Talk:Cue mark

Removing cigarette burns

Is there any evidence that the phrase "cigarette burns" was not made up by the movie Fight Club? If not, I don't think it's a good idea to list it here, other than perhaps to note that Fight Club used that term, but that it is not in widespread usage and is a good way to have projectionists laugh at you... Jhawkinson 09:48, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

 Done with "cigarette burn" moved to a level-5 heading in this article, and the reference removed from Coded Anti-Piracy and listed last with some disclaiming text in Cigarette burn (disambiguation), and also included in User:Erikster/Fight Club (film). Jhawkinson 01:38, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Just curious, but can you prove this? I have not heard anywhere else that "Cigarette burn" is, and only is, used in Fight Club..... misternuvistor 05:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

It's impossible to prove a negative. But I've talked to a lot of other projectionists, and nobody's ever heard the term. Over on the Film-Tech Forums, an online discussion forum for projectionists (4,000 registered users, several hundred active regularly), the question has come up about 9 times since 1999. At no time has anybody ever been able to find or hear of an example of this usage, other than from Fight Club. Unless you have something stronger from than the movie, I'll plan on removing your {{dubious}} tag in a few days (really it should be one sentence later, right?) jhawkinson 06:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I heard cue marks referred to by the term "cigarette burn" back in the early '90s, (before Fight Club was made -- before the book was written, in fact), in a filmmaking class in New Jersey. Woody Tanaka (talk) 16:12, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I can recall as far back in the 80s when i was younger, and my father, who at the time was a television producer, telling me all about the "cigarette burn" meaning it was the end of a reel. perhaps it was a term widley used by people in the industry but projectionists themselves loathed the term. I am quite positive he used this exact term way back before Fight Club was published. Fshake (talk) 03:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)FshakeFshake (talk) 03:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

In case anyone cares, first of all, if one were to attempt to make cue marks with a lit cigarette, in the nitrate film base era (before the early 1950's) doing something like that would cause the entire reel of film to rapidly go up in flames as well as any other exposed film near it. Secondly, a cue mark made in that way (assuming the later safety base film) instead of a small circle would be a massive rough opening taking up nearly half of the modern 1.85 frame and perhaps a quarter of a CinemaScope frame, and these would flash as full intensity white light since the film is entirely gone there. So, no, it's unlikely that anyone ever did this in actuality. Whether actual cues somehow remind someone of tiny versions of cigarette burns is something someone else can decide. I personally never heard the term before Fight Club and have been working in changeover projection since the 1980's.

I have heard the term "cigarette burn" well before _Fight Club_. As to method, it is figurative, not referencing the actual method to produce it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nantucketnoon (talk • contribs) 21:11, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

For what it's worth, regardless of whether the term was used historically, the use of the term in the film Cigarette Burns (the title and the dialogue) suggests that the term has found some use. 72.225.125.105 (talk) 19:27, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

General

Also, sometimes the first cue is known as the "motor cue" and the second cue as the "changeover cue." It's perhaps inadvisable to use the term "changeover cue" generically.

Lastly, I don't know of any changeover theatres that thread to PICTURE START -- that would be 12 feet (8 real seconds) in advance. Depending on motor ramp-up speed, academy-second countdowns are generally threaded between 7 and 11 feet. Jhawkinson 09:48, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Also  Done, though I'm not as pleased with the treatment of "changeover cue." Hopefully the SMPTE55/301 stuff is not too confusing. Jhawkinson 05:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge with Cue-Dot

These two articles are talking about the same things in different contexts. Their names do not disambiguate them. Presumably they should either merge in a common article, or be broken out into either "Cue-Dot (film)" and "Cue-Dot (television)" or "Cue mark (film)" and "Cue mark (television)." Jhawkinson 05:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

 Done I've merged the two. I don't love the result, though, and I think it needs some cleanup. Honestly, I had never even heard of television cue dots, so I'm not convinced that, individually, each of these topics deserves its own page wdaher 18:52, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Illustration

We should have an illustration of what a cue mark looks like. Lots of choices: schematic representation (like in SMPTE 301), actual scanned image from a film (copyright issues?), appearance onscreen (oval cues for scope movies), etc. jhawkinson 16:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

You can easily obtain a DVD screenshot from any transfer which has used the prints (usually older films or poor transfers). Girolamo Savonarola 19:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, the actual act of scanning a frame of film is no problem, I could easily do that from plenty of current release prints. The problem is that I'm not sure that wouldn't run afoul of WP:FAIR issues. I assume such doing so from a DVD would have the same issues. I guess I can scan something off of a trailer leader or something (why these have cue marks is a good question for another day), though it wouldn't be atop a picture, making it a sub-par example. jhawkinson 23:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

What if we just simulated a cue dot on top of an existing GFDLd image? (like LACameraman's)? To really make it look nice, though, we should probably show at least four frames-worth. wdaher 01:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, checking that page, it states that Copyrighted images that reasonably can be replaced by free/libre images are not suitable for Wikipedia. So I guess that unless the article is specifically about that particular film, it wouldn't be appropriate. What about using a DVD to at least "capture" an actual cue dot and then paste it into a fair image similar to what Wdaher mentions? Girolamo Savonarola 13:59, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

 Done OK, done, from User:LACameraman's Anamorphic-digital_sound.jpg. It would still be nice to have a schematic representation and the on-screen representation, but it's a lot less critical. jhawkinson 04:41, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Cigarette burns

Should cigarette burns redirect here considering it's not an industry term and not the traditional use of the phrase? --69.165.204.50 (talk) 01:06, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, the character played by Brad Pitt makes a humorous remark in Fight Club that "cigarette burns" would be the professional term for them, while he's sitting at an editing table and smoking one of those cigarettes. --46.93.155.166 (talk) 05:11, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

naming

The cigarette marks were mentioned somewhere as called or known as "emory - emery marks?" if i remember correctly or maybe a similar name, can anyone find a sourcing. oops I guess maybe I was thinking of "Avery Dots" doh— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.199.163.22 (talk) 04:08, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Coded Anti-Piracy?

Why is Coded Anti-Piracy mentioned in this article and listed as the only "See also"? I can't see any relationship to cue marks, except for the fact that both have something to do with the film industry.ChasFink (talk) 15:36, 22 August 2016 (UTC)