What Month does Shrek come out??
I am Excited about the Shrek Movie

The 172 frames between the motor cue and changeover cue allow the second projector to come up to "sound speed" prior to the changeover. The 18 frames of picture after the changeover cue allow the projectionist time to react to seeing the cue and make the changeover (usual reaction time is 1/3 second = 8 frames).

The cues are usually circles on the film, so a "flat" picture using a spherical lens will have circles on the screen, and an anamorphic "scope" lens will elongate the circles into ovals.

Most theatres today use platters for automation, so changeovers are no longer needed. But some theatres still use two projectors with changeovers, so the cues are still printed on almost all prints. Even with two projectors, theatres often splice several reels together, so only one or two changeovers are needed.

The proper term is "Cue Marks", not "Cigarette Burns". This has been discussed before on Film-Tech, and no one recalls the term "cigarette burns" ever being used by projectionists to describe cue marks prior to the movie "Fight Club".

In old theatres, you could hear the warning for these warnings, usually about two or three minutes before the changeover. There were three basic variations of sound you might hear. Either the projectionist would put coins in the reel of film to drop out and clatter (you could sometimes tell how much the projectionist was paid by the different clunks of the coins), or there would be an arm with an oily and dirty roller on the end of it that rode the center of the film (leaving either a line of oil or a scratch for the entire reel)and dropped against the film case when the diameter of the reel got smaller, or there was a ding ding ding bell that dropped balls against a bicycle bell when the rotation of the reel spindle reached a certain speed. All of the above could be heard in the auditorium, sometimes musically accompanied by the "Oh S**T!" and sudden banging of film cabinets by the projectionist who had fogotten to lace the next projector.

The first (optional) big "X" on the film was to tell the projectionist to put his cigarette down and exhale to clear the air near the port so that he could see, the second one was to tell him to start the motor on the projector and open the manual dowser on the arc light, the third was to tell him to stomp on the changeover foot pedal and break it, (any of you guys _ever_ see a projectionist gently tap these switches instead of killing it?) while simultaniously pushing a button or flipping a lever to change over the sound to the other projector, or record player, or microphone in the booth if he was unlucky. (Hands up, how many remember LPs and record changers on the non-synch?)

Those second and third X's were usually accompanied by dozens of tiny misshappen circles and paper punch holes throughout the picture, along with some baby sized X's in the upper right corner. On rare occassions, you could watch an entire tic-tac-toe game played out as the film neared the changeover point. As an added bonus, the audience often got to see detailed close-ups of clods of dirt, ashes, and nose hair that had been transferred to the film from the projection booth floor and overturned ashtray near the rewind table.

When the film changed to the other projector, the audience would notice the sudden absense of the circles and x's, along with the disconcerting fact that people were suddenly walking on their own heads. Far back in the auditorium, there would be the sounds of a muffled "Damn!" and body parts hitting sheet metal. The people on the screen then would magically rise to the center of the screen, the feet would disappear, and the picture would continue.

Depending on the theatre, sometimes the audience missed the entire changeover show, as the light from the projecter slowly got dimmer and then began turning geeenish, finally going out entirely except for a faint reddish glow. The sound would continue if it was deemed important, or the next reel would go onscreen within a few seconds if it wasn't.

Cue Marks is the correct term.

Fire marshall: "What's that smell?"
Projectionist: "The carbon arc hit a gas pocket."
Fire Marshall: "Oh."

(No need to blame it on the dog)

My friend (name: George) had a bad habit of "getting into" watching the movie and forgetting to thread his projector. One time, I reminded him twice to thread, but all he managed to do was put his reel in the upper magazine...never threaded it. I decided to teach him a lesson. I just sat back and watched the fun.... the "dinger" on my machine went off; George (while still staring at the screen) stepped back and started his lamphouse; when the motor cue went by, he started the projector, and then he made a perfect changeover to...a blank screen, because he still hadn't threaded! I never saw a guy work so fast in my life, and it got even funnier when his dad (who used to be an Airforce Major) came storming into the booth yelling GODAMMIT! IF YOU WERENT SO BUSY WATCHING THE GODDAM MOVIE YOU MIGHT GET SOME WORK DONE AROUND HERE etc etc etc while the car horns were blaring in the background.

Needless to say he never let one "slide" again.