Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Warner Bros' New Reels

This is topic Warner Bros' New Reels in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 09-16-2000, 05:51 PM:

With the print of 'Bait' I got this week, I got to experience the 'new' Warner Bros. shipping reels, which are basically the same as the 'clear' Technicolor reel but in Warner Bros. opaque blue color. Damned things do NOT stay together (a lot like the Tech equivalent) to save your life... Worst thing Warner has done since the ELR!

Anyone else enjoying these 'new' reels??

Aaron

Posted by Tom Kroening (Member # 201) on 09-16-2000, 09:56 PM:

If you ask me, i like the new technicolor reels. Although they bend they don't break! And seem to stay together much better then the other ones. Plus you can see when the film is getting down to the core much easier. They might still suck, but they are getting there.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-16-2000, 10:51 PM:

Hmmm. I've not had any problems with Warner reels, but those clear TES reels always come "unlatched" on me.

Posted by Gracia L. Babbidge (Member # 582) on 09-18-2000, 05:34 AM:

I have not had too many of the new [almost clear] TES reels fall apart on me, though I've dealt with a fwe with misaligned cores. grrrr...

I seem to have the worst luck with Warner Bros reels though. Every print I get from WB will have at least one reel that falls apart or at least one with a misaligned core. This past Thursday, Bait had a fwe misaligned cores, and in the process of taking the reel apart (very carefully, so as not to break it), I was attacked by the frilling thing!
Left me with a cresent shaped scratch about an inch and a half long, across my left palm. Really inconvenient with my being left-handed. My hand stung all night, and I still have a visible mark.
:::curses WB for sending crappy movies on crappy reels:::

...Now that I think about it, with the print I had to make up of The Whole Nine Yards, I had to realign all of the cores in the reels, left me with some scratches, bruises, and broken nails...
Ack! >_< Sometimes I think that WB has it out for my hands....

~GLB

------------------
In some cultures, what I do is considered normal.

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 09-18-2000, 09:38 AM:

That is really weird, I have never, never had problems with WB reels. They have never been warped or misaligned for me and they have never fallen apart. As a matter of fact, of all the reels I get, WB has the best quality! Not saying your lying, its just funny how experiences can vary so greatly. The same goes for the new TES reels, I love them. Never fallen apart on me at all.

Posted by Carl King (Member # 398) on 09-18-2000, 12:52 PM:

What was wrong with the one piece plastic reels? Why did WB and others feel the need to start using these take apart reels? They are garbage as far as I'm concerned. If the holes aren't misaligned then the damn things are falling apart. If the distributors want to do something useful why not start shipping print on 5k reels. Makeup and teardown would be a heck of a lot faster. Then there would be only one booth splice (other than trailers and such). Now that is an idea whose time has come.

comments anyone?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 09-18-2000, 01:59 PM:

In North America, the labs ship most reels as "pancakes" of film on a core. They are usually mounted onto shipping reels at the exchanges. Traditional metal or plastic shipping reels required winding the film onto the reel, a labor-intensive operation. With a "take-apart" reel, the pancake of film is simply put between the take-apart sections.

You might ask why labs don't simply wind the film onto reels themselves? Although they occasionally do (directly off the processing machine or in "positive assembly"), the logistics of returning hundreds of thousands of used reels to the labs for reuse are prohibitive, so it is usually done at the exchanges where old prints are discarded, and new ones mounted.

------------------
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 Dave Cutler (Member # 515) on 09-18-2000, 02:34 PM:

Why would it be more labor intensive for labs to print onto reels, instead of cores? Don't they still have to have all those cores shipped back to the labs for printing? Or do they just print onto new cores all the time? I guess the cores being smaller may be easier to ship.

If the labs are shpping on cores, why then do the exchanges even bother to snap a reel on? Why not just ship prints to the theatres on cores and require every theatre to have several metal split reels for build up and break down? Not that that is necessarially a good idea, some people wouldn't get the film on the core tightly and you would have a 'reel' mess.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 09-18-2000, 02:58 PM:

Dave said: "I guess the cores being smaller may be easier to ship... Why not just ship prints to the theatres on cores and require every theatre to have several metal split reels for build up and break down? Not that that is necessarially a good idea, some people wouldn't get the film on the core tightly and you would have a 'reel' mess".

You've answered your own questions. Labs continually get a free supply of new cores with the raw stock they buy. Some old cores are reused by the labs, but most go into a plastic recycling stream.

Shipping large rolls of film on a core can be tricky. Kodak actually uses a large vacuum-sealed "vac bag" package that protects the unexposed film from light, moisture, looseness and damage.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 09-18-2000, 04:50 PM:

Actually the labs have to buy the cores used for the split apart reels as there diameter is larger than the standard core FPC uses which is 3"
THe core that they use on the snap reels is 4"

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-18-2000, 05:05 PM:

I get new prints all the time with obviously used cores. I'm sure they are being recycled to the labs instead of to the plastic recycling dump.

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 09-19-2000, 02:27 AM:

Just to clarify: the Warner reels I am talking about are the newer ones with the curved latch-type device in the center (similar to the semi-clear TES reels) and the two round posts 180 degrees apart from each other...

The original WB reels (the ones identical in construction to the white FOX reels) are great reels for what they are.

Aaron

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-19-2000, 04:28 AM:

Oh, I guess I haven't had the luxury of working with those then. You know, the old design worked pretty well. Why must they change it?

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 09-19-2000, 05:15 PM:

I enjoyed the new WB reels.

They came apart easier so when the cores weren't set right for use with an AW3 make-up table, you could fix it easier.

The techinicolor reals were a real pain to separate... and once you DID -- you couldn't get them to stay together.

Scott Neff
------- www.cinema-west.com

(I may be leavin cinema-west... but it's still MYYY website )

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 09-21-2000, 01:53 AM:

Well upon opening my print of 'Woman On Top' this afternoon I was greeted by the *ALL NEW* 20th Century Fox Shipping Reels!

These reels are EXACTLY the same as the Warner Brothers reels I have described above except the color is unlike any plastic shipping reel i have ever seen before: its a sparkly (if you look at them under bright light) silver-gray! At first glance I thought they were metal reels!

These reels held together fairly well (one did come apart on me, but went back together easily and didnt come apart again)...

Aaron