Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Nowhere in Africa

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Posted by Bill Langfield (Member # 818) on 04-21-2003, 01:50 PM:

Nowhere in Africa - NOW framing problems

It seems no one has ever heard of, made-up or run this film. (Original question was in 'About Show Prints' forum)
If anyone is/has run this film here is a short version of the fault.

My next problem is that not every reel is playing in erm 'correct frame pitch' (is that a term?) What happens is that the framing needs to be racked down SLIGHTLY during the opening titles/sub titles due to a fine white (ghosted) line along the bottom of the screen. Everything was cool until start of reel 3, I get a complaint that it is 'out of frame', I go check it, sure enough, it's racked too low, but only just enough to show those edit flashes at the top (Erm, ok and a bit of the the other frame - I hate that) , so I rack it back up, then reel 4 comes on and it needs racking back Down to stop the flashes at the bottom!

Going to (try to) order a another print, but who is to say not ALL the reel 1 & 3 's have been printed like that.

We never have had this problem with any mainstream C/S films except "Oh Brother", seems to only show up on these films that I would never of heard if I was not working at an art house as well.

Perhaps we could crop the picture top/bottom, but that might cut the subtitles.
But that would require new aperture plates and Lenses (Not an option) - And be cropping other films that should not be. (cropped)
At the moment everything is set as-per current aperture and ratio standards.

THIS MESSAGE IS INCOMPLETE (too tired just did double shifts all over the place over Easter, the double pay does that to you) But I thought I'd post anyway to get ANY thoughts.
I should be awake again in about 3 days (ZZZzzzz)

Bill.

Posted by John Westlund (Member # 913) on 04-21-2003, 02:42 PM:

I have seen lots of prints with this lately. I noticed it the most on xXx. It was hard to get the picture where you couldnt see the lines (that are where the negatives were spliced together I believe-someone correct me if im wrong [Smile]

). Perhaps this is the result of sloppy work at the lab. Im sure John P could fill us in more.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 04-21-2003, 03:04 PM:

One possibility it that your aperture plates are overcut. It's really hard for us to say without measuring them. Best way to check is to run SMPTE RP40, but if you're in a hurry, measure them with a caliper. (It doesn't seem surprising that small arthouse films may have less of a protection zone than large studio releases.)

We've found that having a set of undersize aperture plates can be handy. Recently we ran Spartacus and it had some peculiar shrinkage-related artifacts on the edgers of the image, but using the undersize (pre-filed) plates cropped them out without noticably detracting from the film. Of course, if you do this you may have issues with your masking. But this is probably better than white flashes or other unintended imagery.

You certainly wouldn't need new lenses just because you had a slightly smaller
aperture.

--jhawk

Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 04-21-2003, 07:13 PM:

quote:
It seems no one has ever heard of, made-up or run this film.

Nowhere in Africa won the Oscar for foreign-language feature just last month. That's why it's now an arthouse hit.

BTW, the US distributor (Zeitgeist) should submit the film to the MPAA for a rating. That way the film might be able to break out of the arthouse ghetto. A lot of venues won't touch anything without an MPAA rating.

Posted by Lindsay Morris (Member # 1430) on 04-21-2003, 07:52 PM:

Saw this film at Somerville Auditorium as part of The Festival Of Perth in January and my only problem was a small criticism of the sub-titles which at times were white on white and thus hard to read... the film has 3 languages, English, German & Swahili so you needed the subtitles a fair bit.
Did not notice any of the problems you describe Bill which I would have expected to see there as the staff had racked the subtitles up the screen a fair bit in response to "shorties" complaints that they could not see the subtitles thru the big heads in front of them. (Somerville is the biggest TRUE outdoor cinema in WA with deckchair seating for 1200 so at times someone sitting lowish has a problem with a fat head in front and the screen could be a metre higher).
I have seen what you describe a lot at my own cinema and I know my scope aperture plates are out to the max both up and down and sides but the problem does vary from film to film so it must be something in the editting process that gives those frame line flashes. Mine tends to be worst on one machine which has a slight travel ghost due to the gear train wear and a bigger shutter will fix that.... but not worth that now as the Simplexes are coming out right now.
Nowhere In Africa is an excellent doco/true story type of film and we will be running that as part of our next summer season.
I suspect that your aperture plate might be just a bit bigger than exact spec and hence you are seeing the flashes but as for the framing shifting ever so slightly this way and that!
That foible was not evident at Somerville but then they were running the ONLY print in the country at that stage. Possibly things may have slipped in the printing of a few more copies to satisfy Australian demand as it just had it's OZ general cinema release on April 17th.
Lindsay

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 04-21-2003, 08:12 PM:

I ran "Nowhere in Africa" for Academy screenings here in
New York back in February. I had no problems, other than subtitles being white on white at times and during photography
a few of the takes had alittle on their lens.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-21-2003, 09:26 PM:

It is probable that your apperture plates are .700" high rather than the current smpte standard of 690 and that is why you are seeing the flash

[ 04-22-2003, 09:38 AM: Message edited by: Gordon McLeod ]

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 04-24-2003, 03:58 PM:

Here's the history of the "scope" image area. The height has decreased over the years to better hide the negative splices.

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/apertures.htm

quote:
From 1957 through today, there have been a number of small changes to the anamorphic projector aperture recommended standards. John P. Pytlak of Eastman Kodak dug through countless back issues of the SMPTE Journal in order to provide the following chronology of the changes to the standards:

The March 1957 SMPTE Journal has PH22.104-1957, the standard for 2.55:1 anamorphic (no optical track), with an aperture size of 0.912 X 0.715 inches. Notice of withdrawal of this standard was in the January 1964 Journal.

The December 1957 SMPTE Journal has PH22.106-1957 for 2.35:1 anamorphic, with an aperture of 0.839 X 0.715 inches. It was unchanged in the September 1964 Journal. The November 1965 SMPTE Journal published PH22.106-1965 still with the 0.839 X 0.715 aperture size.

In the September 1970 SMPTE Journal, a new draft of PH22.106 was proposed, with an aperture size of 0.838 X 0.700 inches, to minimize the flashes at splices. This was republished as standard PH22.106-1971 in the October 1971 issue.

In the June 1976 SMPTE Journal, the two (flat and scope) projectable image area standards (PH22.58 and PH22.106) were consolidated into one standard and renamed PH22.195. The publication of PH22.195-1984 in the October 1984 Journal still had the scope area as 0.700 X 0.838 inches.

The June 1992 SMPTE Journal published a proposed revision, with a scope area of 0.690 X 0.825 inches. In August 1993, the standard was published as SMPTE 195-1993, with the current area of 0.690 X 0.825 inches. So August 1993 is when the two formats became the same width of 0.825 inches.

Posted by Brian Guckian (Member # 1678) on 04-26-2003, 09:19 PM:

Bill said :

"We never have had this problem with any mainstream C/S films except 'Oh Brother'..."

Bill, did you mean "O Brother Where Art Thou"? If so, both that film and "Nowhere In Africa" were scanned from Digital Intermediates.

Though I've searched through discussions here about digital intermediates, I haven't seen information on whether the laser recorders print to 2.35 or 2.39 (forgive me if I've missed something). If it's the latter then older theatres with plates cut to tradional 2.35 (or close) will continuously display the white frame lines - and I have seen this in theatres which do not have problems with normal anamorphic prints. What the Projectionists often do is frame upwards so at least the top line is hidden.

John Pytlak, can you help? The print of "Nowhere In Africa" I saw last month had this problem, which was confirmed when I saw it had been laser recorded (at least according to the credits). BTW the picture quality was terrible - soft image and a magenta cast throughout. Thankfully no-one else seems to have had the same issues.

Many thanks

Brian

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 04-28-2003, 08:22 AM:

The image area output to film from a digital recorder would depend on the model of recorder and the setup of that recorder.

Here's a link to the Kodak Cineon recorder specifications:

http://www.cinesite.com/CineonTech/resoultions/ResChart.html

I'd appreciate if someone here could actually MEASURE the exposed image area on the print for the prints that had the problem.

Posted by Ky Boyd (Member # 23) on 04-28-2003, 11:45 AM:

The arthouse Ghetto speaks...our print of Nowhere in Africa runs just fine, no framing problems.

As for the Arthouse ghetto, in our market, Santa Rosa, CA, Nowhere in Africa was outgrossed by only Identity, A Mighty Wind, Anger Management and Holes on Friday (4/25) and actually grossed more than Holes did on Saturday.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 04-29-2003, 03:44 AM:

Brian, click here

Posted by Brian Guckian (Member # 1678) on 04-29-2003, 08:16 PM:

John : Many thanks for the information. I'll try to measure the image area on "Nowhere in Africa" if I can. It's on release here in the next few weeks.

Michael : Done! Buiochas / thanks