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Author Topic: Monster Cue Tape Steven J Hart Master Film Handler Posts: 282 From: WALES, ND, USA Registered: Mar 2004 posted 12-30-2005 05:01 PM                        I made up a used print of Narnia today and saw something I've never seen in the eight years I've been in the business. The previous theater had place about eight inches of 1/2 inch wide foil tape at each of the three cue locations! What cue reader could possible need that much tape to set off the cues. The stuff covered about half the picture area for about eight inches and it covered the soundtrack for two of the cues! That must be a great example of "Film Done Wrong" I didn't put this in the "You Suck" Thread 'cause I thought there might be some technical reason for doing this, and the print was otherwise in VERY good condition. Steve  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-30-2005 05:10 PM                        I've seen that wide tape before but never to that excess. I haven't put tape on 3 spots in a print for years. My first cue is at the very end of the DTS tag; my last cue is at the head of a 20' piece of junk film that's attached to the end of all prints. So it's only really necessary to cue the "lights up to half" at the start of the credits.  |  IP: Logged Steven J Hart Master Film Handler Posts: 282 From: WALES, ND, USA Registered: Mar 2004 posted 12-30-2005 05:43 PM                        Mike, thats almost exactly what I do. What a sticky mess it was to get that foil tape adhesive residue off the print. Steve  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-30-2005 06:06 PM                     many of the older proximity detectors required a long wide piece of tape to read reliably  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-30-2005 10:14 PM                     Instead of that much tape they should have had a person on standby next to the cue sensor equipped with a 5 pound sledge hammer to just go ahead and wack the cue rollers at the correct moment...... their obviously malfunctioning cue detector would have probably read that one ok.... A good booth tool there are many other uses for too..... Mark  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 12-31-2005 02:12 AM                     ..or, ill trained "booth clowns.."  |  IP: Logged Steve Scott Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1300 From: Minneapolis, MN Registered: Sep 2000 posted 12-31-2005 10:57 PM                     Not to mention how extra wasteful the situation becomes when the foil rubs off the worthless cue detector & will no longer read. I've seen plenty of QC prints come with these long cues. It also can be attributed to slow automation systems. I've seen Xetron/Maxi "opticues" placed at 4-frame intervals over the span of five or six cues. Yuck!  |  IP: Logged Wolff King Morrow Master Film Handler Posts: 490 From: Denton, TX, USA Registered: Feb 2004 posted 01-01-2006 02:34 AM                        I think the worst is getting a used print that had a barcode sticker set of cues, or the foil disc version too. If you're going to plant cues on the center of the frame, please put some clear tape under it first.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 01-05-2006 06:29 AM                        Didn't Kodak or was it Dolby introduce a system quite a number of years ago whereby a coating was applied to the print and it had magnetic propertied so that cues could be magnetically recorded and read. Obviously the stuff had to be transparant but it did retain enough flux so that it could replace cue foil. I wonder why it never became mainstream.....cost? unreliable?  |  IP: Logged Joel N. Weber II Expert Film Handler Posts: 115 From: Somerville, MA, USA Registered: Dec 2005 posted 01-05-2006 08:40 AM                     I think if the labs were going to do an extra step to facilitate theaters dealing with cues, a better approach might be to use an extra data channel in the digital soundtrack to record where the start of the credits is, etc. The same technology DTS used to trigger strobe lights ought to be usable for a house lights half up cue at the start of the credits, etc. Though the other interesting question is whether foil cues are more reliable than digital soundtrack reading. (Although with the digital soundtrack approach, it would probably be easy to encode things in such a way that the cue is printed over 10 seconds or more of film, so that if the digital reader drops out for a second or two, the cue can still be processed, albeit a bit late.)  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 01-05-2006 12:20 PM                        quote: Frank Angel Didn't Kodak or was it Dolby introduce a system quite a number of years ago whereby a coating was applied to the print and it had magnetic propertied so that cues could be magnetically recorded and read. Obviously the stuff had to be transparant but it did retain enough flux so that it could replace cue foil. I wonder why it never became mainstream.....cost? unreliable? Yes, Kodak introduced DATACODE Magnetic Control Surface in 1982. It was intended to record time code on camera films, and could have been used for cues on print film. The slightly added cost would be an issue for prints. The technology is still used to record data on Kodak Advantix films for consumer cameras.  |  IP: Logged

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