What is that called?

Question

In those old fashion movie (like the black and white ones) what are those numbers called in the beging.....the ones that are counting down?? They usually start with 5...then 4....3....2...1..0...THEY THE MOVIE STARTS!!



What are those numbers called...or you can just give me a link with a picture of those numbers!
THANKS IN ADVANCE!!!

Answer 1

Those numbers were the "Projectionists Cue". In the good ole days when we watched movies that were on film. the projectionist in the booth of a movie theatre had more than one movie projector. This was mainly because a feature film couldn't be fit on one single large reel of film for delivery to the theatre, so they would send the movie in several reels & the projectionist would start the film on one projector & cue up the 2nd reel on the other projector. He would close the window in the booth that the 2nd projector would normally shoot through & he could see in miniature form the numbers on the back of the closed window & prevent them from showing up on the screen. With a visible countdown for the projectionist to see he could then synchronize the two reels together, & depending on the projectionists skill level, the audience would see nothing but a continuous story unfolding on the screen.
Now because theatres would show several films during a single show, with things like 2nd features, newsreels, cartoons, etc. Filmakers would routinely put the "Projectionists cue" at the start of every film.
Later on they invented a large capacity projector so that the projectionist could splice all of the movies reels together & load them into one large continuous spool inside the projection booth. So the projectionist didn't have to work so hard at every showing of the film during it's run at the theatre.

Answer 2

Classic

Answer 3

movie countdown

Answer 4

a countdown

Answer 5

i dont know. could be "count down", "takes", got me.