Cue Dots

As explained in Fight Club...

Yes, and often also on 16mm news film, to signify the piece/story was about to end, they were much larger, sort of rings physically scratched into the film itself

Still in use today for live shows on ITV, only thing is we have hidden them

Invisidot, using some Axon cards and VBI idents ? It can be hit and miss though, some distribution circuits strip out the VBI, and kills the system ! Which kind of demonstrates why something within active picture is 100% bomb proof !

Haven't seen the film. Nifty bit of simple kit. Think of something like a pair of old fashioned dividers but attached to a mechanical block that film passes underneath. At the appropriate point you press the dividers down onto the film (emulsion side), turn them , and you thus scratch out a circle of the emulsion.

So, why is the circle in your picture an elongated lozenge and not a circle? Most likely the original print is an anamorphic 35mm print that is expanded horizontally when the print is shown - hence the circle on the emulsion becomes a lozenge. All very logical when you think about it.

Just some background from an ITV perspective. Standard 35mm reels tended to hold about 20-25 mins of film so that was always very handy for feature films and 'shot for tv' stuff'. Everything was previewed well before Tx and notes were made of the last minute or so of the film to give the transmission controller on the night a fair chance of being able to get out of a part on time (think mixing from the film to an end of part slide etc). The notes would perhaps say something like 'Conan Doyle walks over to the dining table, picks up a box of matches and lights his pipe'. It would be much longer than that, but quite descriptive.

So on the night of tx with this info and the part running time the tx controller would be well armed. And if the preview sheet said part one was, let's say, 22' 12" - then it would be, there would be no hesitation in the tx controllers mind that the film lasted precisely what the cue sheet said it would otherwise the whole exercise would be pointless. So, no need for any extra cue dots on the print really, although often they were there if the print had previously done the rounds of the cinemas.

(Interesting what auto correct makes of the expression 'shot for tv' !).

Edited to add. Of course if there was no commercial break and you were just going from one reel of film on one telecine straight to another reel of film on another telecine then the above technique still applied. You just ran the second telecine 5 seconds before needed and switched to it as required, and as dictated to by the crib sheet notes.

Bomb proof, depends what kit you use, and irritating in the big screen world of today.

Yes, although along with all the other on-screen graffiti too..........

Just a couple of observations...... I well remember when visitors were shown around the Master Control room at STV (Master Control = presentation gallery) the TC would almost always show them how the cue dot worked by putting a completely spurious dot on air. That could explain some of the anomalies discussed earlier. Also - we still use a cue dot at BBC Scotland to check whether we are in circuit or not under some unusual circumstances. But it's very small and extremely unobtrusive. So much so that we sometimes have to peer at the screen to see it ourselves!!

Did C4 Playout handle ITV Schools Playout or was it an ITV contractor


Yes - increasingly contribution circuits only carry the active picture area. Some encoders and decoders are aware of the various signalling standards and will carry them separately, but this is by no means guaranteed (particularly on international distribution)

In-vision cue dots are still bomb-proof (though you may still have to think about ARCing in some territories)...

Channel 4 at Charlotte Street handled all playout of ITV Schools on 4.

According to Wiki (so it may not be true) C4 did indeed playout ITV Schools, but Central Birmingham provided
(presumably by pre recording in batches) any required 'Support Material' announcements. Usually Central VO man Ted May.