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Topic: Midnight Shows

Eric Hooper
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 532
From: Fort Worth, TX, USA
Registered: May 2003

posted 08-09-2005 06:24 PM

Ok, can someone change the title of this thread! I wanted to read about pre-screening for midnight shows!!!

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Richard Hamilton
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1341
From: Evansville, Indiana
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 08-09-2005 11:37 PM

Sorry, I was just being a smartass, didnt mean to take this topic even further off subject.

Rick

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 08-10-2005 07:10 PM

Brad said, "Also there is so much shitty quality splicing tape on the market right now that some of that cannot be removed without actually causing more damage to the print if the frame is attempted to be saved."

I think this has to mean you're not using the right solvents. I'm not in a good position to recommend something (we still have our stockpile of you-can't-buy-it-anymore Renovex aka 1,1,1-trichloroethane), but I would expect naptha to be very effective.

Have you tried using naptha or trichlo. and been unsuccessful at getting nasty gummy tape off? I can't think of a case where I've had to sacrifice a frame because of bad tape. And down at the bottom of the barell, we get some pretty bad prints.

--jhawk

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 08-10-2005 08:39 PM

Yes John, there is such a thing as tape that is so shitty that all of your solvents and rubbing actually puts marks on the film that is more distracting than just chopping the frame.

Believe me I do NOT condone chopping a frame whenever it isn't necessary, but I am pointing out that sometimes it IS necessary, and it's usually due to severely misaligned splicers and/or shitty tape.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 08-11-2005 12:55 AM

..FT removes goo pretty good, if one doesn't want to grab for the lighter fluid (which is naphta stuff) and save marking of the prints.

Back on Topic: It pays off sometimes to screen prints after being put together, since some class "B-Ushers" don't know how to inspect film as they're putting it together.

Example sakes: back when "Dogma" came out, one of my operators called me over to the other booth and told me that the last reel was all messed up while he was putting it together. I took a look at reel and something big happened at DeLuxe: picture was actually printed over the soundtrack area, and the soundtrack area was in the run of the sprockets. This reel was unpresentable. I told the manager, who called the booker to order a last reel of this film.

Then, there were a few times that a scene would weave and wobble until a big obvious jump, then everything was okey. I ran up and stopped the show, went back to that area on the filmroll and discovered that the positive stock in the printer came loose somehow and this weave in this section of film was printed. Okey, another bad, unpresentable reel.

-Monte

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 08-11-2005 07:50 AM

quote: Monte L Fullmer
picture was actually printed over the soundtrack area, and the soundtrack area was in the run of the sprockets. This reel was unpresentable. I told the manager, who called the booker to order a last reel of this film.

Then, there were a few times that a scene would weave and wobble until a big obvious jump, then everything was okey. I ran up and stopped the show, went back to that area on the filmroll and discovered that the positive stock in the printer came loose somehow and this weave in this section of film was printed. Okey, another bad, unpresentable reel.

When the image shifts like that, it's a rare occurance of the film jumping off the printer sprocket, which could occur at a raw stock "lab" splice. (The picture negative and sound negative are "contact printed" by running both the original and raw stock over a 64-tooth circumference printer sprocket, with the raw stock as the outside lap). Usually caught during lab inspection, but not always. As noted, another good reason to prescreen prints, with someone watching and listening for issues that might be missed during make-up inspection.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 08-11-2005 02:09 PM

Thx John for your reply. Now, I might drift off-topic a bit here, but it still pertains to screenings:

I have to ask this one, since it kinda bugs me on occasion: I've noticed (since everything is now contact printed) that some features have the great color balances, then there are those that looks so blue-greenish to where something was amiss during developing, or the color balancing levels wasn't watched during printing.

Any help on this would be great in answering this question.

thx, John. - Monte

[ 08-12-2005, 03:08 AM: Message edited by: Monte L Fullmer ]

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-11-2005 02:15 PM

That one is rather odd since the soundrack and picture are printed on seperate sprockets it would have to have climbed off on both

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 08-11-2005 02:20 PM

I'm sure you know what safelight fogging looks like --- usually it's a magenta-blue-cyan coloration across the full width of the film for a short length of film, most often in the leaders or near a lab splice.

A colder overall color balance may have been a creative decision. Usually the lab gets final approval of the color at the answer print stage, makes the duplicate negatives, but then has to show the distributor that the release prints track the color balance of the approved answer print. "Check prints" are usually viewed for this purpose.

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Don Anderson
Master Film Handler

Posts: 312
From: West Bend, WI, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 08-11-2005 05:29 PM

I never intended my post to use film processing tapes to run through projectors. John P was correct, I use it to tape the ends to the leaders.

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 08-12-2005 07:00 AM

I received THE SOUND OF MUSIC recently and the leaders were attached with artist tape on both sides, a length of about 3 inches with a slight tab on the end attached to the film body side so as to make removal of the tape a simple matter of pulling the tab. Each join was obviously made correctly on a splicer because the film was perfectly aligned. Although the tape did cover the entire picture area it didn't cover the sprocket holes (I am figuring 3/4in tape?). I was building to 6000ft reels and this method seemed to work very well; it cut down the time considerably. Removal of this artist tape "splice" was a piece of cake and even easier than a regular single-sided tape splice would have been. And no, it wasn't runable that way for a change-over house, but had I been running this on 2000ft reels which is mostly what I do, it wouldn't have bothered me at all to reattach the leaders with regular splices for change-over. And thinking about it, this method might go even a bit further to stop the B-ushers from lopping off another frame just so they don't have to peal even that one-sided piece of splicing tape. If I were running this change-over, I sure would welcome making new splices instead of getting a print with mulitple frames cut off at each and every join -- 22 in this case of a 12 reeler.

quote: Wolff King Morrow
Actually I've seen people on this very site say its fine to tear the splice when it concerns breaking down a movie.

And can someone explain what "tearing" a splice means? I understand "pealing" but tearing sounds way too much like it is going to damage film.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 08-12-2005 03:01 PM

No, no, no, no, no Frank. Please don't even start with that idea again! In the real world that sort of practice while is *possible* to be done in such a fashion that could work, is a bad idea for many reasons.

#1 Artist tape over time DOES get gooey. This is magnified when the film is sitting in a hot warehouse, which they all are. So if the print is shelved for some time, you now have 3 INCHES WORTH OF GOO AND CRUD AT THE REEL CHANGE TO CLEAN OR CHOP OFF!!! Not acceptable. At least with a single sided splice (using splicing tape), even if the splicing tape is gooey you only have one frame to deal with cleaning up vs. chopping. This practice will undoubtedly end up with people cutting off MULTIPLE FRAMES so as to not have to deal with cleaning up the residue left from the Artist's tape. [Eek!]

#2 Most booths do not have Artist's tape, and if this practice is recommended, people will start doing it with masking tape!!! [puke]

#3 People are lazy. Hadn't you noticed? Prints broken down with this method will end up being done without a splicer, which ends up making the ends not properly square to each other and causes edge damage as the reels are banged around during shipping. Guess what that means? Yup, more chopped frames! [Mad]

Are you noticing a pattern here? From a guy who so adamantly saves every frame possible, this is a terrible recommendation.

-------

"Tearing a splice" refers to taking both index fingers and thumbs on either side of the cut right next to each other and just "tearing" the splice apart. If you do this with some junk film you will see that it doesn't damage the integrity of the cut itself and the splicing tape just tears down the middle.

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Heath Dutton
Film Handler

Posts: 37
From: Montgomery, Alabama / United States of America
Registered: Jul 2005

posted 08-12-2005 05:14 PM

Back to the original topic...

We have always done late night screenings for all prints.
The rare exception being the occasional Indian film thats dropped upon us unexpectedly in the usual burlap bag.

Usually as early as tuesday I'll find out what prints we will be recieving and I'll post a schedule of previews downstairs for the employees, with all previews starting at the earliest available slots. I have a niftly little coppied form with all the previewing rules on it so I just fill in the movie titles, times and auditoriums.

Among the rules are the obvious ones... No customers, must have a walkie, cannot leave mid-show, etc.

Unfortunately we don't have enough projectionists to preview all prints, so we try to get the groundlings to do as much of it as possible. Occasionally this system fails when the previewer falls asleep, but in general this works quite well.

As for movies with midnight openings, we usually find slots earlier in the day that can be cancelled, or not played due to no tickets being sold, and get those prints previewed by assistant managers. I'm not sure if this practice is compleytely legal, but I would think it absolutely necessary. In at least one case this has prevented a deffective reel from being shown at midnight, which would have dissapointed hundreds of patrons.

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Will Wheatley Uhl
Film Handler

Posts: 10
From: Manchester, NH
Registered: Dec 2003

posted 08-12-2005 05:47 PM

Thank you for bringing my original post back on topic, I can't believe that one sentance about tape would start this craziness. Unfortunately, I am the only person in the entire theatre that stays to screen the prints. This usually means I am at the theatre from 6pm on thursday, to 7am on friday building up, breaking down, screening, and moving prints. I have to do all this myself, and I don't think my pay rate is worth it. My house manager actually asked me, why do you have to watch the prints all the way through? Why can't you just run it through a projector and check it? To which I replied, because I can't see all the possible film defects inbetween checks. I like to be thourough, but am I being too thourough? Or perhaps Im a fool to work more than the house and assistant managers without being on salary (Im technically a manager too). Film tech friends, what should I do.

Also, my manager has repeditively told me to put a piece of splicing tape over my foil cues to prevent them from coming off. I tell him no for various reasons but it never seems to convince him. What are your opinions?

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-12-2005 06:42 PM

[quote] my manager has repeditively told me to put a piece of splicing tape over my foil cues to prevent them from coming off. ...What are your opinions?

I have a piece of junk film that I tack onto the end of all of my prints. It has a 1" strip of foil tape on it that cues the automation shutdown. I've been using this same junk strip for about five years on every single show and have never had to replace the foil tape yet. So, unless you are using an extremely crappy type of foil, or if you run prints for more than five years, I'd say putting a piece of splice tape over the foil is a waste of splice tape.

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