Personally, I NEVER do it as it disrupts the continuity of the analog track and I for one can count backwards during breakdown.
 

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"It's not the years honey, it's the mileage".
Indiana Jones.
 

I sympathize with John, but I don't have any helpful advice right now for him.
 

How much longer and added cost could this really take?
 

Ooooooh, that's a GOOD idea!

They used to write the title and reel # on the edges of the film, several feet in, at both ends. I used that extensively. SDDS has killed that practice, I suppose, since their soundtrack is there.

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Better Projection Pays!
 

Still though, the Technicolor lab now prints the title/reel number between "4" and "5" on the countdown. Why can't they print an ID frame there as well?

Scott,

If I got a print that had several ID frames on the leader and a few cuts, yes I would refuse to play it. Continuity IS lost in doing that. (Sorry John W., but that practice is just horrible and I hope you will stop doing that before you get charged on one of your prints I send back.)

What are the odds that another theater will get a print that I've ultrasonic spliced together that ALSO will be assembling it with an ultrasonic splicer? Those odds are probably about once in a lifetime. Hence, the next "tape" guy can either peel the tape and not lose a single frame (even the new "ID" frame) or can leave that first frame on the roll to become the "ID" frame.

The ultrasonic splices made on the Metric 3001 (review on this site) are nothing short of fantastic. They pass through on screen as flawlessly as a negative splice. If it wasn't for the changeover dots, no one could possibly know where the actual reel change was they are so perfect. Also, it is the ONLY kind of splice regardless of splicer or splicing tape that won't knock out the SRD track on a Christie basement reader.

Of course the BEST part of it all is the ability to cut out those obnoxious "lab splices" within the reels and the result being undetectable in almost every case.

Brad Miller wrote:
>Personally, I NEVER do it as it disrupts the continuity of the analog track
>and I for one can count backwards during breakdown.

I think this is a very bad policy and I'll tell you why: The check frame isn't so much for YOUR benefit as for the next person. If I get your print I have no way of knowing if the person breaking it down made a mistake or not and without that check frame there is simply no way to know.

My main job is running previews for critics and other VIP's at a professional private screening room. I run most of the films that Roger Ebert reviews. While I often get prints that are either new or have otherwise only been run in review rooms all too often I must contend with the same dreck as many of you do--masking taped leaders or no leaders, etc. When prepping a print I inspect and repair if need be the heads and tails of each reel to insure problem free changeovers. With as many films as I run it is impossible to do a test run so the inspection process is critical. Mind you, if you guys screw up an opening night, well that's awful but you can fix things and the remainder of the run will be fine and 99% of your audience will have gotten good shows. For me, I have one chance to be perfect on each show and each show must be perfect. Literally millions of dollars ride on it. When I get a print that has previously been screened at a platter house and the operator there has Brad's philosophy I am literally flying blind. My personal rules of operation developed after many years are to verify framing with a checking device or sync block anytime there is a splice across which framing can't be visually verified. That much I can do. But the identity of the reel? I can only hope and pray that no mistakes were made.

So far I have been lucky in that over the years only one time have I had wrong leaders in a situation where there were no check frames to call attention to it. No doubt that person thought he could count backwards and got them on correctly too. I recall that the film was "Clean and Sober" and a year or two later I was screening dailies for editor Richard Chew (OSCAR winner for Star Wars) on his subsequent film when I found out that C&S was his film and I told him the story of how some unnamed platter bozo who had the print before me had fucked up HIS screening for two of the most important critics in the country. So, yes, when I get a film where I have no proof of the identity of the reels (other than first and last) I condemn the ignorant person who did this.

As for the issue of analog soundtrack disruption that is a non issue in this digital age. There are still some neophytes who think that something is being left out when a single frame doesn't get shown. While it's true that there is some horrible editing going on these days, on a properly edited film there is a bit of slop at the ends of the reels to allow the projectionist to make a manual changeover. Most films do get exhibited from platters it's true but the most important screenings a film will ever have--for the studio "suits" and for critics--are mostly done reel to reel so with the exception of films cut by inexperienced (with film) editors who don't know any better there is nothing lost by leaving out a frame--more would be overlapped in a changeover anyway. With nothing lost there is nothing to be gained by going to great lengths (read: losing reel identity) to keep in every last frame.

Steve http://i.am/cinerama

Steve,

I can understand your concern, but if you are doing trade screenings and such, you SHOULD be getting virgin prints anyway. If you are not, then all of those used prints Technicolor keeps sending out must be from their employee party/bootleg screenings!

When you get a print that has leaders masking taped on, you worry right? When you get a print that is in pristine condition with leaders properly spliced, cues removed and such, you know you shouldn't have a problem right...because the operator must've had a BRAIN. Besides, the color difference between reels on SDDS tracks (or edge marks for non-SDDS prints) along with the analog soundtrack is plenty of proof enough that you are putting the reels in the proper order. I've put MANY jumbled up prints together with no reference frames of any kind and all I did was look at the edges and soundtrack. Hell, I've put together prints that had NO leaders or identification of any sort (not even a piece of tape with a number on it to hold the first lap of film down) and I always get it right with those 2 tricks. All you have to do is look.

By the way, if you ever get one of my prints, the theater will be clearly noted on the leaders so feel free to call me up and complain...but wait until after your show runs perfectly first.

 

Once you've made that cut before the first frame instead of after you have forever removed the solid proof about the identity of the reel. You may have replaced the leaders correctly but what about the next guy or girl? You've destroyed evidence that would protect against *their* error.

Even if the next person makes a cut 1 frame in so that *they* have a check frame if I get it after that besides the fact that now there is a single frame splice (which I will remove because I won't run a reel in that condition) the fact remains that without an unbroken connection between an identifiable frame and the reel identity there is no guaranty that it's correct.

Your argument simply does not hold water in the sense that as long as films are edited with changeovers in mind loss of a single frame at each end (more, really) is a given on the part of the filmmaker so you have done them no favor.

As for prints coming in with masking tape leader my reaction is a platter bozo has been at work but so long as there are check frames I know I can ensure a perfect screening--it's just more work to restore everything. But when a print which has been platterized comes in sans check frames no matter how perfect the splices, no matter how neat and tidy it there is nothing that can be done except run it and hope they were right. The work of actually running the film--even with 20 minute reels and changeovers--is trivial compared to the critical inspection process to make sure the screening runs perfectly. With no guaranty of reel identity because someone before me was ignorant of proper procedures no amount of work can establish that the most basic element--reels in the right order--can be absolutely assured.
 

I guess you'll just have to hope you never get a print of mine, because nothing can be said to convince me to start chopping off frames. You should consider the tricks I spoke of earlier, though. If you are ever in the Denver area, be sure and swing by so I can show you first hand how to determine the correct numbering of reels without any leaders attached.

By the way, if the print comes from the Technicolor depot I am SHOCKED to hear they are actually circulating those trade and press screening prints around. I've worked at theaters where we would get a print in for a special studio screening, then the next day it would be picked up by the Airborne guy who was delivering AT THE SAME TIME another brand new print of the same movie for a trade screening the following day. This sort of thing would continue to happen for various sneaks even right up to a press screening on Wednesday, where the Airborne driver would drop off another new print on Thursday for the actual engagement while he simultaneously picked up yet another "used one time" print from the day before's screening. I've never understood this practice, as all it does is reward the screening theater (and convince them there is no need to take care of that print they KNOW they will only play once) and punish an innocent theater that ultimately ends up with it.

Until such time as a law is passed there's nothing I can do to stop you from permanently destroying your prints' absolute proof of reel identity.