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Author Topic: Hey you, you suck! (AKA: Outing bad film handlers) Chris Hipp Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1462 From: Mesquite, Tx (east of Dallas) Registered: Jul 2003 posted 08-10-2003 04:39 PM                     We use Strong optical cue detectors and we place the cue tape folded ove rthe outboard SDDS track. I agree with Jesse, I hate seeing the image shift when the cue goes through. I always put the tape in the black and I throw a fit when someone else does not.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 08-10-2003 04:49 PM                     You don't need to fold the tape over when using the Strong detectors. Just put it on the emulsion side so that half of the tape is covering the SDDS track and the other half is hanging off of the edge of the film, then with a good pair of scissors, cut off the excess. Doing the cue that way will not disturb focus as much or cause the picture to shift horizontally or collect as much dirt.  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 08-10-2003 05:42 PM                     Can't you just use a splicer to cut the tape so the cut is properly registered with the film edge? By the way, trying to stay on topic, Brad & John Hendrickson, you both complained about obvious damage that should have been caught by TES reel inspectors. Did you communicate your concerns regarding problems that should have been caught during inspection to Technicolor? --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 08-10-2003 05:46 PM                     No John. The tape needs to be longer to make sure the detector picks it up. and you should know better than anyone about your corporate comment.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 08-10-2003 07:48 PM                     Most of the prints that I see have cue tape running all along the sprocket holes. It's a real bitch to get it off, too, as was said earlier. When the film has been sitting for 15-20 years, it really makes the cue tape either just fall off, or stick really well. Usually, it sticks well. FG takes the adhesive off pretty well, but trichlorethane does it better. Yes, I know. I use it with plenty of ventilation, and I use very little at a time. I've got about 2 gallons, so it should last a very long time.  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 08-11-2003 12:44 AM                        Maybe I'm just cranky because somebody neglected to ship this out of your theatre in time for me not to lose a couple shows, but anyway... If your prints come in with shipping labels that look like this, you suck (at least once in a while). Now I know that code names are stupid, but everyone who needs to know what the code name represents already knows. In case that wasn't clear enough, here's the title we're talking about. Hmmm... china marker, nice. Let's take a look inside. I bet the tail of eight would have faired better if you had bothered to put those reel bands on. Oh well, at least you didn't throw them out, along with the rating band that I'm required to have to run the print. Wow, where do you buy that kind of tape. Does it come on a roll pre-used like that? I bet just using the reel bands (no tape required) would be much easier.  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 08-11-2003 12:45 AM                        Sound pull-ups? What? Who uses the soundtrack on the leader... why not just write on it with your favourite china marker. New splicing tape to attatch the leader! Why not do it right though? Is that how your momma taught you to re-attatch leaders? Excuse me, could you tell me where the frame line is? Would it be right after those two frames and the chunk of china marker? Is this the head of two? It says head of two (about four times) on the other end of the leader, but is this end also the head of two... I'm confused. I see you've got your splicer adjusted to do overlap splices. Great. Now why don't you cut the leaders in the other direction so that the actual film shown and not the leaders have an overlap splice. The way you've done it leaves a huge gap that I now have to chop off... another frame gone... add that to your excessive ID frames. The 'H5' written on the frame is a nice touch too... nothing like china marker all over the picture of my scope movie -- love it! Note: I put the yellow tape on my splicer to make the gap visible. I had it laying around from when my dealer sent me the wrong tape. I splice with clear tape. Great job people, I'm extremely surprised that, other than a few folded edges due to your method of re-attatching the leaders, the print was in otherwise excellent condition, nice and clean too. Why not ship it out right so that it stays in good condition?  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-11-2003 06:41 PM                        Hey, you, at the Rosebud Cinema in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin--you suck! You sent a print of Monty Python and the Holy Grail directly to another theatre, where I inspected it, so I know that your theatre is responsible for the condition of this print. It appears to have been run on a platter, where the reels were joined with the worst, most unpeelable yellow tape that I've ever seen. Of course, you couldn't be bothered to peel that tape when breaking down the print, so I had to spent an unreasonable amount of time to get rid of that abomination. Worse, you "attached" the leaders with masking tape badly, causing edge damage to the first and last foot of nearly every reel. All reels were wound poorly, causing random edge damage to other parts of the film. You didn't remove a nasty lab splice. And whoever plattered this print first (probably not that theatre) cut the fade-outs at the ends of R1 and R2 right in the middle of the fade and before the second set of cues. This will make for fun and excitement when the film plays in a changeover house this weekend.  |  IP: Logged Kevin Wale Expert Film Handler Posts: 167 From: Guymon, OK USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 08-20-2003 01:21 PM                     quote: Mike Blakesley said:but what I hate is when they improperly place the cue tape OVER the perfs so it gets punched by the sprockets, and then won't come off except in microscopic bits. The worst cues are the ones that are made of reflective tape and are placed in the middle of the frames. Usually it's just three or four in a bunch, but I once had to remove "ten" of those bastards in a row from a print. Does that type of automation really require THAT many cues? The first paragraph I'm not quite following... I'm new so I'm just asking... certainly not disagreeing or criticising... Our automation systems on houses 1-5 read cues in this order... Dims at start of film: Cues on soundtrack and nonsoundtrack sides. Half lights at start of credits: Cue on non soundtrack side. End of film: Cue on soundtrack side 12 feet from last frame to be seen on screen. I always line the cue to be between the perfs, but it still gets punched through. How do you put those cues on to where they don't end up in little bits? I mean, the cues have to be where they are and of course putting them in the film area it'self wouldn't be good so??? The second paragraph and subsequent discussions on the issue(especially the you suck if cue is visible on screen at all comment) have left me feeling like I am stuck in a bad place. Screens 6-8 are new. I won't go into the design of these things but none of us are happy with the cost cutting(the owner of the theater didn't want this cost cutting but we have a landlord like everyone else) that went into them. That's irrelevant to the cues but it kind of sets the tone for my frustrations. I'm not sure what readers are on these but the tech instructed us that the cues have to be put right on the frame line in such manner... Dim: one reflective tape thingy. Half: two reflective tape thingys. End: three feflective tape thingys. Intermission:(we don't use this one) FOUR reflective tape thingys.(Thank goodness we cue our intermissions manually!) So, do I suck because I have to put the cues this way? Can it really be done differently? I was told that these readers count the cues in order to determine the function. By the way, we have not been cueing these three screens because the automation doesn't work right anyway. Our other tech is here installing technolight conversions and doing preventive maintenence, I hope he gets to looking at that problem as well. But,... Oh, were an independant theater playing mosty first runs but with 8 screens we tend to still get a lot of second+ runs. I've seen all the bad practises mentioned in this thread in our booth. Except the white out thing... I've recently been made manager of the theatre here so I've been doing lots of research. I never knew this site existed and I mentioned it to my boss and he was like... "Yeah I knew it was there. The guy who runs it is Jeff at Paramount's friend..." Or something like that. So, my training from day one has been... Oh, mostly old school I would say. It's not like the owners don't care because they do. I just now have to find a way to implement changes that I see needed while finding the ones that will really step on toes and try to find out which ones aren't so bad after all... This leads me to questions about reel change marking. We have been cutting a small piece of the white translucent splice tape and just wrapping over the top of the film to where it doesn't cover the soundtrack. Is this a terrible practice and if so why? My observation has been that I don't see any shaving taking place(and if there was I would think it would be happening with the splices too and would be an adjustment error rather than the tape's fault). It runs fine through the machine and it enables me to feel the spices comming while I am watching the film it'self to inspect while breaking down. I don't work in the booth anymore but I am in close communication with the new projection manager and we have discussed quite a bit about improving the onscreen presentation. It's been good, but I want better. LOL. I'll have a new post comming about two of our platters that will add further insight to our situation for those of you who like to know as much as possible before commenting too much. By the way... you guys rock!  |  IP: Logged Dan Lyons Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 698 From: Seal Beach, CA Registered: Sep 2002 posted 08-20-2003 02:19 PM                     Scott: At least your print of "Monty Python" had leaders! I ran this film about a month ago. It came with no heads and tails at all! You can just imagine how messed up the film looked at the reel changes. Danny  |  IP: Logged John Spooner Expert Film Handler Posts: 186 From: South Australia, Australia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 08-20-2003 02:31 PM                     Mr O`shea`s experience with his print was not good and his criticism well warranted. However as my fellow Aussie colleagues will agree, to receive a print as Darryl did is commonplace in Oz now. Not only that but they come in flimsy cardboard boxes which tear easily. To receive our prints in metal trunks (albeit rusty) would be most rare now. As I said along with some other colleagues, prints come on cores, usually the tiny ones, are often badly wound with leaders loose. I don`t want to sound too negative. John Spooner.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-20-2003 03:19 PM                        Kevin - welcome. What I was ranting about is foil cue tape, which is SUPPOSED to be folded over the edge of the print, being placed square on one side of the print, directly over the sprocket holes...then when the print is run a few times, the sprockets punch holes in the tape, making it hard to peel off. We have one of those automations which uses the foil tape placed in the picture area, but if you're careful it's almost always possible to put the cues where they aren't noticed by the audience. For the lights-down cue, I use a piece of black mylar leader in between the trailers and the DTS logo. The lights-down cue is on that mylar, so the same piece gets used over and over. I do a similar thing for end-of-film cue -- I attach a piece of junk film, which has the EOF cue on it, to the tail end of the print. That way the "real" film isn't dragging on the floor and I only have to remove one cue when sending the print out. For the lights-to-half cue at the start of the credits, just be sure it sits right on a frame line, and DON'T put it in the picture area...put it a few feet after the credits have begun. I put a very small piece (about 1/2 inch) piece of edge-mark tape at that same location, which lets me know where that cue is when it's time to remove it. As for those reflective-thingies...the best advice is to remove those bad boys when you send the print out.  |  IP: Logged Carl Martin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1424 From: Oakland, CA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 08-20-2003 03:27 PM                        kevin, your reel change marking idea sounds good to me. i've even played around with having little tabs poking over the soundtrack edge of the film (carefully cut to avoid snagging on anything). i call them shark fins. they haven't caused any problems at all. of course they are unnecessary and with a little practice you can feel for a clear splice, but if other people do breakdown and opaque splices are what the union preaches, then you can't just go cold turkey on them. at least that's my experience, not really being in a position of authority. carl  |  IP: Logged Kevin Wale Expert Film Handler Posts: 167 From: Guymon, OK USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 08-20-2003 07:00 PM                     The first time I saw the reel change marking I mentioned was when the owners bought a theatre with mutts. Since you break down while rewinding from the payload reel it is impossible to see the reel changes comming and those things are pretty hard to controll with those swinging tension arms and whatnot. lol I was sent there to manage a few nights a week as we got it changed over to our ownership and did quite a bit of buildup and breakdown there. When we first got there they were using the opaque white splicing tape with the perfs already there to splice reel changes. ICK! Looked terrible on screen as you can imagine. It was the thickest and most unbendable stuff I have ever seen. Anyway, I noticed that it made the splices really easy to see on the platter too so I could have two or three films going to at least check all the splices before thier first public run when I was the only one around(quite often) and under a time crunch(nearly always). So, that's how we came about to using them regularly. It has become a thing that helps anyone who breaks down know what's going on even when they didn't build it up. Oh, and I reread my first post and when I said I have seen all the bad practices in our booth... I meant that I have seen them done by myself and everyone else on the projection staff including the owners. When I read it it looked more like I meant that I had seen the films come in that way and the only one we have never done was the white out. I've only seen the white out thing come through once though. Must not be too common in the theaters we tend to circulate with.  |  IP: Logged Carl Martin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1424 From: Oakland, CA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 08-20-2003 08:17 PM                        maybe this should be a new thread but... as far as opaque splices go, i'd rather see them made with perforated tape than unperfed, as long as it cuts with a straight razor, not the serrated tamper. that way one exact frame is blacked out (well, half of one and half of the next), whereas the 1" unperfed tape will black out the middle of 2 consecutive frames, which is twice as noticeable. plus, it always cuts between perfs for easy peeling, and there are no hanging chads, ever. our splicer does a pretty damn good job of lining the film ends up properly, too (although if the film has shrunk the pins will sometimes stretch the perfs). most of these points will apply to clear tape as well. carl  |  IP: Logged

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