Countdown Leader: Technicolor Corporation (1960)

★★★★★ · Long live the motion picture leader.... · Ryan Schweitzer · 2006-11-18

I have to fully agree with A huge collar, I find old film leaders (and tails on films as well) quite interesting. They were (and still are) also a delight for me to see during classroom films as well as an elementary student back in the 80s. The film leader is somewhat of a lost art nowadays, with everything being all video-based, not really having any countdowns/slates/china girls/etc (as Huge collar also noted). My affinity for something as sundry as a film leader is possibly due to their somewhat technical nature (yes, I'm a full-blown media geek), as well as being somewhat…

★★★★ · cool · A huge collar · 2005-04-26

The old film leaders-trailers always facinated me, and I would look forward to all the weird stuff I would see flash by the screen whenever the teacher threaded up the projector. It was also fun seeing all the weird splotches and stuff that appeared on the screen *during* the film. Once, way back when I was little, I was part of my library's reading club, and every friday night they would show movies on a 16mm projector. During one of the films, a very weird black bar with holes in it flashed on the screen. It took a minute to figure out, but what happened was the film was damaged at that…

★★★★ · Old film effects · videor · 2004-03-20

Excellent footage to study/experiment with old film effects and frame-by-frame animation. Comes complete with its cute, distorted 1khz calibration tone.

★★★ · heads and tails · magiciaqns · 2007-03-29

I was a projectionist in a drive in when I was a kid, and as an adult I owned 2 theaters. The countdown does bring back memories, but generally if seen, it was a mistake. It meant that the projectionist didn't run the film down enough. This was most evident before the large reels were used. The films came with 18 minutes of film on it, and usually 6 reels per film. Each and every reel came with the heads countdown as a guide and as a way to thread the machine. It also told you that the film was either upside down or backwards. Some mistakes like putting the sound track on the wrong side when…