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I just said the same thing twice! Cool.

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Josh

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"Film is made of silver, video is made of rust"
'nuf said

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Another way of hiding negative splices is to conform the original negative as A and B rolls, with scenes alternating between the rolls ("checkerboard cutting"):
http://www.acvl.org/chap3.htm

Splice dimensions are specified by SMPTE Recommended Practice RP 111. The overlap specified for lab splices is 0.049 inches (1.24 mm)(Dimension A), with 0.040 inches (1.02 mm) recommended for minimum visibility on projection.

Scanned image areas for television (e.g., DVD transfers) are specified by SMPTE 96M.

Here's the history of the "scope" dimensions:
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/apertures.htm

The March 1957 SMPTE Journal has PH22.104-1957, the standard for 2.55:1 anamorphic (no optical track), with an aperture size of 0.912 X 0.715 inches. Notice of withdrawal of this standard was in the January 1964 Journal.

The December 1957 SMPTE Journal has PH22.106-1957 for 2.35:1 anamorphic, with an aperture of 0.839 X 0.715 inches. It was unchanged in the September 1964 Journal. The November 1965 SMPTE Journal published PH22.106-1965 still with the 0.839 X 0.715 aperture size.

In the September 1970 SMPTE Journal, a new draft of PH22.106 was proposed, with an aperture size of 0.838 X 0.700 inches, to minimize the flashes at splices. This was republished as standard PH22.106-1971 in the October 1971 issue.

In the June 1976 SMPTE Journal, the two (flat and scope) projectable image area standards (PH22.58 and PH22.106) were consolidated into one standard and renamed PH22.195. The publication of PH22.195-1984 in the October 1984 Journal still had the scope area as 0.700 X 0.838 inches.

The June 1992 SMPTE Journal published a proposed revision, with a scope area of 0.690 X 0.825 inches. In August 1993, the standard was published as SMPTE 195-1993, with the current area of 0.690 X 0.825 inches. So August 1993 is when the two formats became the same width of 0.825 inches.

With the small frame of the 2-perf Techniscope format, the negative splices would be impossible to hide unless A/B roll printing was used.

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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: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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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: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

To answer your question, locking the framing knobs is a wonderful technique to ENSURE that ALL of your presentations at the theater, even when you are not there to supervise, are always ran perfectly in frame. Basically here is the argument.

The *typical* multiplex always has at least one "projectionist" who is either lazy, careless or just plain stupid and manages to start up films occasionally out of frame. First, you now have an embarassing start to your theater's presentation, even if he immediately cranks the framing knob to fix it...but did he? Most of us who favor locking the framing controls find that when the framing is rotated to fix a threading error, it is virtually never correct! Negative splices flash on scope films and flat films are commonly rotated to the point of just barely losing the frame line, which means your presentation runs almost a complete perforation out of frame. Completely unacceptable! With no "cheat knob" available, this forces the projectionists to double check their threadings before they hit START. Also, since most projectors alter the upper and lower loop size when the framing is rotated, always starting in frame substantially improves the odds that the loops will not start slapping on something (that scratches the film) after the framing knob has been altered.

So what happens when this same "projectionist" runs a booth with their framers locked? Simple. The guy misthreads the film, although much less often than before (if at all) since he knows the consequences of slacking, the movie starts and it is out of frame, and then the projectionist has to shut the whole thing down and open up the gate to properly thread the film in the gate. (While of course the audience members look at him through the window, something most all projectionists hate.) Meanwhile, most automation systems will announce his mistake by sounding the alarm throughout the building when the prematurely stops the show, further adding to his embarassment. Is this a good thing? Absolutely, because like I said it FORCES the projectionists to pay more attention to what they are doing. As for the presentation, the way I see it if the show starts out of frame, having the framing rotate up/down only to almost always still land out of frame for the duration of the show (and what could be another week's worth of shows after that one) is no better or worse than just shutting the system down for 15-30 seconds while the projectionist does his job.

The other benefit is when you come into the booth to run your shifts (or any other real projectionist), you know that if you thread the machines "in frame" that they will always be truly in frame, and never have to concern yourself about them actually being a bit off.

Now there are people who will claim that every film is printed a little bit off from each other, and that Deluxe's prints have altering framing depending on whether the printing was forward or reverse printed. Now while to the truly anal that may be so, but I can tell you after implementing this practice for a few years I have never seen anything that looked to me like it was out of frame in the least.

It may be considered a "mean" tactic by some, but damnit it works! Anyone who has to have a framing crutch has no business in the booth.

[/rant]

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As I noted, the height of the negative BH perf is 0.073 inches. The height of the print film KS perf is 0.078 inches. So, even with a bi-directional contact printer, the vertical shift in the image centerline from the "nominal" equidistant between the perfs should not exceed 0.078 - 0.073 = 0.005 inches, or only about 1% of the image height for 1.85:1 "flat". If the centerline shifts more than that, an error was likely made during optical printer setup or in composing the image in the camera viewfinder.