AFAIK, "Zebra Tape" grew out of my presentations on film handling damage at the 1980 NATO Convention and 1982 SMPTE Conference. I reported that many projectionists were marking splices with very visible marks, shoe polish, white-out, etc. Lenny Dickstein took the idea of a splicing tape with a frameline mark to Hudson Photographic Industries, and "zebra tape" was born. Unfortunately, unless care is used in applying the tape, the marks can show on the screen, especially with the narrow framelines of "scope" prints. And Dolby Digital and SDDS tracks don't like to be covered up with colored zebra stripes.

The EPRAD marker and non-flaking paint is an improvement over any other type of marker, but still needs care in applying. But completely removing the marks is problematic. How effective is FilmGuard in cleaning them off?

Whenever possible, try to get the job done without marking the film. And anything you do put on the print should not be visible on the screen and be completely removable.

Does anyone use 1.5-inch wide (8-perf) splicing tape, that allows the tape edges to be on the framelines, reducing visibility of the tape splice on the screen?

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Opaque or solid color tape IS wrong, and should be a "no-no" on any part of the print that ends up being shown on the screen. Obviously you're covering the image and soundtracks on at least two frames of film at each splice. (Worse, with the 1-inch wide tape typically used, you're covering PART of two frames, making the splice even more obvious to the audience). There are much better and unobtrusive ways of finding the reel-to-reel splices during breakdown, like Brad's method of marking each shipping reel to indicate its' "full" load.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com

At Cinemark, it's a lot harder because there are a lot of inexperienced people and they kinda' need it. My solution has been to use the part of the tape that doesn't have the cross bar. I put the yellow along the sprocket holes, like normal, but the center of the film remains clear. It seems to be a good compromise.

At the other place I work at, I try to use clear tape all the time. When I have "helpers" I do the same trick I do at Cinemark.

Finding the splices isn't hard. Anybody can do it with a little practice. The problem is when I get prints in that are all chopped up. Then I take a permanent magic marker and make a mark on the tape so I know which one to stop at for the breakdown.

I really hate when people mark up the film with shoe polish or white markers! I spend the most of my time getting that SH** off the film! The other thing I spend a lot of time on is fixing crappy splices.