I agree that a colored bar across the frameline that shows on the screen is "tacky". If you reread my post, my suggestion was for tape with a 0.10 inch colored stripe across the TAPE, so it could carefully be placed over the perforations on the side opposite the Dolby Digital soundtrack --- the colored stripe would NOT cover any soundtrack, and would NOT intrude into the picture area.

But the BEST idea in this discussion is to temporarily mark the shipping reel to show how full it was, so that on breakdown onto the same reel, you'll know when the splice is coming. That way, you don't need to mark the film at all .

The WORST idea is to use white shoepolish, "whiteout", or any other material on the film that will flake, bleed, or get the film dirty.

I would also discourage using China Marker (or crayon) to mark the print. Not only does it leave debris in the projector (as you note), but some of that same debris gets stuck in the image and soundtrack areas of the print --- definitely not "film done right".

For film on a core, simply measure and record the diameter of each reel as received. When respooling onto the cores, look for the splice when the roll approaches that diameter. If you use flanges (split reels) to handle film on cores, mark the calibrations of roll length directly on the flange, which will be valid as long as the film type and core diameter are constant.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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The marker is invisible to SDDS / SRD tracks.

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At UA Greenwood we used to use silver marking pens to mark the reel changes at buildup. Easy to see on the platter. But we stopped doing this. Why? Well most of the times we would get in many of our prints a week early (sometimes even earlier than that) so that the big boys at the corporate office could watch the prints at home. We would build up the movies onto two or three 7,000 foot reels. All of their home projectors had foil-sensing cue detectors so that they wouldn't have to get up and do the changeover themselves. What happened? You guessed it... the silver marking actually triggered cues.

And yes, if it was a highly anticipated title we would platter it and watch it before it was sent out to the boys (if we had time).

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