my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Film Handlers' Forum   » Film Leader Colors... What do they mean? (Page 1)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Author Topic: Film Leader Colors... What do they mean? Ryan Navaroli Film Handler Posts: 63 From: Athens, OH, USA Registered: Nov 2005 posted 11-02-2007 07:23 PM                        This is something I have been trying to wrap my head around for a week. Is there any rhyme or reason the difference in coloring on leaders? It doesn't seem like it is consistent across prints and I can't figure out any reason to them. I really hate the yellow ones with the clear lettering but love the white ones with black lettering. I sort of feel like they should all be that way. My most hair-brained hypothesis is they were created for illiterate projectionist to be able to build films. Oh well any responses would be interesting.  |  IP: Logged Bill Enos Film God Posts: 2081 From: Richmond, Virginia, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 11-02-2007 08:11 PM                     Seems to me that when I started doing this in the early '80s there were some ancient Disney prints left over from the '50s that had green leaders and red tails, also motor cues and change cues were different, stars for the motor and squares for changeover. I might be completely wrong on the whole thing though.  |  IP: Logged Don Furr Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 509 From: Sun City, Ca USA Registered: Nov 2002 posted 11-02-2007 09:34 PM                     If I remember right, during early school days when we watched 16mm educational movies every head leader was white. Other than that I don't have a clue.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-02-2007 09:47 PM                        I've seen a few different "standards" for this. Most 16mm rental prints (and all that I've seen from Swank, which is the largest supplier of 16mm rental prints in the US) have green head leaders and red tail leaders. In the case of unmarried prints, yellow or white leaders usually indicate picture and red leaders usually indicate track. Composite answer prints from Deluxe Labs have white head leaders that say something to the effect of "Deluxe Answer Print" on them in red type. These commonly show up at festivals and usually look fantastic.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-02-2007 11:20 PM                     In dailies projection the head is always green and the tail always red. I can't think of a show I worked on that differed from this... Mark  |  IP: Logged Phillip Grace Expert Film Handler Posts: 164 From: ACMI. Melbourne. Australia. Registered: Mar 2004 posted 11-02-2007 11:50 PM                     One of the U.S. labs or production houses in the 1980's had a colour code for release print leaders. Each spool had its identifiction info in the head and tail printed over a different coloured background. Cant remember which it was, but it was consistent, and there was a printed chart with the colour codes in the projection room. We ran a lot of Paramount product at that time. It might have been from DeLuxe labs though. The colour code made for an extra check of the spool number. Among other things, operators at the time had an absolute horror of confusing Spool 2 with Spool 5. (Easy to read the numerals backwards) I think that is why today that information is covered with tape, so it can only be read from one side of the film. Archival prints from the Murnau Institute also have a colour coded head and tail. Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Pink, for spools 1,2,3,4,5, and all the subsequent ones are White. Colour is full coat at the head and striped at the tail.  |  IP: Logged Paul Mayer Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under! Posts: 3836 From: Albuquerque, NM Registered: Feb 2000 posted 11-02-2007 11:53 PM                        On Casino everything was white, though the hole-punched sync mark stickers for pix and track were black on white and red on white IIRC. The standard for 16mm in the school district here was blue heads and red tails.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 11-03-2007 12:26 AM                        I thought the "T" cue marks were only on Technicolor prints. As far as the color leaders, it's nice and all, but going thru all that trouble to color code the leaders isn't much good in the way of helping insure that reel n leader gets attached to reel n print body. It would be a lot more advantagous if they implimented what we talked about many times over the years, i.e., copy an ID frame from the first frame of the print reel and duplicatd it, say for 14 frames, between Nos. 11 and 10 and then again between 4 and 3. Same principle as the colour chart girl. Now THAT would be something impressive and really helpful. I know John P. used to say back in the day it would be very labor intensive to do that, but not in this day and age of digital intermediates -- just a simple cut-and-past. If nothing else, tho, the color leaders add a little color to the booth. I like the way they distinguish the tails by doing that zebra strip thing thru every frame.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 11-03-2007 02:00 AM                     ..just don't get Reel's 1 and 4 confused since they sometimes both use yellow when pulling the reels out of the cans and in numerical order.. I think it was a DeLuxe thing to color the leaders for simple I.D. when it was introduced in the late 80's  |  IP: Logged Aaron Sisemore Flaming Ribs beat Reeses Peanut Butter Cups any day! Posts: 3061 From: Rockwall TX USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 11-07-2007 03:39 PM                     DeLuxe introduced the Coloreel® system in 1981 (the first title I had seen with the system was Porky's). With one exception (reel 4), it is the same today as it was back then: R1 - Yellow R2 - Red R3 - Green R4 - Orange (now clear- most likely to avoid confusion with yellow) R5 - Blue R6 - Magenta R7 - Cyan R8 - Yellow/Cyan/Magenta stripes R9 - Clear/Cyan/Black stripes R10 - Red/Yellow/Clear stripes -Aaron  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 11-07-2007 05:25 PM                     Deluxe also started with the easy to read titles on these leaders plus used "/" slash marks on the title if it was the tail. I know many a projectionist that added some tape behind the title so that it shown through the tail so that their prints were effectively labeled (and not at the penmanship quality of the projectionist). Steve  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 11-07-2007 06:38 PM                        That's all very nice and all, but how helpful is it? And helpful for what exactly? One assumes the projectionist can read numbers -- as long as they print the reel number a few times just in case some footage gets damaged, how does color coding help anything other than looking pretty? If on the other hand, if you want to address the really BIG problem -- that of making sure the body of film reel is accurately identified as to its number, then the leader, colored or not, once it's detatched from the body, is pretty much useless, UNLESS it has some ID Frames printed in it. THAT'S what would REALLY be useful. But then again, given that everyone is looking to digital, there many not be much enthusiasm for tweaking something as minor as a better film leader when everyone on distribution side thinks film is soon to become a footnote.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 11-07-2007 07:44 PM                     quote: Steve Guttag I know many a projectionist that added some tape behind the title so that it shown through the tail so that their prints were effectively labeled (and not at the penmanship quality of the projectionist). Some examples...  |  IP: Logged Phillip Grace Expert Film Handler Posts: 164 From: ACMI. Melbourne. Australia. Registered: Mar 2004 posted 11-07-2007 10:34 PM                     Yes. Coloreel was the one I saw. As far as identification of reels is concerned, there is/was a method used for stills which photographically printed an identification "signature" at intervals along the edge of the film. Rigby made a signature machine for the purpose. That approach could be adapted to print the reel number and other information between the perfs opposite the dolby digital track, or better, the picture or track internegs could have this information added at the time of their production. There is also the Aaton code system of l.e.d. exposure to consider. Kodak must use something like that to apply latent information on the edge of the film at the present time. (Would that John P. were still here to comment on that). A simpler method, cheaper to implement but not 100% foolproof where production is concerned, would be to add a colour filtered exposure lamp to the printer to print the reel colour code in between the perfs for the whole length of the reel. I met something like this at a filmlab which was used to black out the film between the perforations for an "Electronic Pin Registration" system on a telecine machine. That space being the last unused bit of emulsion available, maybe could be used for some kind of more or less elaborate data record.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 11-08-2007 04:25 AM                        But don't all films today, at least Hollywood films, have a digital intermediate? I assume the leader is edited onto the reel at that stage so the file for each reel contains everything -- leaders included -- when the entire reel is scanned from the digital back out to the finished negative. So how hard would it be to simply copy and past the first frame image and last frame image to the HEAD and TAIL leaders? Then again, me thinks trying to get the splice monkies to change their habit of cutting their own ID frame (or two....or freakin THREE) will be a much biggger challenge than getting the labs to edit ID frames into the leaders.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.