Film leader

You know how when you play with a toy car, you push it along with your hand and it moves? Well, when you play a movie in a theater, there's no one pushing it along, it moves all by itself! But before the movie can start moving, the people who make the movie need to put something called a "film leader" at the beginning of the movie.

Think of a film leader like a lollypop with a clear wrapper. Just like how you can't eat the lollypop until you take off the wrapper, the movie also can't start until the film leader is taken off. The film leader is kind of like a preview of the movie, it doesn't show any of the story, just some numbers and symbols to help the movie start playing in the right place.

After the movie is done, the film leader comes back on so it tells the movie theater worker that it's over and it's time to take it off the machine. So the next time you watch a movie in a theater, look closely and you might see the film leader at the very beginning and end!