No. Back in the days before platters were prevalent, yes. Nowadays, at least one changeover in every film of the last few years has one of those finicky changeovers. Frequently it affects the audio if two frames are missing. Remember, it's not just ONE frame, it's TWO frames and that is plenty to hear a jump in the audio and on some occasions enough to notice a jump in the picture. Can you see dirt on a film if it is dirty? Guess what, each speck of dirt is on one frame, not multiple frames. Can you see those flashes of one clear frame in the Star Wars movies? Of course you can. You never know what is going to be at the beginning or end of a reel that might affect continuity and this is also a reason to NEVER use opaque tape.

Some quick examples. Toy Story II has a reel that starts with Woody sitting upright after a nightmare. The reel before it ends with a circular wipe to black in the center of the screen. If a couple of frames are missing at the changeover, the "sit up" action is lost as well as the end of the wipe. Yes it is very quick and it is noticeable. Moulin Rouge reel 9 starts with a partially faded up end title slate. Miss a few frames and it no longer gives the optical illusion of fading up. Terminator II has a reel that ends with the line "knives and...." What was that??? That's what you hear when frames are chopped off. The full line is "knives and stabbing weapons" that is heard only in theaters who care to preserve ALL frames. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has a reel change in mid-action with intense music playing. I screened this at a theater that chopped off one ID frame per leader and the jump was obvious. In the Sound of Music there is a changeover in mid-song. Now don't even try to tell me that the music won't miss a beat if two frames are missing. There are tons of others, but these are the first few that come to mind.

Don't be a lazy projectionist. Unless you have the ability to pre-screen the reel changes to see if missing a couple of frames will matter, all of the good operators I know make it a habit to preserve every frame. It really is not hard to keep up with the leaders at all, it's just that many people can't break an old habit they were trained to do. If you must be lazy, please at least ONLY leave one ID frame on the HEADs only. Preserve all of the frames on the tail of the reels (which also helps future changeover projectionists for that print). I have no sympathy for lazy operators who can not use their brains to verify proper leaders and yes it is true that I am an "extremely-anal-perfectionist". You'll never see a jump in my presentation though!

And of course we all know that Steve Guttag is the one changeover guy who is frame accurate in his changeovers, so he doesn't count. Most every changeover I've seen have been sloppy in the timing though. Frequently you can tell there is a jump. Not always (depending on how the reels were cut), but I'm just not willing to build a print only to find out later that I SHOULD HAVE left every frame in tact as a jump in a changeover passes. We only get one shot at splicing the films together correctly.

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It is also not difficult to imagine Kodak, etc. making stock with an index hole every 4 perfs (to be used for the non-SR-D edge obviously) just like they used to put at 5 perf intervals on 70mm stock. (Yes, used to--it's gone now.) The labs didn't always print in accordance but at least you could find a frame line in solid black by extrapolating from a known position ("OK, on this reel the frame lines are 2 perfs to the right of the index holes.")

For 35mm the raw stock could be assembled with all splices at the mark and the prints struck so that the framelines are thus aligned.

This would instantaneous improvement in presentation across the board:

(1) No more lab splices to cut or see projected.
(2) Frame line reference means you always know where the line is. No more reason for lazy operators to cut off fade-outs/fade-ins. Fewer errors.
(3) Costs to stock manufacturer offset by silver recovery on the additional perforating chaff.

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I always remove them if I catch them, and if I miss one during hand-checking, at least running changeover means that pulling one of out a reel after I've run it is pretty straightforward.

Steve said:

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For 35mm the raw stock could be assembled with all splices at the mark and the prints struck so that the framelines are thus aligned.

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But having lab splices frameline registered isn't sufficient in all cases. If you're running in analog sound, they're still quite audible. If the film is in scope, they are often visible. No where near as bad as when they're 2 perfs off the frameline, but still not good.

Also, according to the
THX grading standards, specifically "Lab Grading",

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Any problem that draws itself and pulls the audience out of the picture receives a "C" or a "Reject" grade. Reels with clean or mid-frame lab splices, for example, are automatically given a "C" grade.

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They go on to talk about how "Select Release" prints are "A" and "B" grade only, and "Release Show Prints" (whatever that means ) are "A" only. I have some recollection of seeing text somewhere that suggested some folks had arrangements to get lab-splice -free release prints, by paying an extra fee. Does anyone have any documentation on this?

Also, what does (e.g.) Technicolor say if you try to reject a reel based on lab splices. Do they just nod and put it in their computer, or do they give you some pushback? I've never tried on the grounds of a lab splice...

--jhawk

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Either call technicolor and have them fax me a sheet with all the id frames, call my booker to get them from ets

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I suspect it wouldn't be useful for us, anyway, since the non-theatrical bookers we use aren't open past 5pm, and it's extremely rare for us to be inspecting prints any time other than late evening.

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Alternatively, they could start a new 6000' run into the printer and take off the first two reels as splice-free, and then collect all the short ends together and give the rest of us prints with 6 lab splices to a reel. Won't that be wonderful?

I suppose perhaps the cost of inspection/grading is higher than the cost of the short end. I dunno.

--jhawk

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--jhawk

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