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Author Topic: What's the most creative way you've seen a print destoryed? Rich Granata Film Handler Posts: 61 From: Bethlehem PA USA Registered: Mar 2004 posted 08-20-2004 12:13 PM                     On the Christie MUTs, there is a plastic pin that (i guess) keeps the film on the bottom roller. The metal bracket must have gotten bent in so the that plastic piece was touching that roller. A manager that transferred in was unfamiliar with Christie stuff and built up King Arthur (scope) with it. There were gorgeous green squiggly lines going through a few of the reels right in time for opening day. You know a print is in bad shape when the CUSTOMERS actually notice the damage. I guess that pin just keeps the film off the floor when there isn't tension. But I decided to just remove the bracket, since I can easily keep the film off the floor with a little care  |  IP: Logged Adam Wilbert Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 590 From: Bellingham, WA, USA Registered: Mar 2002 posted 08-20-2004 05:31 PM                        One april fools day a few years back some friends and I saved up about 75 old trailers and spliced them all together to make a feature sized spool. We picked the thing up, without clamps, and walked it past the GMs office door. Just then, I pushed up on the center ring and the whole thing popped out and fell onto the floor. We made a big scene out of it, flailing our arms in a pathetic attempt to get ahold of it while just making it worse. Needless to say the gm nearly a brick. Not really destroying a print, just thought I'd share.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 08-20-2004 10:45 PM                     Rich, your manager threaded UNDER the roller AND metal bracket. That's what caused your horrible green scratches. This is why every time I go into a booth with Christie MUTs the first thing I do to them is move that metal bracket so that it is no longer at the 6:00 position. By moving it to the 4:00 position, it becomes obvious to anyone using it whether the film is between the roller and keeper (metal) bracket or not. That manager simply did not look down when he put the film on the lower roller. He just wrapped it under the roller and keeper bracket.  |  IP: Logged Rich Granata Film Handler Posts: 61 From: Bethlehem PA USA Registered: Mar 2004 posted 08-21-2004 11:21 AM                     I gave him the benifit of the doubt. I mean, he would have had to be pretty foolish to do that. (but then again...) That trailer story is awesome. If i did something like that to my GM, he would probobly laugh hysterically and never let me touch film again.  |  IP: Logged Christian Appelt Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 505 From: Frankfurt, Germany Registered: Dec 2001 posted 08-21-2004 12:56 PM                     This one didn't happen to myself, but I like it anyway: A film collector asked a friend to transport a 70mm print of DOCTOR ZHIVAGO in his minivan. They drove by night, drifted off the road and the car rolled over a few times. Luckily, nobody was hurt seriously, but three 70mm containers opened and the reels went flying into the forest. They spent the rest of the night getting the print back onto spools - but after laborious hand cleaning there were about 8 new splices and surprisingly few scratches visible in projection.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 08-21-2004 02:30 PM                        This one potentially destroyed hundreds of prints in one incident, and before they were ever made, too. Someone who worked on a restoration of Wings of the Morning (the first British Technicolor feature) told me that they had to strike the new preservation negative from surviving release prints. The reason for this was that the cut YCM camera negatives were shipped to America to have the matrices and prints made for the US release... on the Hindenburg. Presumably anyone travelling in close proximity to six million cubic feet of hydrogen was unlikely to worry about the odd few reels of nitrate in the hold!  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 08-22-2004 06:35 PM                     While hanging out at the TV station one night about midnight: The engineer and I were loading up the next reel of the movie that we were running that night. I threaded up, and the engineer went to get the take-up reel. I cued the film and went into master control. We ran the entire 2000' reel of film before we discovered it had taken up allover the floor. The engineer checked his VTR set-up and forgot to get the reel. We never had that happen again. The good part was: I carefully found the end of the roll, put it on the reel, and gently and slowly wound it back up on the reel using a cleaning pad on my hand. I did clean the print before we ran the movie again, and it suffered no damage. I DID arrange for there to be several 2000' reels kept in the vicinity of the film islands from then on.  |  IP: Logged JC Cowles Film Handler Posts: 77 From: St. Paul, MN Registered: Jun 2001 posted 08-22-2004 07:05 PM                     This was back in 1999. The film you see is Toy Story 2 during its opening week. If this picture could talk, it would simply be the sounds of hundreds of screaming kids crying out "Bring back Woody!" It was my day off and a long time ago, so don't ask me how it happened. Needless to say, it wasn't my day off anymore and I soon joined the fun on the floor. The showing and the next were canceled, and even a bazillion free movie passes won't make a kid stop screaming (let alone hundreds of them). The amount of dust and crud that accumulated on the film was horrible. And of course this was before I ever heard of Film-Tech or FilmGuard. So until a new print arrived, kids got to watch Toy Story with black snow.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 08-22-2004 07:16 PM                        quote: This one potentially destroyed hundreds of prints in one incident, and before they were ever made, too. Someone who worked on a restoration of Wings of the Morning (the first British Technicolor feature) told me that they had to strike the new preservation negative from surviving release prints. The reason for this was that the cut YCM camera negatives were shipped to America to have the matrices and prints made for the US release... on the Hindenburg. Presumably anyone travelling in close proximity to six million cubic feet of hydrogen was unlikely to worry about the odd few reels of nitrate in the hold! Now we know why the Hindenburg suddenly went up in flames!  |  IP: Logged Dominic Espinosa Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1172 From: California, U.S.A. Registered: Jan 2004 posted 08-23-2004 02:06 PM                     A while back a trainee missed the third roller on a DTS reader and drug the entire print from trailers to tail against the case of the projector. Welcome to black scratch land! Now the movie is sectioned off, vertically!  |  IP: Logged

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