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» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » Film-Yak   » What is the most moronic beef you have with this industry? (Page 5)

 
This topic comprises 6 pages: 1  2  3  4  5  6   
Author Topic: What is the most moronic beef you have with this industry?
Christian Appelt
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 505
From: Frankfurt, Germany
Registered: Dec 2001

- posted 03-23-2003 04:09 PM      Profile for Christian Appelt   Email Christian Appelt   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
John,

you`re right, complaining surely helps. But very often, the problem is in the original photography itself. I bet they had a great time looking at the video assist monitor when shooting a film like FROM HELL, it sure looked fine on the AVID monitor, but when I get a Scope picture with about three inches of depth of field on a 70 ft. screen, I cannot blame the distributor or the lab for this visual torture to my eyes. [Mad]

The need of doing effects and all kind of image manipulation in 2K resolution has pushed back the art of cinematography about 30 years as far as image quality is concerned.

Kodak (and competitors) never made finer film stock, cameras and lenses are close to perfection, but what ends up on the screen is just an insult to the paying audience. But they do not complain because they haven`t seen it much better for years. The first part of many LOTR prints and the italian-made HARRY POTTER prints were the lowest I`ve seen in 30 years of seeing and showing movies - but they make money, nobody writes about it, so this goes on.

Hm, I didn`t mean to sound that fatalistic, but I see so many old films in vintage prints that I simply cannot adjust to the current level of image quality in the industry... [Frown]

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Robert E. Allen
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1078
From: Checotah, Oklahoma
Registered: Jul 2002

- posted 03-23-2003 05:38 PM      Profile for Robert E. Allen   Email Robert E. Allen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Amen Scott!!

I hope you are, or will soon be, in a position to do something about those things you mentioned.

May you enjoy a long and healthy life in this business.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

- posted 03-26-2003 04:49 AM      Profile for Leo Enticknap   Author's Homepage   Email Leo Enticknap   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
If you get a print that has obvious lab problems like safelight fogging or silver soundtrack blotches, or other "upstream" image quality issues, let the distributor know of your dissatisfaction.
I agree with Christian: the issue is not one of specific manufacturing defects. It's more of a general reduction in print quality, caused, I think, by the huge increase in the volume of prints produced resulting from the multiplex boom. If you go to see a big-release film now it's pure pot luck as to whether you'll get a good, sharp, well-balanced print or a soft, grainy, wobbly and generally nasty one.

What makes me think that this is a mass-production issue is that arthouse and rerelease titles, printed by the smaller labs in runs of 5 to 10 copies maximum, invariably look a hell of a lot better than mass-printed Hollywood blockbusters.

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John Pytlak
Film God

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

- posted 03-26-2003 03:59 PM      Profile for John Pytlak   Author's Homepage   Email John Pytlak   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
What makes me think that this is a mass-production issue is that arthouse and rerelease titles, printed by the smaller labs in runs of 5 to 10 copies maximum, invariably look a hell of a lot better than mass-printed Hollywood blockbusters.
If only 5 or 10 copies are being made, they may be prints made from the original negative. Quality would be better, but at risk for damaging the original negative.

I have seen many "mass-printed Hollywood blockbusters" that have remarkably good quality. When image quality is questionable, the issues are often choice of format (e.g., Super-35 requires more magnification), exposure of the negative (underexposure increases graininess and reduces shadow detail, wide-open apertures require careful attention to focus), "look" (e.g., fog filters, non-standard processes), or the labs not being given enough time to employ the proper printing procedures (they should only use continuous contact printing for printing a short-pitch original to a long-pitch raw stock, and use a much slower pin-registered step printer for printing onto short-pitch film).

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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

- posted 03-26-2003 04:23 PM      Profile for Michael Schaffer   Author's Homepage   Email Michael Schaffer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
How does underexposure cause graininess?

The Italian prints Christian mentioned are feared by operators everywhere. They have many quality problems, and often stick like hell.
When I worked for a big German chain, I reintroduced the habit of writing print quality reports and rejecting bad prints. That helped a lot and we got noticeably better prints. Now I hear they have the same problems again because it causes more work to write a print report (yes, take the form, fill in the title and tick a few boxes when there are quality problems, takes about 45 seconds). Also, some of the distributors complained about us sending prints back and the management didn`t want problems.

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John Pytlak
Film God

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

- posted 03-26-2003 10:10 PM      Profile for John Pytlak   Author's Homepage   Email John Pytlak   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
The Italian prints Christian mentioned are feared by operators everywhere. They have many quality problems, and often stick like hell.
I suspect that those problem prints may not be on Kodak VISION Color Print film. What is the edgeprint ID?

An underexposed color negative places scene information on the "toe" of the sensitometric curve, which represents the fastest layers, and has the largest grains. Graininess is reduced as the negative receives more exposure.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

- posted 03-27-2003 03:10 AM      Profile for Leo Enticknap   Author's Homepage   Email Leo Enticknap   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
If only 5 or 10 copies are being made, they may be prints made from the original negative. Quality would be better, but at risk for damaging the original negative.
For the kind of films I'm thinking of I'd be surprised if they did that. What I had in mind are European films, many of which would have had many tens, if not hundreds of prints distributed in their countries of origin (and so would have been printed through the camera original - fine grain pos - interneg - release print cycle), but only a very few here. For the ones that are printed in British labs I'd guess that they import an interneg and then print that, adding subtitles either by laser if there are very few prints, or onto the interneg if there are slightly more.

That having been said, Bollywood seems to print straight from camera originals. I vaguely remember a query on the AMIA list from an Indian DoP who was trying to rescue a badly worn cut camera negative which had been Scotchguarded and then had several hundred prints contacted off it. I'd always wondered why Indian prints looked so sharp!

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John Pytlak
Film God

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

- posted 03-27-2003 09:34 AM      Profile for John Pytlak   Author's Homepage   Email John Pytlak   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
In many cases, loss of sharpness and poor steadiness in release prints is caused by continuous contact printing onto short-pitch raw stock. Bell and Howell developed contact printing on the principle that the original would be 0.3 percent shorter than the raw stock, finding that the short-pitch original and long-pitch raw stock wrapped around a 12-inch circumference printing sprocket had minimal slippage.

When printing onto short-pitch raw stock, a pin-registered step printer should be used:

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/h1/printing.shtml

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/support/h1/sizesP.shtml

(See "Optimum Pitch for Printing")

So for optimum steadiness and sharpness, the short pitch BH-1866 perfed camera negative would be wet-contact printed onto long pitch intermediate film perforated DH-1870. After processing, this master positive would be STEP-PRINTED with a PIN-REGISTERED printer onto short pitch intermediate film perforated BH-1866. Finally, the short pitch duplicate negative can be contact printed onto long-pitch print film raw stock, perforated KS-1870, to make the release prints.

As noted, labs are often not given enough time to make multiple duplicate negatives using the preferred (but much slower) pin-registered step printers, and are forced to use continuous contact printing for all stages of duplication, compromising quality.

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Josh Jones
Redhat

Posts: 1207
From: Plano, TX
Registered: Apr 2000

- posted 03-27-2003 08:12 PM      Profile for Josh Jones   Author's Homepage   Email Josh Jones   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
in reference to the comments about the oil first vs. second, I'm sorry gentlemen but I have to side with the oil SECOND. We had a kettle fire here on Sunday, and I dont care how damn good the corn tastes, I'm not going to burn up half the lobby for it. Luckily the lobby was saved by the quick action of a customer and an employee. the only damage done was a burned up popper and some chared trim. They put that label there for a reason, and I'm deathly afraid of fire.

Sincerely,

Josh

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

- posted 03-27-2003 08:49 PM      Profile for David Stambaugh   Author's Homepage   Email David Stambaugh   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Aren't there only a few seconds between putting in the oil and putting in the corn, whichever order you do it? Why do those few seconds make any difference to the taste, and why would a few seconds make a fire more likely? [Confused]

The old Moyer W. 11th Movieland 6 here had a kettle fire on a very crowded Saturday night. Even though the fire in the kettle was quickly extinguished, they had to evacuate the whole place anyway because of smoke, and also there was no way of knowing whether there was residual fire still burning in the hood exhaust duct system above the popper. Flames had scorched the ceiling, so the Fire Dept. had to assume the ducts were still hot, and they said "Clear the place". Hundreds of rainchecks given out that night.

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Michael Gonzalez
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 790
From: Grand Island , NE USA
Registered: Sep 2000

- posted 03-27-2003 10:54 PM      Profile for Michael Gonzalez   Email Michael Gonzalez   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Also I hope that your concessionest are very good at cleaning out the kettle for those of you who do the oil first. The kids here do the corn first than oil, consquently, the kettle is always very easy to clean at night. I've worked at theater where the staff puts the oil in first and looking at the amount of burnt black oil coating the inside of the kettle, I wouldn't want to eat the popcorn that came out of that kettle.

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John Hawkinson
Film God

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

- posted 03-28-2003 04:48 PM      Profile for John Hawkinson   Email John Hawkinson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
John, why is contact printing long -> short any different than printing short->long? I understand why short->short or long->long is bad...

--jhawk

[ 03-28-2003, 09:21 PM: Message edited by: John Hawkinson ]

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

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

- posted 03-28-2003 06:41 PM      Profile for Mike Blakesley   Author's Homepage   Email Mike Blakesley   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
Aren't there only a few seconds between putting in the oil and putting in the corn, whichever order you do it? Why do those few seconds make any difference to the taste, and why would a few seconds make a fire more likely?
We used to have an ancient Manley machine. The manual for it said that the corn will pop bigger and fluffier if the oil is hot before you put the popcorn in.

We have since replaced that machine with a Cretors "Diplomat", complete with "corn first" sticker, but on the FIRST batch of the night, we let the oil heat up for a couple of minutes before putting the corn in. On subsequent batches, it's corn first unless the kettle has gotten cold.

We employ five teenagers in the concession and they are all smart enough to follow this procedure. We've had no fires in 73 years of operation.

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Josh Jones
Redhat

Posts: 1207
From: Plano, TX
Registered: Apr 2000

- posted 03-28-2003 08:54 PM      Profile for Josh Jones   Author's Homepage   Email Josh Jones   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Ours (was) also a diplomat popper. When the insurance settles down around here, I'll take a pic of the damage. This would also be a good time to point out a design flaw in the Creator's Diplomat. The handle for closing the kettle is right above the lip of the kettle. Should a flash fire occur, no bozo in their right mind will stick his or her hand into the flames to shut the kettle and extinguish the fire. the handle should be somewhere else, like on their larger poppers.

Josh

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Daryl C. W. O'Shea
Film God

Posts: 3977
From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from)
Registered: Jun 2002

- posted 03-28-2003 09:45 PM      Profile for Daryl C. W. O'Shea   Author's Homepage   Email Daryl C. W. O'Shea   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
Should a flash fire occur, no bozo in their right mind will stick his or her hand into the flames to shut the kettle and extinguish the fire.
That's what metal popcorn scoops are for.

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