Single Frame Braille dots in Mission Impossible 3

Ok. Either I am totally crazy or someone has a placed what appears to be a large number of Braille-like dot patterns in the action sequences of MI:3.

The first two I thought were flukes from trash on the actual film up in the projector. However, I counted at least nine clear-as-day symbols and I think there are a lot more.

So, my question is: Has anyone else seen this?

I don't know Braille and most people would not either, so why place such things?
Again, if it were just one or two I would let it go, but there were so many I was actually looking around the theater to see if anyone else was seeing it.

If anyone else can confirm or deny this I would appreciate it. Thanks.

Yeah, I've seen this before. I think it has to do with the digital projectors a lot of theatres are using now, but have no idea what. That, or its a quick pulse of light for the autofocus to grab on so it can recallibrate itself.

I could believe this theory if the symbol was the same each time. But the dot patterns were different and they seemed to be in the actual movie frame (i.e. not a single frame unto itself). The dots changed position. I guess I can look into digital movie projectors for some hints.

By the way, the moderator who moved this had me believing in a great scientology conspiricy until I read my U2U. I thought "they" had caused it to be removed. (Sorry, I put the thread in the wrong place.)

I must be the only one who saw these dots (not the reel marker dots in the upper right corner either, oh, and they were there too, so if this was a digital projector, why would that be?)

Thanks

Originally posted by amikrazy
I could believe this theory if the symbol was the same each time. But the dot patterns were different and they seemed to be in the actual movie frame (i.e. not a single frame unto itself). The dots changed position. I guess I can look into digital movie projectors for some hints.

Different colors focus at different distances, so maybe that's why the dots change location. Say they take nine (just picked a random number) spots. One where the screen will be darkest, one where the screen is the brightest, and the others all in between. Then the focus of the lens gets calibrated according to those dots. Imagine if you were in MI:3 and the action sequences were slightly out of focus? You would surely notice that, and it would probably spoil the movie for you.

My guess is that if that's why these dots appear, then it's because of the constant changing of colors across the screen. I would imagine in a movie that has less explosions and fast action sequences that you wouldn't see these dots, as the color scheme on the silver screen would be more uniform.

Nope - there is definitely something in this.

I arrived home 15 minutes ago after seeing the movie, and my first thought was to Google "braille mission impossible 3" to see if I was the only one! This thread was top 'o' the list.

In no other movie have I seen this, and tonight I saw three for sure. The reel-change cigarette burns nearly always catch my eye in the cinema, so I'm pretty sure if these had been used for some technical purpose before I would have spotted it.

When I clocked one clearly enough to see that the mark was definitely braille, I started thinking there could be something in it, then I remembered the movie's director!

JJ Abrams is clearly the kind of character to embed some deeper dimension to his work - look at the online forum hype around Lost at the moment, particularly the "clues" and material being thrown out about The Hanso Foundation and its website. (Search for Lost forums and have a read.)

I get the feeling there is a word (or more) dotted through the movie which will lead to something else, perhaps a special website with "secrets", or just DVD-style extra features.

What we need is someone with a dodgy copy of the movie - and a few hours - to work through it and flag as many characters as possible...

I've heard of them before. The reason the are there is due to movie piracy.
They act like watermarks which can be traced back to an individual theater which might be using a telecine machine to make a illegal copy of the movie.
It is my understanding that these marks are in all movies these days.

At least that was the rumor I heard.



They could also be reel marks, that note the end of a reel and tell the projectionist to start the next reel of the movie (rarely used anymore since most theaters use the platter system).





[edit on 29/5/06 by Skibum]

Woo! Hoo!

I'm not crazy then. Thanks for the verification, guys. I just got back from X-Men 3 and saw one in the movie. Just one this time, like this:

OOOO
O
O

I think it was four dots across, I am sure it was three dots down. Also, it's not the reel marker dots in the upper right corner.

There were multiple different patterns in MI:3. Not the same one repeating. Can't wait for the DVD to come out. Hidden message maybe?

Oh, is there a master list of symbols mapping to specific theaters anywhere? This one is the Manchester 14 in Rock Hill, SC. I find the dots really distracting, but maybe most people don't see them.

As far as the conspiricy angle goes--Does being aware of single frame dots make a person more or less susceptible to "programming"? I can think of two cases:
1. The person is unaware, but subconscience catches the info without the conscience filtering/judging the info. Programming successful.
2. The person is aware, thinks about "it" and thus it affects the course action the person takes.

What if the symbol just happens to coincide with a certain scene or concept in the movie at the time the symbol is shown? Will I automatically associate that symbol with something else (i.e. advertising). Can dot patterns in other contexts be used to trigger me? What if a given dot pattern is always present during a fight scene--can I later be caused to become more excited, even violent, if that pattern is shown to me (like on the news when the administration needs more approval for actions relating to war)?

Can the symbols be used to "bookend" concepts, so that I can be triggered to do really complicated tasks? (like making me post silly conspiracy theories to ATS a two-in-the-morning) : )

Anti Piracy:

CAP comes in two forms: either a code printed on the sprocket edge of a motion picture print, or a multi-dot pattern that is printed in a couple of frames in various segments of a film print of a theatrically exhibited motion picture. This codes and patterns are referred to as a CAP code.

The code identifies the particular theater that is playing the print of a movie and/or distributor of the print. It's added to the print before it is sent to a theater. When dots are used, they're arranged in a unique pattern as identification.
en.wikipedia.org...

The usefulness of the watermarks is not what bothers me, though. I am absolutely outraged that they stuck these things into movies and then charged me to see this vandalism. Like I said, I have only seen the watermarks in 2 movies. The first time was during Kill Bill vol 1. The watermarks are small iconic patterns of orange/brown dots. They flashed on the screen at least 3 or 5 times during Kill Bill, at least once during a black and white scene. The patterns reminded me of the logos the aliens in "V" had on their uniforms, a bit like the old Burlington Mills logo, except that the MPAA watermarks are dots only, not dots and dashes, as far as I could tell in the split second the vandalism jolted me from my blissful state of brainless entertainment.
sirsha.com...

"They don't publicly talk about this," said Brad Hunt of the Motion Picture Association of America, "but it's a well-known fact that forensic watermarking is being used on theatrical release prints because that's how we can determine sources of piracy."

So what do they do when people complain about the hideous artifacts that appear throughout the movie. Also known as groups of brown dots pasted over the film in random spots for a few frames throughout the film. I don't know about anyone else, but I find these extremely irritating, almost as irritating as the 'PIRACY IS THEFT' video I have to watch after *buying* a DVD, and before viewing a film in a theatre, that I've *paid* to see.
digg.com...

WCityMike writes "Steve Kraus, a Chicago film projectionist, noted in this week's Movie Answer Man column that movie studios are quite purposefully putting 'large reddish brown spots that flash in the middle of the picture, usually placed in a light area' in order to ruin computer-compressed pirated copies of films. Among recent films that feature these spots are 'Ali,' 'Behind Enemy Lines,' '28 Days Later,' 'Freddy vs. Jason' and 'Underworld.' (I guess they had to destroy the movies in order to save them ... )"
slashdot.org...

[edit on 30-5-2006 by AgentSmith]