bought another film camera (oh no) and this one's got that feature where it can stamp the photos with the date, and i've finally figured out why those datestamps were always reddish orange

it's because the date is projected from the pressure plate onto the back of the film

the layer structure of color film means that light coming from the back is only going to expose the red-sensitive layer and maybe the green-sensitive layer

(for those who know what redscale is, it's that)