Is there any pattern to how trailers are shipped among Technicolor Entertainment Services (TES), National Screen Servive (NSS) and Theatrical Distribution Services (TDS)? Any pattern to which distributor they are for?

One of my pet peeves is the dirt and cinches that can occur when trailers are shipped without cores, or untaped and protected from dirt. Ideally, a large (3-inch or 75mm) core should be used to minimize the core-set ("clockspringing") that causes focus flutter.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Professional Motion Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
 

Paramount trailers for somereason seem to be the ones that arrive in the worst condition, they're typically wound emulsion in, on 1" cores. The FedEx people seem to have fun tossing these baggies around, many of the trailers arrive on broken cores. Like Brad stated, most of these trailers are destined for the trash.
 

ALL trailers are now being distributed on the teeny tiny 1 inch cores with these exceptions:

• Moviephone trailers come on their own special version of the 1 inch core that will cut your fingers.
  
• All ads from Screenvision come on no cores, but were obviously wound at one point onto a 1 inch core. Gotta love their 1 frame of leader too!
  

Now as to each studio:

• Paramount and Fox trailers come wound emulsion in, which as I have crusaded in the past many times about should not be done. The core set is incredible and they absolutely will NOT run steadily until they have been wound emulsion out for at least a few days. This is why I rewind all of my trailers the day they arrive. I store them all heads out and all emulsion out. Note: all other studio's trailers come wound emulsion out and incredibly enough (even with that small core) run flawlessly straight out of the bag. (When oh when is SMPTE going to revise that way-too-outdated recommendation???)
  
• Trailers from Paramount and Screenvision always come in a nice cardboard box. Very rarely are these damaged.
  
• Trailers from NFS sometimes come in a cardboard box and sometimes come in a UPS "baggie".
  
• Trailers from TES without a doubt always come in a baggie and are there is always at least one that gets tossed. I have on many occasions received a bag of half a dozen trailers from TES and the bag was so banged around, I tossed them ALL into the trash due to cinch mark scratches.
  
• Trailers from Fox (Right Side Up) will on occasion come in a box, but almost always in the dreaded baggie. Again, same problems.
  

So what does this all mean? Baggies should be outlawed and all trailers should come wound emulsion out. Why?

• Baggies cannot withstand the torture UPS and FedEx puts on them. (Personally, I think they play kickball with the bags.) The trailers come in dished, scuffed up, scratched and sometimes are beaten so bad the center revolutions of film pop out of the outer revolutions! Frequently a good amount of the cores are split in half from the abuse they take during shipping!
  
• Send me a trailer in a baggie, you've got a 50/50 chance I will run it vs. throw it away if it's got little cinch mark scratches on it.
  
• Send me a trailer wound emulsion in and there's no way in hell I will play it until I have had it wound emulsion out for at least 3 days. Don't like it? Want it on screen with that new movie? Tough. I won't lower my presentation from focus drift and flutter!
  
• Now this isn't to say that "loose in the can" trailers are treated with any respect either. Even the TES cans are now old and beaten to death. The worst cans are the ones with the cardboard liner. The trailers are literally crammed in beside the reels of film and some are scraped up so bad on the side there are random horizontal shifts from where the edges of the trailers were knicked. Also, the dirt from the cans in many instances=trash! Again, if the studios do not care enough to send me a pristine copy of a trailer, I do not care to present it to anyone or anything except the trash can.
  

I think other caring film handlers here will back me up on everything I've pointed out, and perhaps even point out a few other things that I'm forgetting.
 

I guess TES idea of loose is in a seperate bag. The 'loose' trailers didn't arrive for another 3 days.

I wish I could hold myself to your standard's Brad, but I don't have enough trailers to meet company policy of 5 previews per screen the way it is, I'm forced to lie on the trailer reports every week. If I started throwing out trailers that weren't perfect, ugh!
 

All points well taken, and I agree with you. I however can't remember the last time I've ever received trailers in a box. They all come in the UPS baggies, except Fox which come in a UPS padded pouch...far better.

I won't run a trailer that contains a "release date" that can't be seamlessly edited out, unless it's for a movie that REALLY needs a lot of help.

If they insist on putting those release dates on, I wish they would put them at the tail end, after the title and credits, and AFTER the sound has faded. (And with frame lines.)

Oops, there I go pipe-dreaming again.
 

Warner Bros wins points for including the bag for returning trailers and the UPS label at Warner Bros expense.
 

I guess plastic is too expensive....

And Brad is right about leaving only one frame of film to splice onto. Sometimes I get the Screenvision ads with writing in the optical track, right at the beginning. So now I either have to bloop it, or cut it out. I usually cut it, because I hate them anyway and I didn't get any more pay for dealing with them.

But, that's another thread....