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Topic: Leaders Marked as Both Head And Tail

John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 09-30-2002 09:53 AM

Paul asked: "John, whatever happened to quality control? If this problem cropped up in the last year or so, what were they using when it was not a problem? "

Since most of the release print labs have been running very fast processing machines for quite a few years, if this is a recent problem, it may just be a matter of a few operators needing to be reminded that the misscuts can be confusing if they stay on the reel.

Send me samples of the ends of the problem leaders with details (title, print number, lab), and I will pass them along to the lab for attention.

------------------
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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Craig Hanham
Film Handler

Posts: 79
From: Wellington, New Zealand
Registered: Oct 2001

posted 09-30-2002 08:15 PM

I dont know about checking the cue marks. Just had a print where some bozo cut out the original cue marks.
I won't mention the multiple H&T splices.
muttermuttermutter

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-01-2002 12:13 PM

I've never had a problem with cue marks on prints from US labs (other than the different spacing standards). It seems that some of the European labs aren't printing them, however. Eclair in France seems to be a particular offender. German prints have the funky square motor cues (and, I think, different spacing than American cues). I don't believe that I've run any British prints lately.

The head/tail labelling issue seems to be particularly common with trailers. It doesn't bother me too much with features, however; I usually just snip off the offending piece of film where the lab should have cut it and, if long enough, save it to use as extra tail leader for platter use.

My bigger lab issue at the moment is prints that don't have several feet of _black_ tail leader at the end of each reel and/or don't have _black_ film between the "2" or "3" on the head leader and the first frame of picture. It's becoming very common to see "brown" or clear tail leader, which can cause problems in changeover houses (it's been a couple of years since I last missed a changeover, but having a few extra feet of black makes me feel more secure). Also, tail leaders in general need to be longer than a few feet. At the very least, the last reel of the feature should have an extra 10-20 feet of tail; better yet, make the tails of every third reel (R3, R6, etc.) extra-long for large-reel use as well. I will add extra leader myself if the lab didn't (which is most of the time), but I'm getting tired of having to buy or scavenge clear leader in order to protect someone else's prints.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 10-01-2002 01:56 PM

Standard SMPTE 301 specifies 8 feet of "Protective Section" for both head and tail, and also that the black sections be "black (neutral density greater than 1.95)".

AFAIK, the leader is part of the billed footage from the lab to the distributor. So if the leaders are being cut short as a cost savings, don't blame the lab.

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Michael Brown
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1522
From: Bradford, England
Registered: May 2001

posted 10-01-2002 04:51 PM

[quote="Adam"]Also, if you breathe on the film, the base side will fog up and the emulsion side won't. Unless, of course the film has something on it like FilmGuard or PhotoGard.[/quote]

Also if you have the end of a reel of film hold it up and look for the natural curve in the film. The emulsion is the underside.

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Adam Martin
I'm not even gonna point out the irony.

Posts: 3686
From: Dallas, TX
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 10-01-2002 05:14 PM

I'm not sure if the curvature of the film is a reliable test. The emulsion will shrink when humidity is too low (causing it to be inside the curve of the film) and will expand when humidity is too high (outside the curve). Nominal humidity level is 40-60% RH.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 10-01-2002 06:29 PM

Adam is correct --- curl is dependent on the relative humidity and can be in either direction:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/h1/baseP.shtml#characteristics

In general, film handling characteristics are best between 50 and 60 percent relative humidity, when the processed print film has just a slight amount of "positive" curl.

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 10-02-2002 11:58 AM

A [related] question about lab shipping orientation.

For the first time in a while, we had a brand new uncut print. I was surprised to find that all 7 reels shipped emulsion-out, four of them tail-out and three of them head-out.

Is this a result of bidirectional printing, or something else? I'm particularly surprised to find tail-out emulsion-out rather than tail-out emulsion-in.

This was Deluxe Toronto.

--jhawk

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 10-02-2002 12:58 PM

Orientation differences of new prints are often due to whether that particular reel was run through an inspection projector, or had additional handling in "positive assembly". Typically, labs using unidirectional printers print heads-to-tails, so the film normally comes off the processing machine heads out. But you are correct: prints made on a bi-directional printer are a mix of orientations, and the differences may translate through the processing, inspection, and "positive assembly" stages, depending upon the particular lab's equipment and operational procedures.

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