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Author Topic: Hey you, you suck! (AKA: Outing bad film handlers) Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-09-2003 11:22 AM                        Brad, you first run guys have no idea what rep house guys go through. I have gone through scenarios like what William described many, MANY times. You first run guys get all huffy and stomping your feet and are ready to refuse a print if there's more than two or three splices in it!! HA!....how about having to spend hours repairing splice after splice just to make a print playable! William isn't being cute, he's being abused! Of course this happens....and us rep house guys have to deal with it on a daily basis. So William, you discovered that thing about the hand rewind, eh! That you can make it go right up to the sound barrier?!! Yah, you can pump that ole hand rewind so fast that the stuff on the rewind table starts falling off from the vibration, right? And I bet you've had this lovely experience -- you are rewinding at supersonic speed and one of the flanges of the split reel lets loose and it becomes a lethal, spinning projectile hurling itself through the booth; if you're lucky, you don't get a finger sliced off. I've got a big gash in the projection booth wall right above the table to prove it too. Ok, we don't usually have to run 18 screens at a time (and I am truly in awe of you guys who can do that) , but we sure make up for it with harrowing situations like William just recounted. If you work in a rep house, they've gotta be BIG and they've gotta be made outa STEEL! Frank  |  IP: Logged Sean Weitzel Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 619 From: Vacaville, CA (1790 miles west of Rockwall) Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-09-2003 12:52 PM                     Regarding John P's comment on using a splicy print for a video release - about 5 years ago I rented a VHS copy of the 1963 british "Lord of the Flies" The transfer on the tape was dirty and had scratches which surprised me. Midway through the film, an out of frame splice went through the telecine and some transfer operator must have grabbed the framing knob and cranked it back into frame! All on the tape! I was shocked! I was trying to find out who put out the tape, but the only labels on the cassette were Hollywood Video branded.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 10-09-2003 01:47 PM                        quote: I rented a VHS copy of the 1963 british "Lord of the Flies" The transfer on the tape was dirty and had scratches which surprised me. Midway through the film, an out of frame splice went through the telecine and some transfer operator must have grabbed the framing knob and cranked it back into frame! All on the tape! I was shocked! I was trying to find out who put out the tape, but the only labels on the cassette were Hollywood Video branded. Makes me wonder if it was a legitimate copy.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-09-2003 02:12 PM                        I believe that the older version of LOTF is public domain, so the tape in question was probably legal, but also probably not from the owner of the best film elements.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-09-2003 05:18 PM                        Century Odessa 12 in Odessa Texas, YOU SUCK for not sending the DTS disks out with your print of "The Rundown" which I just received and am playing tomorrow night. (In case anyone's wondering, yes I did call TES and they said "we can request another set and YOU MIGHT get them tomorrow." Which, translated to English, means "You'll get them Monday, if at all.")  |  IP: Logged Michael Swarbrick Film Handler Posts: 23 From: London, England Registered: Jan 2002 posted 10-15-2003 01:02 PM                     I don't usually get to see many second-hand prints, and I'm glad of that! Yesterday though, I was making-up copy UK320 of Monsters Inc and was not happy with what I saw. I've seen 20-year-old prints that looked better. Didn't have a camera, but hopefully my words will paint a picture in your minds... None of the leaders were attached to the reels, and when the print had been broken-down previously, the joins were just ripped instead of the tape being peeled off. Reel 1 had no head leader, just a Peter Pan (animated) trailer to protect it. There were 4 frames cut off from the head and tail of almost every reel. Not all in one go however, all four frames had been cut off seperatly and stuck back on to the leaders with tape on one side only. Probably indicating a succession of lazy projectionists who couldn't peel a single-sided splice and just chopped another frame. The fingerprints on this film made me think that whoever has made this up previously must have excreted pure burger fat from his fingers. White markings at the ends of the reels, like china marking, but in paint form. This crap covers one SDDS track for about 5 feet and sometimes intrudes to the SR track. All because some lazy oaf can't bother to look for the ends of reels. A lab join had been removed in Reel 4, but had been reslpliced out-of-rack! How did no-one notice this when the print ran before?! Also, the end of Reel 4 was badly scratched, like it's been slapping around on a bench for half an hour. At the start of the credits is a pulse along the edge of the film covering 5 blocks of the SRD track with tape on both sides (why?) There were another couple of pulses during the credits and gunk that marked where pulses had been before (with the bloody tape still on though). Finally, the last few feet (the Pixar logo) are buckled, playable but I think it'll make a hell of a noise when it goes through the gate. Then I got lucky. At the end of the last reel was an ID label put on by the last person to have the print. At the end of that was "25/9/03 - ANDY". Only two weeks ago, so alot of the damage may not have come from him, so what should I do? The distributor is Buena Vista International, should I call them and ask where this print has been before, or let them deal with it (if they care)? Should I forget about it? IMO, people should be more accountable for the damage they cause to prints.  |  IP: Logged William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-16-2003 01:31 AM                        Oh yes, Michael. That is what you *expect* to get when receiving a seldom-run rep title. About 1 in 4 come like that. The bad ones that slow you down & get on your nerves have greater concentrations of combinations of damage of those types, plus perf & edge damage, creased film, scratches, nothing left after the motor cues, etc. going all through the reels. Here's a worrywart question for Frank Angel & others who run older, damaged prints: Often there'll be a splice where the film has broken jaggedly across a frame, & it's been put back together with splicing tape. Due to either a poor splice or shrinkage, there'll be a white space between the edges. If the splice is good for most points (tape stuck, perfs line, etc.), I'll generally not remake it. I'll *especially* leave it if the film has personality problems like emulsion that peels or cracks, or if I'm in an ungodly rush. Since it's a bright flash of light, I usually take an ultra-fine point Sharpie & follow the line on the tape over it to make it black instead of a blast of light from the screen. Unfortunately, even with extreme care, magnified 3 billion times at the screen, the carefully-drawn line is irregular at the edges & looks like it was done by a kid with a crayon. I don't like to take out the frame; I'm one of the "every frame is sacred" group - & for good reason, an unnatural jump in the action or sound is more alienating for an audience from the show than something that seems to just pass annoyingly but briefly between them & their vision. Does anybody else try to make these opaque repairs, or just let them roll? I'm sure I'm the only person in the theater who can see just one frame. It's interesting that a jagged black or white line across 1 frame can be so obvious. For comparison, I will admit that I have in emergencies (usually involving time) when cues are wrong on a film used one of those 3/4" Avery File Folder dots as a motor start cue 15 ft. in from the end, counted 10 seconds when it came up, & changed over. (24 frames/1 sec)(1 foot/16 frames) = (1.5 feet/1 second) I have a profoundly precise sense of seconds from years of backtiming. And I gave up the cue marker in disgust after running too many prints that had a revolting line of cue marks, made by many past operators, stretching continuously from motor start to the end of the reel. Yes, I peel the dot off afterwards & clean the frame. The Avery dot which covers most of the frame when it passes is such a flicker that you've got to be very attentive, & it's like you blinked or something - almost subliminal. A jagged film break line is a jarring flash of lightning.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-16-2003 03:43 AM                        William, it's great to know that others are as retentive-compulsive as me. Of course every frame is sacred. It's only one frame, but if you loose it, then the next guy who thinks it's "just one frame" will also lop it off....and on and so forth until it's feet that are missing from the reel joints instead of frames. That's why you see those collectors lists, especially of cartoons, where it is very common to see descriptions such as, "partial head (or tail) missing." That's from lazy oafs who decided it would be easier to just guillotine the frame instead of peeling off the tape, "because it's just one frame." And don't be fooled into thinking that one frame isn't seen by the audience -- every speck of dirt that you see on the screen is only on ONE frame. We see EVERY frame. Using a Sharpie is certainly a better way to go than just leaving a jagged white line to project on the screen. I have used Sharpies many times, doing both sides of the crack, but then I stumbled upon the Letraset applique tapes. They make black line tapes of various thicknesses that are perfect for covering up those jagged "lightening strike" lines from repaired tears. You just place the tape over the misaligned space and follow it any which way it goes. They also have a tape that is wider to place over those rows of multiple cue after cue. Just lay it down over the entire line of cues. On the screen all you will see is an even, surprisingly unobtrusive black margin on appear on the side of the frame -- MUCH better than the gaggle of flying white circles. Rule of thumb is, BLACK is ALWAYS better than white on the screen. OK, perhaps not if the entire screen is white such as in a sky shot, but under most circumstances, cover up that scratch....cover up that torn, uneven join....replace scratched or even scribed white cue marks with black ones. The Letraset appliques are also available as dots in two sizes, one is the perfect size for cue appliques on prints that have none (we get lots of them, mostly on independents and foreign films which many times are show prints with no cues at all). The other dot is a larger size that is great for covering up scratch cues that are bigger than normal. There are times when reel changes are made in a fade-out and for some weird reason, they seem to think that cues are still necessary in the fade-out. There is simply no need for a change-over cue in a fade-out. You just make the change-over when the picture is gone. The black dot appliques are MUCH better than having a white dot dancing in the corner of a black screen. The reason I like the Letraset appliques is that they are totally opaque, more so than Avery dots, and because they are on mylar tape not paper, they are really easy to remove. Since totally opaque black dot appliques are additive to the black of the emulsion, they are almost always visible, even in a fade-out. I am going to try to get some pictures of how these are typically used. Frank  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 10-16-2003 06:17 AM                        I agree with leaving the frame, and coloring in the thin white gap. You could try to use colors that match the scene content. Repairing torn frames was more common on triacetate prints. Polyester prints usually don't tear that way.  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 10-17-2003 08:03 PM                     "At the start of the credits is a pulse along the edge of the film covering 5 blocks of the SRD track with tape on both sides (why?)" Probably automation tape to bring the lights up automatically during the credits- one of the most unnecessary ways to ruin a movie if it's not done right (I'd prefer they just stay down til the very end, but at least don't mess up the print to bring em up!)  |  IP: Logged Michael Swarbrick Film Handler Posts: 23 From: London, England Registered: Jan 2002 posted 10-17-2003 09:46 PM                     I know it's a pulse for house lights (don't get me started on those!), but I don't understand what kind of shitty automation system needs to see that much (more than a frame) to register. I don't think any pulse is completely unnoticeable, but the one we use in our main screen isn't too bad. No house light pulse (we don't put them up til the end ), and our shutdown pulse covers only one SRD block and doesn't intrude upon the picture.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 10-17-2003 10:03 PM                    The projectionist always has final cut, the saying goes. And nowhere are movies more finely "edited" than at Loews Cineplex Pipers Alley in Chicago. The experts there manage to remove from their builds those extra 5 or 6 frames from the beginnnings and ends of reels that rushed Hollywood editors accidentally leave in. And those pesky fade-outs and fade-ins? What are those doing in a movie when it's so easy to lop off 3 or 4 feet of film and make them go away. Print: "Die Mommy Die" (Sundance Film Series) Had it before (straight from the lab) and have it again so I know what was done and where it was done.  |  IP: Logged John T. Hendrickson, Jr Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 889 From: Freehold, NJ, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 10-31-2003 06:54 PM                     Here we go again! Wisconsin 6 in Washington DC. You suck. Thanks for your print of "In The Cut". Heads and tails put back on with masking tape, except for the last reel where you attached it with zebra tape. You left on all your zebra tape after you took apart your between reel splices. I thought the shoe polish (about ten feet worth) on the head of reel #5 was an especially nice touch. All the other reels had opaque yellow tape on the edges so you could find your reel joints. Nice! Must be tough being blind and running a booth. And.. you didn't bother to enclose your DTS discs. They are probably still in your player. That's okay- I called ETS and got replacements this morning before our first show. Great job of film handling.  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 10-31-2003 08:05 PM                     Doesn't sound like they'd know how to put DTS discs in a player- they probably just threw 'em out  |  IP: Logged Daniel Wright Expert Film Handler Posts: 163 From: Okmulgee, Ok , USA Registered: Oct 2003 posted 11-01-2003 07:23 AM                     My sisters boyfreind was projectionist at an amc 20 plex. When they moved Titanic to a smaller auditorium the manager tried to move it himself. He managed to drop the print down the stairs to the booth, of course the clamps came off and the whole thing unwound at the bottom of the stairs. They got the mess untangled and used the print for more showings. I can only imagine how badly scratched it was.  |  IP: Logged

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