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Author Topic: Would you have removed these lab splices? Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-14-2002 08:08 PM                     Assuming there were no picture defects (not counting the flash of the lab splice itself) and no audio defects (not counting a pop in the analog), then no I would not reject it. I would keep it. My comment was that the odds are that a reel with 3 splices in it will have at least a major defect around one of them.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 12-14-2002 10:16 PM                        Some labs use printers where the sound and picture negative for each reel are in a loop, and the raw stock is fed on through an "accumulator" or elevator, to allow time for making the ultrasonic splice. If they are printing 2000-foot reels, on average, they will have only one splice every three reels, since they typically use 6000-foot rolls of raw stock. Operators have only about 30 seconds to make an ultrasonic splice in "darkroom" conditions. Many labs still use bi-directional panel printers. On these, the "short ends" must be spliced "off-line", and the lab usually tries to tailor the length to minimize the number of splices in any given reel. Not all release prints labs have a constant trailer business, so short ends often do need to be used for feature reels. Kodak print film costs about 9 cents ($0.09) per foot, so a short end of about 500 feet is worth about $45.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-14-2002 11:26 PM                        Back to Brad's comment about lab splices in trailers: any trailer with a lab splice in it would automatically go in the trash can in any booth that I work in....  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-14-2002 11:42 PM                     I'm dying to know here...so Scott you are saying that you would run a feature with a lab splice, but not a preview? I understand the trailer is only a few hundred feet vs. 1500-2000 feet, but you are saying that warrants a complete reject, whereas you would play a reel of a feature and not consider that a complete reject?  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-14-2002 11:59 PM                     John said"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?" It has been mentioned several time in the past Several labs I service still used old BHP bidirectional printers and they will splice short ends as required Sometimes due to delays in editing partial 1000' reels are still printed. The 2 splice per reel still refers to the old standard of 1000' reels The two 2000 reel a theatre recieves is actually 2 reels And as I said there have been several low budget productions that have used 10 or more splices per foll to acomodate cheap shortend printing, and I doubt they would tolerate a projectionist refusing to show it  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-15-2002 12:40 AM                     I don't think anyone here is suggesting that a shoestring production's print be refused due to lab splices. We are discussing MAJOR multi million dollar mainstream movie prints.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-15-2002 05:08 AM                        Any studio can demand that certain prints are made from unspliced stock. It costs more, but as Brad says, on multi-million dollar productions, the cost to make splice-free prints from full rolls as opposed to those that use short ends is insignificant. They do it all the time for "show" prints. It all depends on what the studio demands and what they are willing to pay. You can bet that at premiere screenings and major openings, the projectionists doesn't get short end prints with lab splices and the attendant junk around them. Frank  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-15-2002 08:19 AM                        Brad--yes, I'll refuse to run a trailer with a lab splice. It's just pathetic that someone would allow their _advertising_ material to be less than perfect to save _at_most_ 100 feet of raw stock ($9). As a practical matter, I can't reject feature reels with lab splices, but I can almost always find another copy of any given trailer to replace defective ones. I can deal with occasional lab splices in the middle of a 2000' reel (since it would be crazy to waste several hundred to a thousand feet of print stock...and all Technicolor prints have lab splices every 1000', anyway), but lab splices that are fifty feet from the beginning or end of a reel do irk me, since the cost savings is so minimal. Same for trailers, which are, at most, 200 feet or so. I understand the economic reasons for lab splices in feature reels, but I have a hard time accepting that Warner Bros. is so hard up for cash that they wanted the lab to save that extra fifty feet of raw stock.  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 12-15-2002 10:20 AM                        quote: lab splices that are fifty feet from the beginning or end of a reel do irk me Among the 4 lab splices I noticed in Star Trek Nemesis, 1 of them was between the reel change cue marks at the end of a reel. To me as a "viewer" it generally seems less distracting to have a 1-frame blip at the splice than to remove 1 or 2 frames and have a jump in the action. Some lab splices look much worse than others though and if there's a major white flash on the screen it might be less distracting to viewers to just excise it. Tough call. [Aside from the lab splices, the Nemesis print looked GREAT. Very fine-grain, extremely sharp, excellent contrast & color rendition. Best looking movie I've seen in a while. This was on only a 30' screen, but the image quality reminded me of 70mm on larger screens.]  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 12-15-2002 10:45 AM                    Scott, for all you know maybe the lab does routinely set aside the 50 foot short ends (they probabably can use them for tests etc) and is only joining short ends of significant length. But with continuous printing it's not easily predicted that the join is going to end up just 50 feet from the head or tail of the reel. Say you're printing a 1700' reel and you have a 1600' short end (which I'm sure you would agree they should not waste) depending on when it's fed into the mix while the odds are such that it will likely create two reels with joins somewhere in the middle it's also randomly possible that you'd end up with a single reel that has two lab splices very near the ends. Say one at 30' in and the other at 70' in. You might get that and say, "Gee...is [studio] or [lab] so hard up that they can't afford to waste 30' ($2.70) of film?" Yet in reality there was never a 30' short end involved. Maybe there was never anything involved in this scenario except a couple of nice full 6000' rolls joined by one 1600' not-so-short end.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-15-2002 12:17 PM                        Steve--good point. I'd like to see how a high-volume lab operates someday; I've only seen smaller 16mm labs that were doing, at most, a handful of release prints. Certainly nothing like 8000 prints of Harry Potter.  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-15-2002 01:28 PM                     Frank, I don't believe that showprints and select prints have any relevence to lab processes here. There are two easy ways to keep get splice-free reels in small quantities: 1) Keep track of which reels lab splices happen on 2) Watch for lab splices when you're grading the reels. Since select prints are graded anyhow, watching for lab splices should be trivial. And of course, keeping track of which reels have splices in them is trivial too. The only cases where it becomes hard are when you want more than 1/3 of the reels to be splice free. That's what we're talking about here. (Obviously the solution is for bookers to start sending the squeaky wheels select prints...) --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-15-2002 10:52 PM                     Actually it would add to to alot on an average major release to pay the extra for splice free prints. The production company's are aware of what they pay for and they choose to save the money and order as such  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 12-17-2002 07:41 AM                        Scott Norwood wrote: "...and all Technicolor prints have lab splices every 1000', anyway), but lab splices that are fifty feet from the beginning or end of a reel do irk me, since the cost savings is so minimal". Release prints made by Technicolor North Hollywood or Mirabel (Montreal, Quebec) will typically have only one ultrasonic lab splice for every 6000 feet of prints made. But the splice may end up anywhere in the reel, even near the beginning or end.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-17-2002 07:58 AM                        John--sorry; I was referring to "old" (pre-1974) dye-transfer Technicolor prints, not the current Eastmancolor prints. I don't remember if "new" dye-transfer prints are printed in 1000' sections or not. Anyone?  |  IP: Logged

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