The puzzle is in the form of 8 movie clips and 1 "Coming Soon" video promising new movies.
Each movie clip has a segment inserted with a clapboard showing each movie's Title, Roll, Scene, Take, and Director. This is the needed information -- the titles and directors of the actual movies in the clips are not used. (Also, every clapboard shows the same Camera guy, Phil, and the same Date, which is the date of the Hunt).
The clips are presented in alphabetical order by the title on the clapboard. When re-ordered by Director (whose last names start with A-H), the first words of each title in order say WATCH FRAME BY FRAME DOT COM MAY HELP. The last words of each title say WHEN STICKS CLICK YOU CAN START 2 COUNT. (The letters under "Roll" spell NOT PART OF PUZZLE).
The final "Coming Soon" video flies through several movie posters really fast (just one frame for each!) Freeze framing on these posters (watchframebyframe.com may help!) reveals that each poster has a starburst containing an exclamation (like Awesome! or Booyah!) that covers one word in the movie's title. When alphabetized by the exclamations, the covered words say TIME IN SECONDS IS SCENE POINT TAKE.
Per these instructions, the "Scene" number S on each clapboard represents a number of Seconds, and the "Take" number T represents Tenths of a second.
For each clip, solvers must pause the video S.T seconds after the clap of the clapboard, or S.T seconds before the clap if the clapboard is upside down. (This is called a "tail slate" and is common in filmmaking. The guy holding the clapboard says "Tail slate" in each of those clips, so solvers could google the term if they're unfamiliar). If solvers do use watchframebyframe.com, the flavortext tells them to keep the default 25fps setting.
The other part of the flavor, "We've got movie sign!" suggests the final step: At the specified point in each video, a character is forming an ASL letter with one of their hands (or, as close as we could find to an ASL letter). Take these letters in order (again by director) to get the answer BROADWAY.
Director | TItle | Title | Title | Roll | Scene | Take | Time from Click |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Wes Anderson | Watch | me | When | NO | 55 | 7 | 55.7 |
Kathryn Bigelow | Frame | of | Sticks | TP | 35 | 6 | 35.6 |
Damien Chazelle | By | the Camera's | Click | AR | 9 | 9 | 9.9 |
Brian dePalma | Frame | Me Framing | You | TO | 22 | 3 | -22.3 |
Clint Eastwood | Dot | Marquez Thinks She | Can | FP | 29 | 9 | 29.9 |
David Fincher | Com. | Codon in Press | Start | UZ | 7 | 3 | 7.3 |
Greta Gerwig | May | I murder thee? | 2 | ZL | 48 | 0 | -48 |
Tom Hooper | Help! | I'm in Love with a | Count! | E | 30 | 5 | 30.5 |
Coming Soon to Projection Booth: | Correct Word |
---|---|
No AWESOME! To Die | TIME |
BOOYAH! The Heights | IN |
Gone in 60 COOL! | SECONDS |
This DOPE! 40 | IS |
EXCELLENT!s From A Marriage | SCENE |
Match FANTASTIC! | POINT |
GREAT! Me Home Tonight | TAKE |