Thank-you for your feedback. You obviously beleive that film-guard is an essential part of the booth. I do however beleive you are missing my point.(opinion) This topic was not about filmguard. I have never used it. It may work, it may not. I don't really care at this point. I never said film guard is crap or anything negative about the product prior to my attack.

The purpose of this topic was to find out what you as individuals focus your attention on more than any other aspect that relates to presenting a film. It could be training of staff, checking volume levels daily, monitoring your light levels etc. I simply wanted to know what you dedicate more of your time to. The whole "Don't say film guard" comment was simply to dismiss the obvious. Right there I gave the product a compliment. What I was getting at was "Don't bother to mention film-guard as it seems to obviously have quite an impact judging from everyone else's comments in the past."
I wanted methods,procedures. Things that you have come up with yourself. Not products. If I wanted products then the key to presentation would surly be the projector! Without that even film guard is rather pointless! Just a joke Brad. Calm down! Deep breaths. Count to 10!!

Greg said "Don't knock it till you try it". Hello?? Did you even read my very first post?? I didn't knock it. I did not even comment on it. All I did was say the words "film guard" and "don't" in the same sentance.

Zach, it is not "pointless bickering". If Brad had of written that sarcastic response to a topic you had posted and had taken it completly out of context i'm sure it would be a different story.

Bottom line. I have no opinion on film guard as I have never used it. I feel I have made that as clear as I can.

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>>Personally my main focus is at the workbench. Dirty & scratched film bothers me!<<

If that is true, and I do not doubt that it is, then obviously Film Guard should be on your 'essentials' list of equipment for your booth.

Brad said something like 'you won't believe it until you've tried it'. That really is true. No matter how careful you are at the bench and putting it onto the plate etc...it will never...,never be cleaner than running FG.

We're runnig with Kinoton FP30's were using PTR's to go with it. We were at our 5th week of X-Men. I looked at it and thought 'Man, this print really does still look great considering the passes it has had (about 160). Then I installed FG and a Kelmar cleaner...the print was not running in the FG auditorium.

I went back to that print in its 6th week and I could not believe that I had even considered this print to be looking great. I noticed all the black spots of dirt (and the Kinotons are pretty kind so it wasn't like it was shedding or anything...it was just looking like it had been run 175 times.

We are now completing our run of our first 'new' print which has been FG'd from the beginning. After 130 passes, 'Pokemon 2000' literally does not have a mark on it. It looks better than it did when it first ran through the machine.

Brad is proud of his creation and I don't care what his scientific background may or may not be. This stuff works. I can understand his defence although he may look at it days later and think himself that he jumped the gun a little bit in his response, I don't know.

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John,

If your having problems keeping prints clean with an FP 30 then there is something seriously wrong. This is precisly my point of the topic. What procedures (that's PROCEDURES to all the idiot's) do people pay attention to.
John, filmguard may remove all that dirt and minor base scratches from your print but maybe you should be asking yourself before you put on filmguard, "why are my prints getting covered in crap in the first place". I assure you this is all to do with PROCEDURES. Things like people spinning out ads at excessive speeds, ad change techniques, cueing procedures etc. I am glad John that your filmguard is able to make up prints, do all the ad changes, write up the running sheets and so on because the way all you people are talking it seems to do the fricking lot. All I wanted from this topic John was to hear what procedures you have in place to improve things such as film make-up. I honestly don't know why you all keep going on about film guard. I have made it quite clear that my comment was not putting down film-guard. Just because Brad feels he has to defend himself I really thought that you would have the intelligence to understand what I was really trying to say. But a good thing has come from this. At least people have seen Mr Millers true colors.

You can all go ahead and quote me on and on but that will not resolve what has come out of this. Brad Miller is constantly hanging this web site over peoples heads to obviously gain exposure to his product.
His remark about film-guard running the web site is crap. The members run the website. If you have no members you have no web site.
And you know what that means Bradley. No $$$$$.

Anyone ever wondered why company reps post here less and less. Well, because if Brad can't work the thing it immediatly gets bagged. If you think my comments are ignorent I am glad. Now you know who Sony felt when some moron on this site with no idea gave them a bad review amongst other great products.

Anyway, this topic has ended my patience so your wish is granted. This is my last post.
Well done Brad, another person with an opinion you got rid of. Hopefully you can get rid of all of us then you can sell filmguard to everyone. (Look, it may work and I take those opinions of people who swear by it but that is beside the point. We are now way beyond the discussion of filmguard being effective)

Anyone that thinks there a profectionist projectionist is full of themselves. There is no such thing. Everyone makes mistakes.

Goodbye all,

I have enjoyed listening to your thoughts over the past 6 months and learned alot in the process.

Nick

Oh! One last thing. Great excuse about that vacation Brad. Did you spend all day thinking of that one. It was a little lame.

Brad, in regard to your passionate response to Nicks passionate response, I'm sure that anyone who takes enough time to read and comment on Film Tech understands that this site must take a large amount of time to maintain. I also know from personal experience that there are many valuable things that can be learned from this. Every time I log on I read of some new or different way of doing something, and that is a credit to this site and the subscribers who write here. No doubt with this topic alone, Nick and all readers have learnt or have questioned film handling techniques and the finer points of their own presentation. If this is so, you have achieved in what the site is meant to do.

Correct film handling in all of its forms is the most important thing in a projection room. And from this heated debate we all have learnt a little something about doing that better

I never said I was a perfect projectionist, that was a nickname people would tease me with because I am so picky. I agree with you, there is no such thing. Also, it wasn't a "vacation". Did you not even notice I have been virtually nonexistent on the forum for the last 4 days? Hmmmm, yes I must be lying about being gone as a lame excuse then. Why I bother doing this to try and prove to you Nick I don't know, but here's a couple of the friggin' receipts for gas in New Mexico and Texas. Lots 'o trust here. It's so much appreciated. Perhaps next time I am on the road I should make a live webcam to appese you. My privacy of where I go and what I do isn't worth anything anyway, right?

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Thank you Brad,
Great site with real content

It's not said enough.

Dennis

Sorry to be off-topic, but I used to fight this "the users own the site" nonsense back in the old text-based BBS days (yep...pre-Internet...when 300 baud was king!)

I can't stay silent on this. The website belongs to Brad...PERIOD. It could be a commercial site for the sole purpose of promoting his product. BUT, Brad has allowed the users to make this site THE source for information on motion picture presentation. A web site with this much material and volume costs a lot of money, and its all coming from Brad's pocket.

Thanks, Brad.

Now, back to the topic at hand...

Mark L.

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As I stated, I honestly believed that my print looked great. The Kinoton is indeed the kindest machine I have ever had the pleasure to use. Obviously you think so too judging by your comments that there must be something seriously wrong.

There wasn't...but in hindsight, there was...
I hadn't tried FG at that point.

Nick, this is the last I'm going to say on this matter because frankly we are all in trying to achieve something here together and this bickering is not going to help anybody.

As I said, there are many things which make presentation better. However, I am assuming you actually do know how to make a correct splice without scratching the print.

You asked the question, remember? I'm not about to give you all the answers as there's plenty of us here able to add their two cents...but you did ask the question...

>>Since presentation is what most of us pride ourselves on I am interested to hear what you beleive is the KEY factor in providing great film presentation.<<

The 'key' in my opinion is Film Guard. You can do whatever else you like to think your prints are spectacularly clean...you will still not have a print that looks as marvelous as a new print straight from the lab after 130 passes as mine will. Hell, my print that has done 130 passes will look better than a 20 pass (or less) copy of an untreated print. And I only stop at 130 as that is the most passes we have done thus far with a FG'd print. I fully envisage that after 300 runs, it will look no different.

So my procedure... (I will now point out to you clearly that this is my procedure so you will not mistake it for a shopping list. Did we all really have to clearly add the word procedure so you would know what it was? Just because we know how to read and construct a reply post without stating the bleeding obvious does not make us all idiots, but for your benefit I will point out the fact as you seem to require it to be made abundantly clear to you)

...my procedure I now put in place is to make sure all prints are treated with FG. Got it now?

Nick, you asked a question and I gave you my opinion. Isn't that the reason people ask questions?

I am sorry that you are going, but that is your loss, not ours.