about 14 miles from a paved road(and sort-of a town)and their telephone exchange was about thirty miles away and was staffed by a single operator who connected and reconnected wires as required!! It was quaint.

We moved into an area that was just developing and the phone system was having a hard time keeping up with that development and had to go with "Party Lines" for a couple years til they caught up.

My Father actually put an inside bathroom into my Grandparents home, but my Grandma felt there were some things you just didn't do in the house!!

Those were fun days: Washington had wrested control back from New York for a while and we had a lot more personal freedoms than we do today.

Hmmmmm......Petticoat Junction was a stretch...but Lassie(pre Timmy)was actually pretty close