A friend on Facebook shared this image of a scene in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus. I don't know much about movie-making, so I'm trying to figure out what the numbers are for. Is it for the director to be able to yell "More blood on 296!" or whatever before they shoot this scene?
Hi
In the Kubrick film 'The Paths of Glory', German policemen were hired as extras to play the French soldiers attacking 'The Anthill'. Each man was given a number on a sheet of paper which corresponded to an area in the battlefield he would 'die' in. Perhaps something similar is happening in the scene above from 'Spartacus'.
Maybe Narukami, 'our man in Hollywood' can offer another explanation.
Graham.