my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Film Handlers' Forum   » Would you have removed these lab splices? (Page 2)

This topic comprises 5 pages: 1  2  3  4  5

Author Topic: Would you have removed these lab splices? James R. Hammonds, Jr Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 931 From: Houston, TX, USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 12-14-2002 03:19 AM                     But Joe, what about pixels! Theyll give you something to count while you try to sit through all these crappy movies! Oh yeah, I forgot, no more need to screen movies. Down with digital!  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 12-14-2002 09:44 AM                    It has been stated in other threads about this same subject so I will summerize the info here. All reels are different in size. Raw stock comes in large rolls. When roll nears its end there may be only a few hundred feet left. The reels being printed may be 1600 foot reels. when this few hundred feet runs out a new roll is spliced on. Sometimes you can get many of these small rolls and they get spliced together resulting in more than one splice in one reel. As far as the sound goes. I bloop the sound track with a black sharpie pen. I cut out any that go into the picture area and the frame line ones I leave in.  |  IP: Logged Thomas Procyk Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1842 From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-14-2002 12:34 PM                     jhawk -- Hmm. I could have sworn there was another thread with at least a few people saying that they'll never remove a lab splice because it involves removing frames from the print... Oh well. I'll try and keep an eye on Star Trek tonight. Our "Drumline" print also had 4 total lab splices. 2 on one reel, and 1 more in two different reels. Our "Maid In Manhattan" print was clean! I would love to be able to use an Ultrasonic splicer, and if my wage was doubled, maybe I would even consider purchasing one myself to improve my presentation. But alas, all we have is three CIR tape splices which look like they were thrown off the roof for fun and are stocked with plenty of yellow opaque tape. Boss gave me permission to build with clear tape as long as I put at least a foot of yellow edge-mark tape at each reel. Sometimes you just gotta work with what you have. =TMP=  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-14-2002 01:35 PM                     I feel very sorry for your situation Thomas. Couldn't you suggest the reel "fill line" marking technique from the tips section? I have made this comment before and so long as we are discussing it, I would MUCH prefer for the labs to use short ends to print trailers and such on. As a general consensus, does everyone else agree it would be acceptable to have lab splices in trailers instead of the feature?  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 12-14-2002 02:18 PM                     I have seen trailers with lab joins, though I can't come up with any specific example right now. I remember thinking, "It's pretty sad when they're too cheap to throw away a teaser trailer's length of stock." Then I threw it away for them.  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-14-2002 03:40 PM                     It seems like there might be some practical difficulties associated with relegating short ends to trailers. To clarify, I'm speaking to the issue of one short end being joined to a new 6k reel, and not to whatever weird cases resulted in multiple short-ends per reel. In order to use short ends for trailers, the lab technician would have to monitor the supply reel of raw stock running into the contact printer, and stop the contact printer at the end of reel whenever the supply falls beneath the length of the printed reel (presumably there's no automated device that measures this trivially, so some human guesswork would be involved; they might even need to check more frequently than once every 2 reels. I suppose if the length of the reel is known, they could simply do the math...). Then the tech would have to dismount the core of the shore tend and mount up a new core, thread it through the printer, and only then restart the printer. Just think, they might have to pause as much as 2 minutes every 3 reels. Compare that to now where the contact printer does not have to stop at all! And then they'd have to re-seal the short end in a light-proof container and deal with managing them... Not insurmountable, but not necessarily a trivial change to existing processes, either. "Follow the money." It would be curious to see if any studios would be willing to pay for lab-splice free reels. Probably not in today's economic climate. --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-14-2002 04:16 PM                     I have not worked in a printing lab, but it would seem to me that it wouldn't be hard to have their machine (perhaps with modification) stop at X number of feet on the 6000 foot pancake of unexposed film. Then the operator simply removes the remaining X amount with the core and sets it aside. While waiting for the next reel to unspool, he could then splice whatever was left onto an ever-growing 6K spool, which could then be used for trailers, or better yet...commercial rolling stock! Anyway, since they have to have someone there to remove the core, load up a new pancake of film and make a splice, I don't see why it would be such a huge issue to remove the core with a little bit of excess film that could be used elsewhere at the same time. In reality with all of the reels that have to be reprinted due to digital dropouts and various defects surrounding a lab joint, the lab SHOULD try and do this. In the end, it could very well save them money, and would certainly cut down on the last minute hassle of replacement reels.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-14-2002 04:20 PM                     Per 2000' reel 3 lab splices is deemed aceptable Most film rolls do not add up so ends are spliced togather to make up rolls as required. So if 6000' roll A has 500' left over, 6000' roll B has 1000' left over, and 6000' roll c has 500' left over they get spliced togather to yeild a 2000' roll The odds of a lab splice being on frame lines is 1 in 4 since the splice is made in almost total darkness and there is no frame line reference on raw stock This issue has been discussed repeatedly on this forum so before any one else goes on again on a rant on this issue read the other posts as it is not going to change if every projectionisdt demanded it or not. Also you would probably get billed for a replacement reel if you reject one on the grounds of 3 lab splices. Also it is up to the company paying for the prints to determin the accepted amount of splices. The producer can pay for splice free prints such as is done for screening prints or in other cases some indi's will to save money have the whole thing printed on short end and have 12 or more splices per roll sometimes changing brand of stock That is the nature of the game the projectionist must make the best of what they recieve  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-14-2002 04:27 PM                     That's fine and dandy Gordon, but the odds are that 3 splices per 2000' reel will not be acceptable due to some other issue. Assuming that I got a reel with 3 lab splices in it and the digital tracks did not drop out during any of them, I would keep it. However the great odds are that at least one of them will have fogging or some other noticeable defect that warrants replacement. I agree with John Pytlak though that 1 splice in approximately every 3 2000' reels is acceptable and understandable, but not 1 in every 2000' roll. That's ridiculous. By the way, is this whole 3 splices per 2000' reel thing something exclusive with Deluxe labs? I have seen this multiple times personally, and they are always on Deluxe prints. I don't think I have ever seen a Technicolor print with more than one lab splice in a given reel. Is there anyone out there that has anything to do with Technicolor labs that could answer this? Any forum members ever seen a Technicolor print with more than one lab splice in a reel?  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-14-2002 04:49 PM                     If you read the link John posted it says 2 per 1000' and a lab reel is still officially 1000' Yes I have had tech prints with 3 splices per reel  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-14-2002 05:01 PM                     I was referring to John's postings in the archives regarding one stock splice roughly every 3 reels. However... quote: In release printing, it is recommended that there be a maximum of two splices per 400 feet of 16mm or 1000 feet of 35mm. These two splices may be insert splices, or one of the two splices can be a raw stock splice. There should never be two raw stock splices in the same reel. Even if this was "law" so to say, that would still only be two. Also this just proves my point that "short ends" could be used to print up ads and trailers.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-14-2002 05:25 PM                     "Even if this was "law" so to say, that would still only be two" Yes but 2000' shipping reel is actually 2 1000' reels The norm is 1000' per roll of cut negative That is why many prints are actually labled Head 1A and at the other end Tail 1B Or some labs still lable a 2000' shipping reel as the head leader printed as reel1 head and at the end of 2000' reel 2 tail  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-14-2002 06:10 PM                     Gordon, do the math. Again, assuming this was "law"... quote: There should never be two raw stock splices in the same reel. Now given that this "law" means 1 reel = 1000 feet of film and the reels we generally speak of are 2000 feet (1A+1B, etc), that still only adds up to TWO acceptable splices per 2000 foot reel. 1+1=2 not 3. Thus 3 stock splices within a conventional theater reel is unacceptable.  |  IP: Logged Lindsay Morris Expert Film Handler Posts: 233 From: Darlington, WA, Australia Registered: Sep 2002 posted 12-14-2002 07:34 PM                     I have encountered quite a few prints from season to season with "daggy" looking lab splices which if they don't feel too rough going through the fingers on makeup stay IN the print. BUT some I do remove and those are the ones that have huge flashes of white for a few frames or have obvious great lumps of no optical sound or if possible I bloop those out. By the time I get a print it has been around a bit and for me to see a whole series of white flash type frames here and there in a full feature when that print had been to one or more complexes BEFORE my showing I cringe at what it had been like on their screens. I refuse to show that to my patrons so out they go (not the patrons that is). I have a board above the winding bench with odd chunks of rubbish I have chopped out and one of the most memorable is a piece from High Fidelity that was a lab splice which was one whole perf out. So in the middle of a reel you are suddenly out of frame. When I located that one after the first showing I could not believe what I was seeing as there was 4 perfs, frame line, 3 perfs, lab splice,4 perfs, frame line and normal again?? I expected to find a poorly made tape splice instead a lab splice and how could that be?? The other ripper was about 1 metre of totally BLANK film, no sound no image no nuttin in the middle of another feature with a lab splice in it all. Got me beat how that print ran for weeks at a Perth complex and NEVER was removed. I was so intrigued by that one I actually checked who the complex was who had it before me. I was the SECOND user of that print... does not say much for screen quality does it? I am probably wasting my time removing rubbish splices as most of the stuff I run goes back almost ready to be junked but I am determined that what goes up on our screen is as good as I can get it. Patrons pay good money to see a film and they should not be subjected to crappy presentation from whatever source it may come. Lindsay  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-14-2002 07:49 PM                     Gordon, I don't think there's been any previous discussion about more than 1 lab splice per reel. I can't find one, can you post a more precise citation? I don't see how the discussion of single reels has anything to do with this. You're not seriously suggesting that the lab contact prints n copies of 1A, and then contact prints n copies of 1B, and then makes n splices, and then rewinds half? That seems implausible to me... Surely 1A and 1B are spliced together much earlier, presumably on the camera negative if not on the interpositive, or at least the interneg? I have to also question the contention that a 500' short end from A gets spliced to a 1000' short end from B and a 500' short end from C. Surely the 500' short end from A gets spliced to the new 6000' D, and then there's 1 lab splice somewhere in the first reel that gets printed from that, and then another one 6000 later when a new 6000' E is spliced on. But I was under the impression that the splice takes place as the reel is running into the printer on an elevator. That is, as the reel has 200' or so left on it (if the printer runs at 180fpm), a bell rings, and after the reel end runs through into an elevator, the operator splices the new 6k reel on... I mean, sure, they'll have a short end when they stop production and shut down the machine, but that should be rare. Brad, I didn't understand your comment about 3 lab splices meaning you'd like reject a reel anyhow. Assuming it doesn't have any safelight fog, what else would be wrong with it that would make you reject it? --jhawk  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 5 pages: 1  2  3  4  5

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.