Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The shaky film of the year award

This is topic The shaky film of the year award in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-02-2000, 03:44 PM:

Ok, here's my nomination for the worst printing job thus far of 2000..."Big Mama's House". Not even the Sixth Sense prints were THIS bad. What's going on with the labs these days? We can all thank Deluxe for this one.

Anyone else have a print that was so bad you felt the intermittent was about to explode? I walked out of the auditorium with a headache from all the shaking. I could probably hold the slide projector in my hand and project a steadier image.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-02-2000, 04:10 PM:

Yes, I have the same thing.

A lot of times when I first put the FilmGuard on I have to tweek trap tension, then I adjust it again later after the film "dries" a little. No matter what I adjusted it had no effect.

JEEZ! I thought they shot the movie on a boat!

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 06-02-2000, 07:16 PM:

Maybe the foundations are just not all that steady on her house. I recommend re-stumping.

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"I heard a voice behind me say...'Reach for it, Mister'... I spun around...found myself face to face...with a six year old kid! Well I just threw my guns down, walked away... LITTLE BASTARD SHOT ME IN THE ASS!"

Gene Wilder - Blazing Saddles

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-02-2000, 08:30 PM:

I just set gate tension on the first run with FilmGuard and leave it. After that it never needs adjusting again.

And no the shaking didn't get worse when Big Mama walked.

Posted by Barron Dripp (Member # 483) on 06-03-2000, 08:47 AM:

God, it's too bad that the prints of that didn't just get burned anyway! what a stupid POS. Did ANYONE like this movie? Watching it with a lot of shaking would have been better anyway. Could have improved it!

Posted by Joseph Pandolfi (Member # 223) on 06-04-2000, 07:50 AM:

We got two prints in. Both have the shakes also. I warned the ushers to foward off any complaints, it's a global problem

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-04-2000, 10:14 PM:

I'd like to be able to set the gate tension and leave it but we only have 3 cleaners for 17 screens. Most weeks that's not a problem but when you get multiple prints of a movie, sometimes you have to just FG the first print on Thurs. night and do the other on Sat. morning... Hence all the tension adjusting. Besides, we still have people who play the "Hey! What's THIS knob do?" game. I've developed the habit of checking the settings every couple of shifts.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-04-2000, 10:54 PM:

Might want to consider putting a piece of tape on the side of the projector near the gate tension adjustment with the correct number it should be set to.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-04-2000, 11:45 PM:

Typically, when the film is dry, I set it to somewhere between 12:00 and 1:00 position. (No numbers or clicks -- Century SA-TA)

If the film is FG'ed, it likes to be between 4:00 and 6:00, depending on whether it's Kodak or Fuji film. (Fuji, being a hair-bit thinner, I believe. -- Therefore needing a bit higher setting to get the same tension.)

I've learned just to take care of it myself because most people just don't understand what it means. It's a mental bandwidth problem, I guess.

PS: I have noticed that FilmGuard has a little bit of a "residual" effect. If you just ran a FG'ed print for a while and then you run a dry one, the projector STILL runs a lot smoother and quieter. You still get some dust but not quite as much as before. By the end of the day it does wear off, though

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-05-2000, 07:48 AM:

Sounds like the unsteadiness was printed in. Often such unsteadiness is due to the common practice of using a continuous contact printer for printing the short-pitch camera negative to a short-pitch master positive to a short-pitch duplicate negative. A pin-registered step printer should ideally be used when printing short-pitch to short-pitch. For a discussion of the "Optimum Pitch for Printing", see Kodak Publication H-1: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/h1/sizes.shtml

One quick way to determine if the unsteadiness is due to your projector would be to pull the aperture plate, such that you can see the corners of the print film perforations projected to the right of the screen. If the perfs on the print are steady, but the image is jumping relative to it, the projector is doing its job correctly. If the print film perfs are not steady, print lubrication and tension adjustment should help, unless the projector needs repair.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment 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

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 06-05-2000, 02:59 PM:

I just saw "Big Mama's House" at Wasted Acres 14(West Acres...). The picture, I thought was pretty steady except the last reel and credits were quite bouncy.Firts reel had a lab scratch on it and I think the feature was in SR. almost no treble. I also saw some purple fringing on the "Sountrack on such and such records". John, what is that caused by?
well I suppose thats enough gripe for one day

Josh

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-05-2000, 03:08 PM:

Color fringing on closing titles could be due to many different factors. Chromatic aberration in lenses is a common one. Tiny white letters against a black background is tough on the optics.

What sound system was being used?

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 06-05-2000, 03:19 PM:

John, I'm not sure what sound system was in use. I had a look through the port and saw a dts reader. I could have been DTS because there was no pops at splices and I know this theater uses tape splices. last time I was in the booth was 6 months ago so I dought much changed. I think they had an ultrastereo processor

Josh

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-05-2000, 03:50 PM:

F.Y.I. The film only has a Dolby digital track and SR analog.

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 06-06-2000, 07:08 AM:

The credits I think were done at a different time. Why? Reels 1-5 all had a blue/green SDDS edge where Reel 6 was clear.

We had a reel 2 where we could see the purple edge of the analog soundtrack.