(Not these. They're just old-school changeover marks.)
Have you seen them? The first time I noticed them I thought they were just flaws in the print due to some glitch at the lab. But there was something too neat and geometrical about them. Their appearance was almost subliminal, but I became conscious of seeing them in almost every movie, like changeover marks. (See shot from "Fight Club," above. The first time I saw Tyler Durden I thought he was a lab mistake, too.)
I thought I figured out what they were, but I wasn't certain. Now David Bordwell brings them out of the shadows in a post that's mostly about something else -- the history of bugs, those company logos in the corner of the picture, which I remember first seeing during the early seasons of "The Simpsons" on the nascent Fox network. He spotlights something that's been bugging me for a while:
I had hoped to include a frame illustrating the anti-piracy stamp used on current 35mm releases, but couldn't find one quickly. This mark consists of a tight pattern of dots resembling a character in Braille. The stamp would presumably be copied if someone shot off the screen or ran the film through a telecine. How effective these bugs are at tracing pirate copies I can't say, but you can detect them, especially in bright scenes; I usually notice one every third reel or so, just left of the center of the frame. I'll keep looking for a frame and try to add one to this entry.
If he finds one, or if I do, I'll let you know.
UPDATE: From OlliS, via Wikipedia, a very simple example of the CAP code:
I've noticed these too. I assumed they were something that was a result of some kind of lab processsing of the prints, since they never appeared on DVD, but I didn't even consider that they'd be piracy related. Studios seem to find the least effect ways possible to deal with piracy, and I can't imagine this working too well either.
They've been doing this for a few years now - I think I first read about them in an Answer Man column on Ebert's site. Easily one of my top pet peeves about seeing movies at the theatre. No one else I know has noticed them, but they always jar me out of the movie.
Changeover marks, on the other hand, make me feel all warm and fuzzy - like hot chocolate in the winter. I don't know why, it's just one of those things.
You're right, usually used during a single reel. Usually during an action oriented sequence.
A nice excuse for Benjamin Button getting all its acclaim, since Zodiac deserved some and Fight Club deserved a lot. Fincher's habit of being a commercial director then making Fight Club to subvert commercials, making Seven then making Zodiac to subvert it, and now Button to prove that he can win tons of Oscars that he earned decades before. Kudos to him.
Those dots he points out, they're the proof of piracy, the cuffs that we've grown big enough by now to bust
Are we talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coded_Anti-Piracy ?
JE: That's it! Thanks -- I've added it to the entry!
These things are annoying. I work at a single screen art-house theater selling tickets and occasionally running the films being shown. The projectionist I learned from informed me about these dots and now I see them in every film we show. The worst film was Synecdoche, NY. Within the first half-hour of the film I spotted the series of dots around six times and it took me completely out of the film. Why did Bordwell have to bring these to the attention of innocent viewers? Once you see you see them for the first time, there's no going back.
I've known about these for a few years as well, but I still can't think through the logic or applicability of it other than the FBI or INTERPOL being able to say: "Yup, they used a hand-held on this one and then made a DVD of the tape. Yup, job well done there. Now we know for sure they use hand-held cameras to commit piracy."
Now, unless each particular print comes with it's unique CAP code. Then when a pirated DVD had that unique CAP code, the FBI/INTERPOL could say: "Yup, this pirated DVD came from the 42nd street Loew's theater. Some one of the 10s of thousands of theater goes must have used a hand-held camera in there at some point in the 15 or so times they played that movie in there a day, at some point in the last few days to weeks. Yup, someone should stop them."
So, if someone is a litte more versed in the efficacy of this anti-piracy thing, other than making people not want to see movies in theaters as much, causing them to seek out pirated versions of recent releases, please, clue us in.
I remember this being brought up when 'Kill Bill Vol. 1' came out; someone wrote Roger Ebert asking if they were supposed to be subliminal blood spatters (!) hinting at the carnage to come, since they happen during that very long tracking shot just before the massacre at the House of Blue Leaves. Ever since that column I just can't unsee them. I probably would have assumed they were print flaws. Now, instead, when one pops up I realize I've been waiting for it and I'm happy to be able to get on with the rest of the movie.
This does remind me that they've been around for a while now; is there any sort of evidence anywhere of how effectively they help combat piracy, if at all?
Of course the studios will never fess up to it, but I'd love to know how much these stupid marks actually help the anti-piracy fight. I'd imagine they make execs feel better at stockholders' meeting, but accomplish little else of substance.
They have gotten better at hiding them, but I always know I'm watching a HOLLYWOOD® movie when these stupid things appear on-screen. True indie releases and foreign films never have these. Wonder why, if it's such a cheap and effective weapon against those evil pirates?
I've been noticing and hating CRAP codes for a couple of years now. And I think it's odd, but I tend to see (or at least notice) more of them on the more obscure titles at the art theater than I do on any film I see at the multiplex. I think they've gotten worse at hiding them than they used to. They totally suck.
I work in Indian movies, as AD or as Producer; so I am quite familiar with this. Initially this technique was effective in tracking down the print number used in making the pirated video copy, since each print had a mark in a different place. The "pirates" figured this out and started snipping out the frames with such marks. We started having multiple video marks in a print, in different reels, and continued to track them down looking at frame jumps in specific reels. Eventually they started cutting out random frames from each reel apart from the marked ones. Now, it is not as effective as it used to be, but we kind of console ourselves in making the bastards work for an extra hour or two before they start stealing our work.
Well done for bringing these nasty little buggers up: they drive me CRAZY. I doubt they are of any use to anybody and are an entirely cosmetic way for the studios to say they are attacking piracy. Within a week or two of a movie being released it can generally be downloaded in good quality, often from a dvd screener or such, so the people who download it illegally won't have to put up with Crap Codes, and whatsmore they won't have to put up with those annoying ads that tell us piracy supports terrorism (or something). Why is it the people who are paying for the movies are the ones being made to suffer? Isn't that counterproductive?
CAP codes drive me crazy. I see them pretty much every time I see a movie in the theater. There I am, engaged in the film, feeling like I'm a part of it, then bam, a CAP code, and I realize I'm just sitting in a movie theater watching images on a screen.
The worst one I ever saw was Troy. The scene where the "launching of 1,000 ships", the entire screen was filled with dots, I couldn't believe it. It was like a game of Connect Four with all red pieces.
Something really needs to be done about these. You'd think that with all the technology and advances in filmmaking there would be a better way to catch pirates instead of making every film viewer suffer.
Anytime I notice these dots on the screen during a movie, I find myself heading to the concession stand and buying a box of Dots candy.
So not only are they annoying, but they cost me money in the long run.
Stupid subliminal messages...
The first time I noticed them was in Master and Commander, which was apparently in 2003. They filled a larger portion of the screen back then. I most recently noticed them in Synecdoche, New York (at a 2-screen arthouse theater nowhere near Schenectady) on Friday. They were smaller but more geometric-looking.
I'd guess the intent is to pass the responsibility on to the individual theaters. If a copy can be traced to a given theater, the studio can make threats to the theater instead of doing anything about it themselves. And as with all anti-piracy efforts, it only inconveniences those who are already playing by the rules.
I think I saw them last night during Revolutionary Road.
I saw "Taken" twice this weekend and got completely distracted by the CAP codes (most notable during the scene where Liam Neeson's character first talks to his French policeman pal outside his office). It was even more distracting during the 2nd viewing because I knew when and where they were coming.
I find the CAP codes (or, as Roger called them in one of his columns, "crap codes") annoying for the reasons everybody else mentioned above. When I saw "Charlie Wilson's War" and saw the dots, I suddenly thought, "You know, if a pirate was willing to put in the time, he could use Photoshop to get rid of the dots." (I didn't think of actually cutting the frames out, but that would seem mildly jarring to me.) So not only do they bug the hell out of people who see them and can't "unsee" them, they can be overwritten entirely by a pirate with a $70 copy of Photoshop Elements.
I guess the idea of coding the prints is to give the authorities an idea of where to start looking for pirates. But as people have pointed out, usually the pirated copies are made from non-coded sources. So what the hell's the point?