Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Second Reel Of THE OTHERS jumpy???

This is topic Second Reel Of THE OTHERS jumpy??? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Bob Ferreira (Member # 102) on 08-28-2001, 11:55 PM:

I know i am about 2 weeks late but i had been meaning to ask if anyone noticed any problems with their copy of The Others. I noticed when previewing that it was jumping around a lot (mostly vertically) and then the frame lines would move around and you would see part of the frame at the top, then it would go away, then at the bottom, then go away again. This only happened in the second reel, and in three different auditoriums. It was almost like there was an extremely poor editing job done on the film. Similar things happend with Scary Movie 2, which was thrown together blindly by the editors apparently. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone else had this problem with their prints...

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-29-2001, 01:06 AM:

The prints I have seen were all printed very sloppy. The registration is abnormally poor, but the insane amount of negative dirt is what amazed me.

Posted by Anthony Gilardi (Member # 808) on 08-29-2001, 01:08 AM:

I have this film at my theater and I haven't noticed any problems.

Posted by Wes Hughes (Member # 981) on 08-29-2001, 01:51 AM:

If you can see neighboring frames on screen that sounds pretty bad. If you have a suitable projector you can try holding your head really still and looking at the film between the bottom of the gate and the intermittent. See if you see the perforations themselves are moving up and down just a tiny bit, or if the actual image on the film looks unsteady.

it might be too late to be worth the effort for you, but you can get a replacement reel...and don't take NO for an answer!

and Brad: our print was COVERED with dust and dirt, and the sides of the film on the reels was gouged pretty bad. I am getting more and more prints like this. I started unrolling a trailer the other day and the entire length of it was covered with dust like someone had sprinkled talcum powder on it. I just don't get it.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 08-29-2001, 09:20 AM:

I agree with Wes that if you pull the aperture plate such that you can see the actual print film perforations projected on the screen, and they are steady, the unsteadiness is printed in. If excessive, request a new print. Likewise, excessive white dirt will usually be accepted as a reason to request a new reel.

Dirt particles (black dirt) on a feature or trailer could have been picked up anytime after the print was processed. With ads and trailers, the "breakdown" into small rolls is often subcontracted. Poor packaging (trailers just stuffed into a shipping case) adds to the problem. A few pennies spent for proper packaging would go a long way in keeping the film clean and undamaged during shipping.

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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 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Tim Sherman (Member # 569) on 08-29-2001, 08:34 PM:

I have had more prints doing this this year then i can count. One that i remeber being really jumpy was on the second reel of shrek. All the other reels were fine. Just the second reel. Are they now just printing copies so fast that the quality suffers?

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Posted by Mathew Molloy (Member # 666) on 08-30-2001, 10:44 PM:

Just saw this last night and not sure whether it was reel 2 or 3 now but there was what looked like water damage all over the left side of the film that reel only. I have to agree with Brad that it did look like a sloppy printing job throughout.

Posted by Wes Hughes (Member # 981) on 08-30-2001, 10:59 PM:

I am a firm believer that polyester stock is hardly ever as steady in the gate as traditional stocks.

i hate it!

Posted by Matthew Cunningham (Member # 873) on 08-31-2001, 02:11 AM:

Odd.
One of the theaters I service had this same problem with the second reel only.
They contacted the distributor and replaced the reel.
How would this happen in several prints, 2nd reel and none others, with many different prints?

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 08-31-2001, 07:16 AM:

I believe Brad said negative dirt, not post processing. I have the same thing with Captain Corelli's Mandolin, but it's not just the neg dirt...it's the negative marks and scratches...amazingly poor for a new print.

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 09-04-2001, 07:06 AM:

Tim Sherman said: "One that i remeber being really jumpy was on the second reel of shrek. All the other reels were fine. Just the second reel. Are they now just printing copies so fast that the quality suffers?"

Matthew Cunningham said: "One of the theaters I service had this same problem with the second reel only. They contacted the distributor and replaced the reel. How would this happen in several prints, 2nd reel and none others, with many different prints?"

High speed release printing is NOT necessarily the cause of unsteadiness. As noted before, sometimes the unsteadiness is introduced by the use of continuous contact printing for the intermediate stages, where a short pitch camera negative is printed onto a short pitch master positive which is then contact printed to make the short pitch duplicate negatives. (For optimum steadiness, a short pitch original should be printed onto long pitch raw stock --- contact printing short pitch originals to short pitch raw stock may result in slippage and unsteadiness). Since many prints of reel 2 were evidently unsteady, I suspect the unsteadiness was introduced prior to the duplicate negative.

Here are recommendations on the use of proper pitch from the Kodak website:
Optimum Pitch for Printing
Motion Picture Printing