I've been wanting to talk about this certain topic for a couple years now. It's a rare piece of old filmmaking that's already been dated since the use of technology and software.
What you seen above is what we normally call "cue marks" or also known as either a cue dot, or changeover cue.
The first time I ever actually saw a cue mark was when I was starting to watch animated shorts that were supposedly public domain on YouTube. The first one I spotted was in a Color Rhapsody cartoon, The Mad Hatter (1940). It's a good cartoon but the ending rather changed how I would experience old films in general.
I think I remembered stating myself that they were a part of every cartoon remastered or not, and it felt like I was going to avoid it for a while until I realized that cue marks especially the ones that looked spiky and itchy were just from original theatrical prints or slightly remastered prints. It was a relief when I researched into it because I'm not gonna lie I'm kinda disturbed by these things.
It felt like getting rid of the cue marks for newer generations was a great idea since they were originally used to project each reel which was about 4-5 per average film feature. But now that we have television and not a single projector to manage any of the old films from the 40s-50s, why even have the distracting cues anyway? It can be difficult to get rid of them entirely, so as the grain overlay. Enough complaints. This was a method already done 20 years ago till now.
They appear every 14-20 minutes in a single reel, sometimes in animated shorts or considerably a short film, cue marks would appear whenever the film would end. No matter if it's 6-10 minutes long.
When it comes to the uniqueness of cue marks here's a list.
Yes fortunately I named them myself. I hope you like it. It's for entertainment purposes. They actually don't have names.
What's so peculiar about each of the cue marks is whether a certain film, prior to what decade, motion picture process it's applied. The original black dot I see all the time in B&W movies.
If you have noticed cue marks whether you seen them on TV, VHS tapes, etc. well now you know where they came from. It was a much more useful task for when a film reel was about to come to a close.
Anyways I hoped this gave you an insight on what I consider one of my most important topics when it comes to old cinema because it isn't talked about very much since we now have DVD and Blu-Ray and most people have seen the more iconic old movies beautifully remastered. I go out in my comfort zone to watch old movies as well but sometimes it's even more obscure films. I am quite cautious. Right now I seem to have a taste in films with no filler. Murder mysteries, wholesome stories, great actors etc.
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