Film Leader
Now we can get on with the first assembly. At the start of your work print you will need a film leader. You will use two different kinds of leader in the course of cutting. Blank leader, consisting of a coated or uncoated base and academy leaders, containing a descending series of numbers, usually starting at eleven or ten and running in descending order down to three. There are then two feet of blank film before the point at which you should join the starter by the sound or picture. Blank leader film is frequently used for spacing and to protect the beginnings and ends of film. It is widely used when preparing separate sound tracks as we shall see later. Academy leaders are designed to go at the start of every reel of film. They serve a dual purpose. They ensure that there is always enough film to thread through a projector and they are long enough to ensure that the machine projecting the film is up to running speed before the first picture is reached. When films are being cut with separate magnetic tracks they also provide a common synchronism point for sound and picture.
There are several different types of leader. In Britain the BBC have their own standard leader. SMPTE Universal and SMPTE Television leaders, both named after the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, are widely used. But perhaps the most common is the academy leader.
Academy leaders
The name of this leader is derived from the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which originated it. The synchronising section is normally opaque with the exception of numbered frames the first of which is marked “picture start” at a distance of 192 frames ahead of the first scene in the reel. In the academy leader these numbered frames occur at 16 frame intervals and run from 11 down to 3 after which all the frames are opaque up to the begininning of the picture. There is also an academy leader specially designed for television use. The synchronising numbers occur at intervals of 24 frames. For T.V. networks running at 24 frames per second this means, of course, that the numbers on the leader come up at 1 second intervals. The numbers start at 8 and run down to 2, instead of 11 to 3 on the standard academy film leader. Also, the opaque frames between the numbers have been changed on the television leader to a series of middle densities with a continuously moving wedge pattern rather like a clock, to denote the passing of each second. Academy television leaders have been designed to help T.V. cueing. They are particularly helpful when film inserts are being used in live T.V. programmes.
(A) Section of an Academy leader
“Picture Start” is 192 frames ahead of the first scene on the reel. Numbered frames occur at 16 frame intervals and run from 11 down to 3 after which the remaining 47 frames are opaque up to the start of the reel.
(B) Television leader
The arrow points on the middensity frames on the television leader (B) indicates the limits of the scanned area of the frame. The synchronising numbers occur at intervals of 24 frames so for TV networks transmitting at 24 fps they appear at one-second intervals and thus make accurate telecine cueing easier.