I also like the steel Goldberg shippers but they tend to get way too mangled and sometimes get sharp edges

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It is "normally better" in the case of archival prints which are only occasionally projected to store them on cores in those same metal cans in which which raw stock comes originally. For shipment these do need to be properly packed carefully in 15x15" boxes, which I hope was the case with the films you rec'd for your festival.

Bill, I saw you are in Richmond VA. Was this festival at the Byrd theatre by any chance?

Handling film on cores is no problem at all IF you have some good "split reels" [Hollywood Film Co. makes excellent ones, or did] and a proper conventional 2-projector setup where you do changeovers. You just wind the reels off the cores onto house reels during your inspection and then take up back onto the cores during projection of the last showing of the feature. Or it is also possible to work 100% just with cores and split reels but YOU MUST HAVE good split reels.

Being "wetired," I personally would refuse, and in fact in the past have refused, to become involved with anything where it is not done properly with the right equipment in the booth. Under these conditions it would, indeed, be a "nightmare."

It seems Technicolor needs some convincing....lets start glueing/fusing the reels so that the flanges don't come off....after build up "fix" the reels (permanently) and I mean all of them, good or bad. By the time you need to break down on them....they will be ready for the industry.

Technicolor will enjoy not being able to reclaim the cores or flanges again!

Steve

But today, I was training a prospective projectionist on how to build his show. (In this case, it was Pearl Harbor).

I have read countless negative comments by Film-Tech members about TES. Some of those comments, I thought, were stretching the point. How wrong I was in this thinking.

I am now convinced that TES is in its finest hour.

1. Reels do fly apart even at slow speeds.
2. Reels fall apart when removed from the shipping cans.
3. The shipping cans are so badly mangled, I would hesitate to ship a junk print in them.
4. There must have been one of each kind of defective pile of that was made.
5. All reels looked like they were an accident looking for a place to happen.
6. In the process of teaching the new prospective operator, it was more like teaching a safety course on the lurking dangers of TES reels.

I had a difficult time accepting how the quality control has dropped to rock bottom with respect to the TES reels, and all I have read about them on these forums was true to the maximum degree.

I have also noted poor quality control in the print itself. While splicing the reels together, I noticed on one reel where the cut was made on the frame line, the frame line remained on one frame. It looked like a .002 displacement. The splicer was ok. The newbie asked me why that was, and the only answer I could give was quality control.

Seems to me that if the "Big Boys" really cared about projection quality of their prints, they would certainly have a higher quality standard in making them.

TES has, on every occasion, decided not to get involved with us, the ones who have these complaints. We don't matter. Just as long as they are getting the $$$ from the studios then they are happy.

Surely if they ignore us we'll just go away.

You would be expecting anything different?

But at least one good thing has happened. The accursed bushchild won't be getting away appointing ultra-right-wing judges to the SupCt with the defection of the Senator to go independent.

This is FILM-TECH. Not a political forum.

If you wish to discuss politics NOT DIRECTLY RELATED to film handling, there are many many places to go besides here.

Rant Off.