Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Tipe on reel changes

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Posted by John Moriarty (Member # 1153) on 02-14-2002, 03:33 AM:

Last night I put together a film ("YI Yi"), and both ends of every reel had the reel number written individually over between four and eight frames, in tipex. What possible reason could someone have for doing this? If there really is a risk of confusing reels surely one frame would have surficed, but even this is too much.

We tried to get the marks off, but most of them wouldn't budge.

John M

Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 4594) on 02-14-2002, 03:50 AM:

Ummmm, do you mean the heads and tails? I'm assuming you are...check the Building Prints 101 in the tips section. The heads and tails are usually some where about 10 feet long and (should be

) at the beginning and end of each reel.

Posted by John Moriarty (Member # 1153) on 02-14-2002, 05:26 AM:

"do you mean the heads and tails?"
No.
We build up on to a tower, and take the heads and tails off the film. The numbers are marked on film itself (and will look horrible when projected). There were marks on the heads and tail aswell, but as these won't be projected they aren't an imediate concern. The heads and tails were in the right places (apart from both reel one and two having reel two headers), and most of them weren't fastened to the reels (only head of reel 6 and tails of reels 5 and 9, 9 reels in total, presumably were the last place had an interval or c/o).

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-14-2002, 05:31 AM:

Some people are just blind and not smart enough to use that ID frame or any of the other various techniques used to break down a print. What you've described I have seen before, but it is fortunately very rare and I agree is horribly distracting. Then again, so is opaque tape!

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-14-2002, 09:40 AM:

Permanently marking or scribing the image area of a print is one of the worst cases of "Film Done Wrong".

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 585-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 585-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Stefan Scholz (Member # 147) on 02-14-2002, 01:43 PM:

John is right...
don't do it.

Posted by Jonathan Worthing (Member # 803) on 02-15-2002, 05:27 AM:

Brad

I am going to defend opaque tape on film.

I am very aware of your feelings on this matter.

Surely you must agree that in this case if the person responsible for the tipex marks had used a piece of white tape, wrote on the tape with a marker pen or chinagraph pencil. Although the showing of this film would have been poor, the next man in the chain would have no problem removing the tape.

I have made comments about marking film with tape.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-15-2002, 12:13 PM:

Jonathan, you will have to edit your post to type in your text. Having lots of text in a picture is only aggravating to people on dialup connections.

I see your "idea" here, but I have never seen opaque tape that will actually come off clean, so no I strongly disagree with you. However I have found that Artist's tape when applied to one side (splicing tape to the other) works perfectly for making an "opaque" splice in those situations that require it.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 02-15-2002, 01:45 PM:

I have come to the conclusion that at least half the people who wind up in projection booths must be blind. There is no other explanation. No...I take that back....blind people would no doubt be more consciencous and more caring for film than the imbeciles that wind up in projection booths.

And what is tipex (or would I be better off not knowing)? White-off? Ceiling paint?

Posted by John Moriarty (Member # 1153) on 02-15-2002, 02:47 PM:

Sorry, didn't realise people mightn't have heard of tipex, its correction fluid (white solvent based fluid for covering mistakes when writing). Well technically it a is a brand of correction fluid, but used as a generic term over here.

Hope this clears it up.

The reel changes were terrible when they went through, a lot of dirt, sticky marks and clearly legible reel numbers (upside down). Oh, and an awful lot of cue marks. We broke the film down again today after showing it once, so no one will have to see the joins again. It wasn't a particularly worthwhile film, and could easily have been edited down from 173mins to something that would have fit on the tower in one peice (we had to show it with an interval). The only really good thing about it was all the reels (except the last) were a full 2000ft long.

Posted by Ethan Harper (Member # 472) on 02-15-2002, 05:57 PM:

Oh, you must mean white out. Who would put white out on the images of the print itself and why would you need to? What a moron.

------------------
--"That's my story and i'm sticking to it!"--

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 02-15-2002, 09:18 PM:

I often receive prints that were used for a trade screening at a suburban venue (Mark: your former client's theatre). Used to be that they'd come in leaders off, with cuts made on a splicer that didn't cut straight. Arrggh! That place was bulldozed and replaced with a small plex and apparently different staffing. Now their trade screen prints leave with leaders properly respliced (zebra not opaque). What an improvement. All I need to do is backsplice the head splice for safety. (Actually I tend to remake it entirely because I don't like 2 layers of tape.)

One little thing they do I don't approve of: They take yellow tape, cut it into thin strips, 5 or 6 frames long, and wrap it around the side of the film at the start of the new reel. I think that's one of the things shown in Jonathan's illustration. I remove these. Why? Because that tape going through is going to cause the image to shift sideways briefly. So off it comes, along with anything else that shouldn't be there. I also wonder how much time they take making the little strips and applying them vs. time saved during breakdown.

John: Surely you're not suggesting the makers of Yi Yi (or any other film) should base their editing decisions on how much film will fit on a tower! Perhaps, conversely, you should based your equipment decisions on the need to run films of longer lengths! Long movies without a planned intermission are not that uncommon.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-15-2002, 09:46 PM:

Steve, CPI makes and sells "Edgemark" tape, which are the yellow strips you are seeing. The original sample that was sent to Joe for reviewing was too wide and would cover the SRD track, but supposedly this has been corrected. (You can read about it in the reviews section.) I say "supposedly" because I have not seen a sample from the latest batch yet. For the record though, I thought it was a stupid idea anyway. I wholeheartedly agree with you that no matter what, any kind of tape along the edges will ALWAYS be seen on screen as the image shifts.

Lazy people!

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 02-16-2002, 06:02 AM:

>That place was bulldozed and replaced with a small plex and apparently different staffing.<

Eeeegads....that means those idiots are roaming the streets looking for other booths to corrupt....other prints to ruin!

White-out....I thought so. They should have a law like they have for the sale of magic markers -- no magic markers to anyone under 21 -- NO WHITE-OUT TO ANYONE WORKING IN A MOVIE THEATRE!

Didn't I hear somewhere on this forum some negative comments about using grease pencil on film? I always thought that of the various and sundry markers that projectionists have devised to mark prints, the lowly grease pencil was the least distructive. The marks that are made with it wipe off immediately and cleanly with any film solvent such as ECCO 1500, FilmGuard, FilmRenew, even 111-Trichlorathane (for those of us who were smart enough to by gallons of it years ago -- like pork bellies -- now I have guys trying to break into my booth to steal it). I have used white grease pencil myself on 16mm which we do run on single long play reels. I edge mark the joints with it. At breakdown a soft cloth and a little film cleaner and no one could ever tell it was ever there. Occasionally I see some white deposits in the projector path, but there too, it is a simple matter of a cloth and a little cleaner and it is totally gone.

I certainly give a sigh of relief when I see a print where the cue marks have been "enhanced," not with some razor slashes, but with grease pencil diagonals across the frame. I know it will clean easily in a few seconds.

I also am fanatical about Print ID at the heads and tales of each 2000ft reel. When the reels are stored in the film cabinet or in the case of the safety-film-only booth, lined up under the rewind bench, I want the reel number, the title, the image and sound formats clearly visible at the end of the leader. I apply this information via a 3/4in x 14in label from a laser printer/computer label program. There is a large, virtical reel number printed on the very end of the leader and the word HEAD, followed by horizontal text of the film title, then the reel number again with an H [Hn] and the image & sound format information. This could be followed by specific information such as [Take Intermission at end of Reel] or [4 min Credit Crawl & Rating]. This is applied to the very beginning of the leader so that each reel is clearly, unmistakenly marked and easily seen by the projectionist. However, when a print arrives the same morning as the show, or I cannot get to making the labels, then I resort to a handwritten ID leader section. I used to do this with magic marker, but found that only works with clear or nearly clear film stock. With film that has black emulsion right out to the end of the leader, magic marker is useless. But I did find that white grease pencil will work beautifully. Surprisingly enough, it is just as visible on clear leader as it is on black. The grease pencil applies easily and the information, white text on black (the clear leader looks black as soon as it is wound againt the film on the reel), is visible from across the booth. I apply a strip of clear mylar tape over the grease pencil, and for all practical purposes, that makes it permanent. Bottom line, the grease pencil seems to work in multiple ways for me. Any reason I shouldn't use it on film?

Frank

If there is any reason why grease pencil shouldn't be used, I am all ears.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 02-16-2002, 09:53 PM:

Grease pencil is fine by me. I've been scribbling notations like
R1 HEAD Scope/MUL for years. I also write the format on at least one can label. When I get ambitious I will print nice labels for non-TES, non-ETS prints that come in with totally decrepit labeling. Sony Classics comes to mind and they always leave me with tidy labels showing the studio, title, format, print number, etc.

Lately I've been going sticker happy and any print which carries a DTS track but came with no disks (more often than not with my screenings which are pre-release) gets a little one that indicates that it was received without them. Or a similar one that says "Disks Enclosed. Please ensure that they are returned with the print." I am experimenting with a sticker that (1) plugs this site, (2) Marty Hart's Widescreen Museum, and (3) my facility but it's a lot to cram into a small space.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-18-2002, 10:40 AM:

"Grease Pencil" can be used for temporary marking of a print or leaders, but PLEASE REMOVE the marks (clean off with film cleaning solvent) when you send the print back. "Film Done Right" means any temporary cues or marking will not be seen or heard by the audience.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 02-18-2002, 09:31 PM:

Why would I want to remove format and reel identity information that will be of use to the next person? I know I am grateful when a print is clearly marked as to format! (Those of you who know of only 2 formats have it easy!) Not all prints come with reel bands (the obvious place where this can be recorded) and if you've seen some of the non-TES, non-ETS cans which often carry the shipping labels for many years of use with many different titles you know that information placed there has a short lifetime.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-19-2002, 07:06 AM:

You should remove TEMPORARY (i.e., unique to your theatre) cues and information before sending the print on. If you are labeling leaders with permanent information, be sure the information is CORRECT! For example, if you guess the track is Dolby A, and it is really SR, you are actually doing a disservice labeling the leaders as Dolby A. Likewise if you guess the aspect ratio is 1.66:1, and it is really 1.85:1, the next theatre might be showing mike booms when they use the incorrect 1.66:1 recommendation.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 02-19-2002, 07:29 AM:

John, when did the SMPTE standardize 1.85 as the US spherical widescreen format? I know that when I first started in the mid-60s, a number of studios had reel-bands which printed both a minimum and a maximum AR crop. Presumably you could project at either extreme and anything in between without risk of seeing set gack or over-cropping foreheads and chins. We ran 1.66 in that theatre and at that time, we never had any problems with visible junk. I think in the early days studios were much more conscious of the fact that lots of theatres were cropping in a random kind of way so they had to take into consideration that there were still some which were not cropping out to 1.85.

I am assuming that 1.85 became a hard standard later, perhaps in the mid-seventies? I know Disney stuck with 1.75 for quite awhile after everyone else was composing for 1.85. Even today I still get foreign imports which clearly state 1.66 (which is really a nice format -- a sensible compromise between width and less magnification grain/brighter image).

I also found that even the studios don't always give correct information. I remember Miramax had marked CINEMA PARADISO as 1.85. Our 1.85 is right on the money, yet if I played this picture at that crop, there was one scene where if I kept the subtitling at the very bottom of the screen, the character would have his head chopped off by the top of the screen. Yes, they printed the SUBTITLES at 1.85, but this European import was composed at 1.66. I ran the rest of the shows at 1.66 and everything was fine....no one got decapitated.

Also this question: foreign film distribs are notorious for not marking format information. Even soundtracks that are stereo do not have the familiar [Dolby] and [STEREO] boxes within the soundtrack. One has to inspect the track, sometimes with a loupe (I use an old 16mm lens) in order to determine if there is any differenence in modulation between the two tracks. Is it safe to assume that if you do see only the [Dolby] [STEREO] boxes, and not any specifically reference SR, that it must be Dolby A NR? I assume that once Dolby started releasing SR prints, the [DOLBY SR] would have been printed in the soundtracks, no? Plus, the release date of the film will figure in the determination.

If I am not sure of the format, I never put my guess on the print. For a questionable AR, I will on occassion notate: PLAYS OK AT 1.66 for a film made in that questionable time period, if it looked ok in that format on my screen.