Mon, August 14, 2006

Sorry for the ensuing self-approbation, but I'm really excited about this. (Those who know me are by now well aware that I can't promise to stop being excessively pleased with myself. But I can promise to be really sorry about it.)

Starting a few years ago, I began to notice something at the movies that I hadn't seen before. It seemed like there were colored (yellow or red-orange) blotches on the screen at certain moments, just for a split second. At first, I figured it was just a dirty print. Having worked as a projectionist, I know how bad conditions can be. But after a few times, it seemed too much to be a coincidence. I also noticed this always seemed to happen in a bright part of the frame, such as an explosion.

I came up with this theory that it must be an anti-piracy move. Since I first noticed it cropping up around the time the MPAA was going apeshit about piracy, I figured it could be a unique code so that if bootleg video copies of the film turned up, investigators could figure out which print was videotaped and which theatre it happened in. It would need to appear in bright parts of the frame, so there would be enough contrast to identify it on those crappy bootleg tapes; and it would be hidden in flashes of light when possible, to minimize the distraction for the innocent filmgoers (which includes most of us – certainly everyone I know).

I had no information on this; I just put it together as a hunch. And unfortunately I don't think I mentioned it to anyone. I might have said something to my mom, but she wouldn't remember, so that's as good as keeping it to myself.

Today, I finally remembered to do some digging on this and came up with proof that I was absolutely right. This means nothing to you – but I'm really excited about it because I was 100% right, even though I reasoned it out completely on my own with nothing but a few twenty-fourths of a second of evidence. (Not that I have any proof of this – damn Mom!)

I actually did the same thing years earlier with "cigarette burns," those little dots in the corner of the frame that are used for old-fashioned changeover projector systems (and are mentioned in Fight Club). Noticed them; guessed what they were for (based on them happening at regular intervals); supported my theories during my tenure as a projectionist; and finally confirmed the whole thing (mere months before Fight Club) in a conversation with Tom Holman, which resulted in him telling me a funny Empire Strikes Back anecdote.

Which makes me happy, because one of my skills that I'm relatively proud of is my quick eye. I participated in a graduate student's psychological experiment in college in which I was asked to identify whether or not a given item appeared in a sequence of rapidly flashing images, and I was told I scored off the charts. I've always been unnecessarily delighted about that.

Again, apologies for all this self-congratulation. I know it's unseemly, but I'm really giddy about it, and I have no one but you to share the joy with. It would be great if I could be excited about an accomplishment that is in any way useful (or not so easily reproduced with a bit of Google searching). But, we are stuck with what we have.

What I don't understand is why bootleggers don't just go into iMovie and chop out the offending frame from their tapes. And, if the MPAA knows it's this easy to circumvent, shouldn't that be reason enough to kill a program that puts a giant splotch on every filmgoing experience? It seems like the quality of a night at the movies has been in steady decline lately. The pre-feature time is loaded with ads for Chevy and the Marines. Then, you've got the incessant, unruly talkers gabbing through the whole thing. Why add to that misery by placing ugly splotches on the larger-than-life screen? The big picture is ostensibly the only reason we brave all the other indignities to keep seeing movies at the theatre – they might as well keep that part intact!

Maybe they figure most people won't notice. I guess we don't all see every frame of the movie. Everyone who missed the giraffe on that psychological test is probably blissfully unaware.

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