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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: Multiple Reference Frames (or, What's up with the "acordian" leaders?)
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 04-16-2012 10:43 AM
To be fair, they don't target FG (or at least, the archive instruction sheets I've seen don't): they simply tell you not to attempt to clean the film yourself, period. This is probably because there were some pretty gruesome film "cleaning" machines dreamt up and made during the '70s and '80s, including one horror I encountered in a booth once. It was designed to service 16mm prints circulating among schools etc., and passed the film over cotton pad type things under tremendous pressure. Even when soaked in the tricholoroethane fluid with which you were supposed to use it (yup - not only did it ruin films, but gave the operator cancer as well!), it did very little good, and if they dried out, you might just as well be rubbing your film across sandpaper.
This rule, together with allowing chinagraph cues but no others, are symptomatic of the fact that with one or two honourable exceptions (Tim Wagner at GEH, for example, is one of the most careful, knowledgable and dedicated projectionists I've ever met), the people in archives who deal with print loans are not projectionists or booth techs. The know very little about what happens in a booth, and have little or no professional experience of working in one, as a general rule. Therefore, they base many of their rules and policies on what some projectionist told them once in 1976, and haven't had the opportunity to keep up to date with how good practice has evolved. Typically, they're experts about films, not the machinery they run on.
To be fair, of the options currently available to a typical projectionist in a typically equipped booth, chinagraph cues and click strips are probably are the least worst; and as Manny has explained above, there are circumstances in which click strips won't work. I suspect that few archive access offiers would object to the use of foil cues in a system such as Brad's if it was expained to them and if a standardised system could be agreed upon (to prevent the need to stick multiple cues across several feet of the start and end of each reel, in the same way that multiple visual cues are a problem at present).
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Paul Gordon
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 580
From: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Aug 2005
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posted 04-16-2012 02:29 PM
I work in a film archive, myself and four of our staff have been film projectionists. We also deal with film processers, optical printers, contact printers, film scanners, intercines, and projectors almost ever day at work. So I would say we have some idea of how "machines work".
Foil cues are ok with us, though most of prints are machine cued already. The prints that go out are refrence prints, not archival masters.
We also clean our prints when needed with a Ultra sonic CF9200 Lipsner Smith.
quote: Leo Enticknap
This rule, together with allowing chinagraph cues but no others, are symptomatic of the fact that with one or two honourable exceptions (Tim Wagner at GEH, for example, is one of the most careful, knowledgable and dedicated projectionists I've ever met), the people in archives who deal with print loans are not projectionists or booth techs. The know very little about what happens in a booth, and have little or no professional experience of working in one, as a general rule. Therefore, they base many of their rules and policies on what some projectionist told them once in 1976, and haven't had the opportunity to keep up to date with how good practice has evolved. Typically, they're experts about films, not the machinery they run on.
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Doug Thompson
Film Handler
Posts: 27
From: Jacksonville, Fl, USA
Registered: Sep 2011
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posted 04-17-2012 07:09 PM
When I was in the booth, I don't think there were as many brands of splicing tape as there are now. Neutape and Ciro were the only ones of which I was aware. If the existing splice was Ciro tape, you'd play hell peeling it off. And if the previous cut was made with a Ciro splicer and the head and tail weren't cut with the emulsion and sound track the same way round, the resulting splice would gap or overlap. And the matrix which perfed the previous splice was often damaged and ruined the perfs in the film. Bouncing splice, anyone? ![[Mad]](mad.gif) I tried to keep the previous cuts, really, I did. But after a while, I gave up trying to "peel and reuse."
It did occur to me to remove the extra frames, but I figured that if everyone did so and made clean cuts as though they were making a repair, the leader would get progressively shorter. It seemed best that a changeover house do it instead.
At least it seemed best at the time. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 04-17-2012 11:40 PM
quote: Paul Gordon
I work in a film archive, myself and four of our staff have been film projectionists. We also deal with film processers, optical printers, contact printers, film scanners, intercines, and projectors almost ever day at work. So I would say we have some idea of how "machines work".
My post above yours refered to archives' access officers, not their entire workforces. The general problem (to which there are exceptions) is that the people who truly understand the issues (i.e. the preservation and lab staffs) are not the ones setting the policies and procedures around print loans. In the past decade I've done consultancy gigs revising the technical guidelines and procedures for print loans in two major (as in, national in scale) archives. In one of them, the policies in use had not been revised between 1976 and 2008. The instruction sheet that was sent out to venues was mainly about nitrate precautions, despite the fact that this insitution no longer loaned nitrate prints and hadn't done for decades! How to handle the issue of cue dots is another case in point: adopting an automated system such as the one Brad proposes depends on a critical mass of archive access officers and rep theatre owners and programmers understanding the potential advantages enough to motivate them to invest in it. That, sadly, is the stumbling block.
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David Buckley
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 525
From: Oxford, N. Canterbury, New Zealand
Registered: Aug 2004
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posted 05-07-2012 02:11 AM
Given we are talking about a coming time where there is no new film, a collection of old film with rules trying to prevent further damage, mandatory changeovers, and less cinemas that still have 35mm projection capability, let alone changeover capability, would not the solution be to fit frame counters to projectors?
The print would come with a bit of paper listing frame counts from the start frame to changeover point, and the receving cinema could just enter the numbers into <something> and off you go.
No more china markers, bits of foil, holes or scratches, and altogether less handling of the film.
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Tony Bandiera Jr
Film God
Posts: 3067
From: Moreland Idaho
Registered: Apr 2004
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posted 05-14-2012 12:42 PM
quote: David Buckley
.......would not the solution be to fit frame counters to projectors?
The print would come with a bit of paper listing frame counts from the start frame to changeover point, and the receving cinema could just enter the numbers into <something> and off you go.
How would you account for missing frames/footage between the start and end of the reel? It would cause changeover errors of frames or even feet, both of which would be noticeable.
You idea would work on DTS-encoded prints though.... because the timecode is an absolute and already accounts for any edits or missing footage, it would be dead easy to have a system that triggers both the motor and changeover cues when the timecode count reaches the specifics for each reel.
But the reality of this situation is three-fold:
1: There are damn few changeover venues left, and their days are numbered.
2: In most cases of remaining changeover houses, it is very unlikely that the equipment is being properly maintained in a ready-to-run state. Hell, I can't even get access at UCI often enough to maintain the two rooms I have there.
3: Even if the venues exist and the equipment is ready, there are not enough COMPETENT projectionists left in many cases. Remember a thread recently where it was mentioned that a DC house lost the show, had a 35mm backup but still couldn't get on screen because no one in the 'plex knew how to operate the 35mm equipment? And that was a PLATTER house!
As many of you have seen I have come over to the Dark Side and done DC installs (will be helping with another in June as a matter of fact) and I can see some of the benefits of DC.
BUT, this continual "dumbing down" of the exhibition process will lead to the closing/elimination of film archive distribution. I hold out hope that preservation of even DC content will continue to be done with film, as even if projectors completely disappear 100 years from now, it would be easy for some future society to build a film projector (or telecine-like machine) to be able to show film to the masses.
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David Buckley
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 525
From: Oxford, N. Canterbury, New Zealand
Registered: Aug 2004
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posted 05-18-2012 07:29 AM
quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
How would you account for missing frames/footage between the start and end of the reel? It would cause changeover errors of frames or even feet, both of which would be noticeable.
Heres the thing. We're now talking about the few remaining prints from fairly specialist sources like archivists. They will provide you with the right frame count for the reel. They will check the reels when returned that the frame counts are still the same. If they are different, then something probably quite bad has happened to the print whilst it was out, and they can examine it to see how its been todged.
A frame counter shoudn't be a vastly expensive proposition; film has sprocket holes, and these can be detected optically, using technology not much different to an optical mouse. A bit of software on an old PC and the job is almost done.
As an idea it would have failed back in the changeover days for exactly the reasons you specify; by the time the film has done the rounds the changeover will occur seconds early due to frames being snipped out.
If we get the chance to rebuild our cinema as digital, I've already suggested we should hang on to the changeovers, as one day we might be the only venue within 50 miles that can actually show film. We have a different set of commercial pressures than the multis do, so keeping the beasts is not a bad thing.
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