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Author Topic: Hey you, you suck! (AKA: Outing bad film handlers) William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-17-2004 12:04 AM                        quote: Then it was impossible to get rid of the sticky residue Go to K-Mart, Wal-Mart, a big drugstore, whatever, & buy a bottle of cigarette lighter fluid (usually the brand is Ronson, the bottle is yellow). Cigarette lighter fluid is naptha, a film-cleaning solvent approved by Kodak Kodak: Film Cleaning Solvents Gets rid of all kind of gunk on film, especially most adhesives such as from tape, labels, etc.  |  IP: Logged Wolff King Morrow Master Film Handler Posts: 490 From: Denton, TX, USA Registered: Feb 2004 posted 02-17-2004 04:38 PM                        Edit: My apologies for editing my posts. I was informed by my employers that I am not allowed to discuss anything pertaining to operation, proceedures, profits, or wages of the company I work for on this or any other public media. Please note I was NOT aware of such a policy, so I apologize for the disruption of the thread. Thanks for your understanding on this. -Wolff [ 03-02-2004, 09:50 PM: Message edited by: Wolff King Morrow ]  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 02-18-2004 08:42 PM                        Just remember that naphtha (lighter fluid) is VERY flammable. Be sure to let it completely evaporate before winding up the film into a roll.  |  IP: Logged William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-19-2004 12:22 AM                        It evaporates very fast, as you're working with it.  |  IP: Logged Thomas Procyk Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1842 From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 02-20-2004 01:46 PM                     Everyone who ran Print #99002 of "Pink Floyd: The Wall" before me, with maybe the rare exception.... You not only SUCK, you BLOW!!! It should be a federal offense to damage a rep print like this. The entire base side was completely scuffed with vertical scratches. Do your rollers not roll?!? First reel started a few feet into the studio logo. Fuck the fade-in and the MGM lion's first roar, people get the idea, right? Emulsion scrathces all over the place, luckily they're all black (so far) and in the dark scenes. Lots of white speckles, though. Ends of the reels had hand-scratched cue marks all over the place, but the reel ended in the midst of the second set of "real" cues. But all the frames were still there, just accordion-spliced back on to the tail... all 22 of them. Reel 1 ended with crinkled film, a few splices, green scratches (but they were covered up with black sharpie! BRILLIANT!!!) and over a second early. Reel 2 - Damn this print is FILTHY! Well, now we know how all those scratches got there. Better hold on to that film TIGHT when you build it up or break it down... UGH! Well, now we have an occasional green line popping up. Same story with the heads and tails. Reel 3 - Not too terrible until you get to the end. WHO the FUCK spilled shit ALL OVER THE LAST 2 MINUTES?!?! Actually, it was probably the last 15 seconds, but the idiot must have wound it up wet because all of the emulsion was ripped off. In a nice, bright, scene too. Lots of frames missing of the end here, too. Most likely because of the damage. Reel 4 - Most of the emulsion scratches have somewhat disappeared, but a nice green one comes on smack in the middle during the song "Comfortably Numb." Lots of white speckles in the dark scenes. Reel 5 - The best of them all. Minimal black scratches (VERY noticable in the nearly all-white animation sequence though) and not too much dirt. (was probably pushed to the front of the print when the moron broke it down) Credits had major damage at the beginning where everyone's cue marks had to be stuck, removed, and re-stuck. Other than that, an OK reel. Film-Guard helped a lot getting most of the dirt off, but I ran the film through two sets of media pads, both pulling off SHEETS of black and purple, and even some rust-colored stuff from the end of Reel 3. After the 5th pass, not much more came off. I'm surprised Warner let a print like this out. I thought they were supposed to be the "better" ones. If you plan to book this title, make sure you AVOID this copy. Unless you're showing it to an inebriated audience looking for the "nostalgic" effects of a trashed print. Interesting note, though: The heads of a few of the reels said "VERSION: Interneg for 70mm blow-up" The rest said "Harvest #2" -- what's that mean? =TMP=  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-20-2004 08:31 PM                     I believe it is hydronaptha that is the approved film cleaner and it is relatively expensive  |  IP: Logged Christopher Seo Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 530 From: Los Angeles, CA Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-21-2004 05:17 AM                     Hey Thomas, I sure am sorry you didn't get the "Wall" print we ran. Not to rub salt in your wounds, but... it was essentially brand new (give it another year and I'm sure it will be well on its way to 'lousy' condition). Ours also had "Interneg for 70mm" on some of the leaders but I didn't catch any "Harvest" markings. Here's one of my own... whoever ran "Days of Wine and Roses" #98002 and didn't check his/her threading, you probably do suck. Sprocket teeth puncture marks on the outboard side of the optical track throughout the first two reels for a nice 96 Hz crackle/buzz. Luckily it was dual-unilateral mono so I was able to play the show off of Lt only.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-27-2004 08:56 AM                        Hey, you, at the Nickelodeon Theatre in Columbia, SC--you suck! You sent me a print of "Skin Deep" (to an incorrect shipping address no less) with the leader missing from R1, all other leaders attached with cheap masking tape (leaving residue and causing edge damage), and nasty grease-pencil cue marks from a previous theatre still present on all reels (at least I could remove these easily). The whole print is somewhat beat-up, too, although you may not have been responsible for that (to anyone who was: you suck, too!).  |  IP: Logged Wolff King Morrow Master Film Handler Posts: 490 From: Denton, TX, USA Registered: Feb 2004 posted 02-27-2004 10:04 AM                        Actually you got off pretty light there scott. There are some real nightmare stories in this thread.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-27-2004 12:28 PM                        Apparently I forgot to mention the nasty orange shoepolish-like gunk that someone (not necessarily the theatre I complained about in my previous post) used to mark the edge of the film. I suppose that these complaints are minor compared to, say, what Thomas had to say about his print of "The Wall," but I get really angry whenever I have to deal with crappy prints for shows when directors or anyone else involved in the production will be in the audience (as will be the case here). It must kill them to see their own films presented poorly, and I don't look forward to hearing complaints about presentation issues that I cannot control.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 02-27-2004 01:35 PM                    That's just further justification for why these rare prints should be run only reel to reel. They can still be mangled but only by accident. When a platterizer makes yet another cut instead of peeling open an existing splice, puts gunk of one sort or another on the film to save a few seconds of join-finding time, places and leaves sensor tape on the film which appears on-screen or shifts the picture laterally or out of focus, those are hardly "accidents." Furthermore, when you look at the typical working conditions of the popular brands of makeup tables and then again at all the rollers a plattered film must run over, each of which presents a scratching hazard--need not of course--but often does in practice, it's just so much safer to limit library prints to reel to reel.  |  IP: Logged Thomas Procyk Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1842 From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 02-29-2004 02:03 AM                     Yeah, and then people who run platters responsibly, like myself, are forced to deal with shitty beat-up prints because they're "too afraid" to lend the decent one out to a platter house.I'm not asking for much, just not green f-ing lines through the picture! And I know that's exactly what happened behind the desks when I booked The Wall -- "Oh shit! It's a platter house! See if you can dig a print out of the dumpster..." Warner Craft my ass... =TMP=  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 03-01-2004 05:39 PM                     When you say "only send the archive prints to reel-to-reel houses," it leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the platter projectionists. If you're a changeover projectionist, it's easy to advocate such a position that benefits you. To my mind, this is a better way to phrase it: set aside a print for platter use and a print for changeover use. Only let the changeover people book the changeover print, and only let the platter people book the platter print. This is still not really fair to the platter houses who treat archival prints well, but its better. In perfect world, you would have a print for the "people who treat film well" and a print for "people who don't do as good a job." But that's an extremely hard determination to make. So instead people choose the reel/platter distinction, because it is easier to make. --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-01-2004 05:47 PM                        In retrospect, the print damage didn't matter. The show would have been a mini-disaster, anyway (not my fault). Soundtrack was printed at least one frame out of sync (late) on all reels (lab problem; the director knew about it) and level was low. There were also a couple of reels where the soundhead was scanning the DTS timecode (not sure if this was a lab issue or alignment issue). Oh, and there was some issue with the wiring or crossover on the stage speaker that prevented any signal from getting to the LF driver. (No time to even attempt to fix this.) Out of sync sound, occasionally accompanied by a buzzing noise, that sounded like it was coming through a telephone...mmm...fun. At least it kept the audience from noticing the dirt and scratches and the heads and tails of each reel. Oh, and I agree with jhawk that the platter/changeover distinction is silly. Why would anyone trust me (or Steve or Brad or anyone else) with an archive print in a changeover house, but not in a platter house. It's the same operator either way, and presumably the same amount of care (or lack thereof) that will go into film handling.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 03-01-2004 09:08 PM                    I don't think it's a silly distinction at all. This is not a print that plays a first run house, maybe a subrun and then is scrapped. You're talking about a print that has to be built and unbuilt over and over and over again. That's a lot of handling and unless you build and unbuild with a platter reel which for the most part isn't going to happen, this work will be done on a MUT which likely doesn't handle film in a way that is good for the film. So there, right off the bat even a good platter operator is at a disadvantage. But that's not even the main issue. Sure a competent operator will do a good job either way. There is no denying that platters make it much more possible for the incompetent to work a booth. And don't you think the odds are overwhelming that a print that might have a couple dozen engagements a year is going to run into one of them sooner rather than later? I'm all for separate platter and changeover prints. I'd put my money on the changeover print being in better shape.  |  IP: Logged

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