Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Attached trailers done wrong (Minority Report)

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-19-2002, 09:33 PM:

On my print of Minority Report, the "attached" trailer was attached to the feature by means of a really poor quality single-sided tape splice.

Worse, it was out of frame, as were the cuts on both the head of the feature and the tail of the trailer.

What were the lab or depot people thinking? (or not thinking....) It's stuff like this which makes me glad that I always make a practice out of checking for mis-framed splices.

Did anyone else have problems with this? I'll be inspecting another print of this tomorrow night at a different theatre...hopefully things will go a bit better there.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-19-2002, 10:27 PM:

Yes, I see this all the time and it drives me crazy! Almost always the bonehead splicing on the new "attached" trailer chops right into the audio of the opening fanfare too. Frequently with Fox, they find that first visible frame (well into the drumroll) and chop it there. It seems misframes happen about 10% of the time with the prints I get.

If the opening studio logo is chopped, demand a new reel 1. If the trailer is chopped at the beginning or end or has any marks on it (a common occurence), toss it in the trash and only play that trailer when you get a new copy. That's my policy.

Posted by Kyle Caudill (Member # 1252) on 06-19-2002, 11:56 PM:

One of my prints of Scooby Doo has the WB name at the end of film before the credits on reverse. It appears upside with soundtrack showing.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 06-20-2002, 12:42 AM:

When I dismantled a print of Star Wars EP II, I noticed the attached trailer was spliced on with tape that must have been at least two inches wide, both sides. Kind of an overkill, but it ran through the machine ok for 6 weeks.

Posted by Adam Wilbert (Member # 1184) on 06-20-2002, 02:12 AM:

Wasn't it Star Wars that had the tail still on the attached trailer? I remember a print, not to long ago with that. Maybe it was a Star Wars trailer...Either way, i'm sure it was a fox movie.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 06-20-2002, 12:54 PM:

I've seen this on a few different Fox prints- the ONE time I didn't check to make sure an attached trailer was spliced on in-frame (Moulin Rouge), sure enough it turned out to be out of frame so I had to go back and fix it, taking more time than it would have if I'd checked it!
The funny thing about this movie was the note saying not to cut off the black space at the beginning of the movie, and to make sure it doesn't cut off they suggested leaving the attached trailer as-is- since the theater had a policy trailer and it was tape-spliced anyway I undid the splice and stuck in the policy trailer (but didn't check to make sure it was in frame).

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 06-21-2002, 12:00 AM:

The Fox Combo trailer on my print of MINORITY REPORT was also spliced on with tape (one side) and it was "flopped" (the soundtracks didn't match up).

Oh yeah...and it had those ugly frames at the end with the white edge.

Posted by Jeff Skallan (Member # 891) on 06-21-2002, 04:17 AM:

This audio deletion with Fox prints has irritated me for some time now. While working with my prints of Minority Report tonight I came across the same poor splicing job that seriously compromises the presentation. I'd venture to say that there was at least a full second of audio missing from the beginning of the FOX logo. The attached combo trailer was spliced on booth sides, but was cut out of frame.

Maybe the monkey who played the movies in the movie Waking Life has now taken up employment with Fox! I just wonder if Speilberg is aware of how crappy this looks on movie screens around the globe playing his movie.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-21-2002, 05:43 AM:

Actually I thought the entire movie looked terrible, and the Fox fanfare on this one was as lame as ever. I've about had enough with this visual artistic nonsense of cloudy, overexposed and bleached images. The funny part is, the prints are on Vision PREMIERE film stock! Why??? There is no good reason for this.

By the way, I saw something tonight I have never seen. One of the reels stuck together and the emulsion peeled when the layers were unraveled. It looked like dark reddish blobby painted marks across the image. Very weird. I will try and get a couple of shots of the damage once the reel is changed out.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-21-2002, 06:05 AM:

Brad said: "By the way, I saw something tonight I have never seen. One of the reels stuck together and the emulsion peeled when the layers were unraveled. It looked like dark reddish blobby painted marks across the image."

Sounds like the print was not fully dry when it was wound up at the end of the processing machine. The wet gelatin emulsion acts like glue, and sticks together, delaminating when it is unwound. Obviously, request a replacement reel.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-21-2002, 09:16 AM:

As for last night: different theatre, different print, same film, same crappy out-of-frame splice. Grr.

What's up with the washed-out look? Were these bleach-bypass prints? They had some of the good characteristics of 2393 stock (e.g. density) and were super-sharp, but the colors looked very desaturated. Weird.

Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 06-21-2002, 09:21 AM:

I must be one of the fortunate ones. The attached trailer I recieved was spliced on both sides, but using wide splicing tape, sountrack to soundtrack, and in frame. Also plenty of lead into the Fox fanfare. I've always hated when they spliced a trailer onto a feature like that. They should just stick it in the can with the other dozen trailers.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-21-2002, 09:29 AM:

AFAIK, Spielberg and Kaminski used Technicolor's proprietary "ENR" silver retention process for the prints to achieve the "look" they wanted.
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/processing/skip.shtml
http://www.cameraguild.com/awards/kaminski.html
http://www.theasc.com/magazine/nov98/soupdujour/pg1.htm
http://www.cinematography.net/bleach.htm

Posted by Adam Wilbert (Member # 1184) on 06-21-2002, 04:10 PM:

Mine was cut right and spliced correctly, and cleanly i might add, but they left the white edged frames, so i had to re-do it anyway.

As far as the fox / dreamworks intro: I finally got to use the "Uh oh, we're out of Technicolor" line. I like it when the studio's allow their logo to be manipulated to fit the film. Has anyone else noticed the Columbia Tristar woman is wearing ray-bans in the MIB-2 trailer?

-adam

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 06-21-2002, 05:17 PM:

Did I miss something or was that combo trailer supposed to have an "X-Men 2" teaser? Mine only has teasers for two movies ("Solaris" and "Daredevil") even though the DTS disc says it's a triple-header combo teaser trailer.

My audiences are groaning because of those short teasers for movies that aren't coming out till next year. They don't seem to like this practice. They groaned during the combo trailer that came with "The Phantom Menace" as well.

Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 06-21-2002, 09:54 PM:

John Pytlak mentioned Spielberg & Kaminski using Technicolor's "ENR" process for the look they wanted. I noticed this when making up our prints yesterday and discussed this with our Director of Operations. We have told our managers about this in case we should receive complaints about the "color of the movie" from unknowing patrons.

Fortunately both prints we received were properly cut when the trailers were attached. I'm with Brad about the mutilation of the soundtrack when they make those improper cuts. It drives me wild when I get a print like that.

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 06-22-2002, 03:08 AM:

I wouldn't worry about the groaning, they aren't really mad or anything, they just want the movie now is all. It is kind of a nice place to let thier day's frustrations out for fun, but thats about it. It's actually fun to tease em to death.

Dave

Posted by David Whitbeck (Member # 894) on 06-22-2002, 06:09 PM:

Mine was out of frame too. The trailer was taped to the head of the reel with a single piece of masking tape, that cut was out of frame. The tail was spliced to the head of the movie, the splice was good, but it was also out of frame. However, it was the trailer combo that had the bad cut, not the head of the reel, somebody needs to pay attention.