This is topic Common Courtesy when circuiting a print in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 10-20-2000, 03:53 PM:
I received a print of "Bring It On" last night at 3 am, circuited from a theater about 2 hours away. The print was in horrible shape, there were about 12 black scratches throughout the whole film. Would it not be common courtesy to tell Technicolor when they call to inform you that your print is being circuited that it is not in good shape? I know I would if I had a severely scratched print, and TES wanted me to send it to another theater. This saves the theater the hassle of building up the bad print, screening it to see just how bad it looks, and then breaking it down and building up another print. I had to call TES and they won't deliver another print until noon tomorrow, so until then, I have to present a poor picture to my customers.
Posted by Tom Kroening (Member # 201) on 10-20-2000, 05:21 PM:
Man, no one wants our print of bring it on. It has (probably 12) scratches across it. I feel embarrassed just showing that print to one person. I think what happened is that upper management put a new guy up in the booth before i said he was ready to go by himself (i didn't know he was being put up there by himself til after the weekend). Anyhow a common mistake that he was making while i trained him was that he looped the film across the metal peg on the elevator of the strong platters. By the 2nd day he was doing pretty good, but i still wouldn't let him start a show without me checking it. It drives me insane.. people don't learn projection overnight!!
Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 10-20-2000, 09:50 PM:
I think that no theater is going to tell TES that the print that they have to tranship to another theatre is in bad shape. They dont want to be charged for the print, do they?When I worked in TV, we did this all the time, and we rarely got a print from another station that was in bad shape. Seems that the stations took better care of the prints than alot of theatres do. Of course, TV stations had Film Departments...
Another station I worked for shipped a single set of Universal cartoons back and forth between 3 stations. Each station had a different way of cueing prints, and they were in horrible condition, until I worked on each of them. After I did my magic, I got comments from the control room about how the cartoons didn't break anymore... Neither of the other stations would admit to damaging anything, of course.
All we can do is try to take care of the print while it is in our posession. Do no damage, and try to send the print out in the same, or better shape than when it was received.
Posted by Gracia L. Babbidge (Member # 582) on 10-21-2000, 12:37 AM:
I know that I do not envy the next projectionist to work with the copy od Urban Legends: Final Cut that I sent out this week. And not because of damage to the print!
(First let me state that I don't have any 'spare' plastic 2K reels. I have half a reel, for what little good that does me. 
)
Reel one of the print I'm referring to, was one of the new TES reels, busted up quite badly when it arrived at my theater. Of course, it was tails up, along with a few other, non-sequential reels. 
I thought the reel was in bad shape before I put in on the rewind bench... 
My rewind bench decided to exact even more abuse on the reel, much to my dismay.
Thank all higher powers that a little Yankee ingenuity and a lot of masking tape can go a long way!
The reel even held together as I broke down the print, amazingly enough. But goodness only knows how long it will hold...I did make sure to leave a note right on the reel itself, so the next person to take it out the can knows to be very very very careful... 
------------------
In some cultures, what I do is considered normal.
Posted by Tom Ferreira (Member # 70) on 10-21-2000, 07:26 AM:
ALL Techicolor reels are broken-most of us expect that by now.
Last week I got a call from one of the managers in my district; his print of Almost Famous was missing a reel. He told me he had six full reels, and it went from reel 2 to 4. Having just made one up myself, I knew there were two reels not close to full-the last jerk just filled the reels to the end and slapped a header on them. I told him to request a new print from Technicolor. We lost a show because of this. Unfortunately the print was from Pennsylvania(am I the only one who actually peels off those labels before returning a print??)-if it were from New England, someone would have been getting a call. Talk about not showing any courtesy to the next guy. I should have had him peel off the label and fax it to me so I could post the offender here for all to see. Like the 'bad trader' boards, perhaps we should have a 'bad projectionist' registry.
Posted by Tom Sauter (Member # 616) on 10-21-2000, 08:30 AM:
Try obtaining another print when running a film festival, and the distributor is the embassy of a foreign country. Apparently a projectionist in some third world country stole one print's shipping reels to sell for scrap, and I ended up receiving a pile of film in a box. There's really no recourse in such circumstances (short of precipitating an international incident, which I almost did once). I always leave a nice note inside warning the next projectionist of imminent disaster, and once managed to get the director of a film to write a nice "message to projectionists" to stick in the can. Instilling a bit of pride into what is otherwise a thankless job goes a long way to improving morale and quality of work.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-21-2000, 03:05 PM:
If I could have ONE request honored by previous theatres shipping out film, it would be this:Please use a new piece of tape to tape the film ends down with. The piece that comes with the film originally will only stick once...after that it gets covered with dust, fingerprints, etc. and will not hold. In my Almost Famous print this week, there was not one reel that the film wasn't flying all over the can because the tape was no good.
Use good quality tape and don't be cheap.... use a 3" long piece.
Thank you! 
Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 10-21-2000, 04:30 PM:
Well, just received my replacement print for "Bring It On." It's in even worse shape than the first! This one features those neat little green diagonal scratches that move from one corner of the screen to the other... TES Reel Replacement department won't even be in until tomorrow afternoon - how convenient! That means my next print will be here on Monday, at best. BTW - do I get charged for each of these deliveries?
Posted by Per Hauberg (Member # 529) on 10-21-2000, 05:21 PM:
DANISH RULES:#1 (written and unbreakable - even logic): If you have not filed a report/complaint at the films distributor before running your first show - or at least strict after your test-run, the print is considered to be received at your theater undamaged, and whatever damage being done execpt from "acceptable wear" is at your cost.
#2 (written nowhere, but a matter of moral and behaviour to a fellow projectionist):
IF anyting happens to the print while in your hands - YOU should be the one reporting it to the distributor - not the next theater. After filing the report (and letting your insurance company about the rest), the distributor must consider to let the damaged print move on or not, and thereby be responsible to the next theater.
Being a caring projectionist, not making a sport of ruining filmprints, but doing his (hers) best to make things run every day, it should not be that big a shame to confess an error.
Per
Posted by Tom Kroening (Member # 201) on 10-22-2000, 12:15 AM:
I've always wondered this. What are the factors in how easily scratched the print is? I'll never for get what happened one time at my old theatre. A manager threaded and started a movie for me and told me later. I should have gone up to check it but i didn't. I went up at the credits and the film was not on the two rollers on top of the strong platter, but on the metal bar between them. I could have broke down in tears! Started the movie next show and everything looked fine in the previews, but "I dreamed of africa" had the HUGEST scratches ive ever seen. now is this because the emulsion has had more time to harden on the previews, or is it the stock quality?
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-25-2000, 10:55 AM:
It's most probably from the print being made on a lower quality film stock.
Posted by Carl King (Member # 398) on 10-25-2000, 12:56 PM:
Scratches on film!! They are the bane of our existence. With a little care most of them can be avoided..uh..oops, sorry, I forgot ..we're using polyester film. Let me rephrase that...With a whole lote or extra care and attention some of them can be avoided. I think a large portion of the blame for scratches must be place on the film itself. Another thing is the amount of magnification required for our large screens. Polyester film scratches much easier than the old acetate film did. Tensile strength in the new film stocks does not make up for the fact that it scratches more easily. I've had film pop off a sprocket and fail to break . On one occasion my projector was actually moved 3 feet before I got to it with a knife and cut the film.
So, to get back to the theme, please do think of the next man/woman who will be running your print. Place a note in the can to let him/her know what is wrong with the print.
It might be a good idea to find out where your junkie print came from and send a note to that operator. Be nice about it, though. We want to educate them not alienate them.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-25-2000, 05:18 PM:
...and when you put a note in, please put the flim title and the date on it. I got a print a couple of years ago with a note saying that several reels had severe scratches... I was halfway to the phone before I decided to screen the print, just to see how bad it was... turned out the note was for the previous film that lived in those cans; the film I had was fine.
Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 10-31-2000, 10:22 AM:
Carl: Kodak's new VISION Color Print Film has a scratch-resistant anti-static coating on the back side to help the film resist scratches and abrasion and dirt-attraction better than older "bare" polyester base:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/lab/2383.shtml Proper post-process film lubrication also helps prints resist abrasion and scratches:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/processing/h242/h2402_04.shtml#164364
------------------
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 Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 09-22-2002, 12:24 PM:
Somebody should have done a little "common courtesy" here in New Jersey.The Princeton Garden Theatre just picked up Mostly Martha on Friday. The print had to have been circuited: First 2 seconds of the Paramount Classics logo missing, black and green scratches all over R1 (even in the Paramount Classics logo), black scratches in R2, tons of dirt at the end of R3 and the middle of R4. What's worse, Mostly Martha is a limited-release arthouse title, thus it's difficult to get a decent quality print.
Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 09-22-2002, 12:40 PM:
quote:
Would it not be common courtesy to tell Technicolor when they call to inform you that your print is being circuited that it is not in good shape?
Yes, but common courtesy is not so common any more. I can't tell you how many people I've worked with have told me in no uncertain terms that it's not their print and they don't give a 
what happens to it when it leaves their theater. 
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 09-23-2002, 07:22 AM:
For all the negatives that we already discussed in other threads, one of the most positive aspects of the projectionist unions was the pervasive consciousness of the union guys/gals of "The Brotherhood" --cardinal rule: you didn't screw your fellow projectionist at the next theatre getting your print. You would find all these neat notes on reel bands and slipped in a reel flange intended to help the next guy (please, don't make me say "and gal" after each one of these). I wish I had saved all those notes -- it would have made some good historical reading, some quite humorous. One note I remember that was stuck in the flange of a reel of THE CAT PEOPLE (the 80s version) -- "Don't be concerned if you hear a gobbling sound when playing the soundtrack at normal levels -- it's because this picture is a TURKEY!"
Frank