Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: New Fox Shipping Cases: anyone else seen 'em?

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Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 04-30-2003, 06:12 PM:

Has anyone else seen the new Fox shipping cases? I am not talking about the venerable 'Fox Box' but a new case that appears to be a cross between a water jug and a Warner Bros. ELR case. I just saw a print of X-Men: United come in a pair of these. Sorry I don;t have a pic for you, but they are all plastic construction, molded from gray plastic, and have several parts made from white plastic. They have a 'snap-lock' front clasp with a plastic 'security pin' that slides in to prevent the latch from popping open. Inside, there is quite a bit of room for the reels, and there are 'slots' in the inside that the reel flanges are supposed to slide into to keep things put as the reels are shipped.

I wonder how these will hold up in the long run...

-Aaron

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 04-30-2003, 06:28 PM:

Aaron

I saw those cases on a print of Fox's "Dancer Upstairs". They
look very nice and roomy.

Bill

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 05-01-2003, 12:23 AM:

I havn't seen the new containers yet. May see them tomorrow if they are going to be standard. I wish Sony would have done that instead of using the Fox Box approach.

Posted by John Scott (Member # 520) on 05-01-2003, 12:57 AM:

Our prints of Xmen 2 today came in normal ETS metal cans. I was shocked they weren't in the ackward Fox Boxes, frankly. Very pleasantly suprised.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 05-01-2003, 04:31 AM:

Hello all. We got X2 in these new cans. I liked the fact that they were easier to carry upstairs than the boxes or the metal cans. However, it was a pain to get the darn thing closed after we were done buidling! I'm sure I'll figure out a trick to it soon. Cheers!

AJG

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-01-2003, 05:40 AM:

Anyone with a photo? Any indication of who makes these cases?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-01-2003, 12:05 PM:

I'll take some pictures tonight.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 05-01-2003, 12:34 PM:

Here's the real question:

Do they leave room for the DTS disks?

Posted by Michael Cunningham (Member # 210) on 05-01-2003, 01:44 PM:

Yes, there is room for the DTS discs. In fact, they fit in snugly and are held in place by the case design. I'll try to explain this, the cases have ridges in the sides that hold the reel flanges so the reels don't flop around freely. Between these straight ridges are curved projections. These don't quite touch the film when a reel is over them, but a DTS disc tray fits directly into the curve. This has the added benefit of allowing you to put the tray into whichever reel slot you want. So the number of reels in the print doesn't matter, just fill the case up to the last reel than add the discs in the next slot.

- Mike

Posted by John Spooner (Member # 1565) on 05-01-2003, 01:54 PM:

Dear colleagues.
You are really getting spoilt having prints actually come on spools and in proper cases.
Here down under our prints all come on flats and in flimsy cardboard boxes!

Posted by Jacob Huber (Member # 1138) on 05-01-2003, 08:43 PM:

Saw these buggers today, and boy are they nice. The biggest problem that I have with the metal cases that everybody uses, other than the fact that they weigh a ton and are usually beat up, is the fact that the handles always dig into my finger bones when carrying them. It's just not ergonomical to have 40 lbs. be supported by such a small handle. The new plastic cans have a much larger handle and solve that problem. Just wonder how long these things are going to last, as plastic tends to crack and break when mistreated, and we all know that prints aren't shipped in the best of care.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-01-2003, 08:58 PM:

The cases will hold up fine, as they are of high quality durable plastic. However these get the prize for shittiest latch ever.

Full pics will be posted Friday night.

Posted by Andrew Duggan (Member # 1302) on 05-01-2003, 11:03 PM:

Yeah, I felt the same way about the latch. I give them one or two more print runs before those latches start to break and disappear and end up getting replaced with all manner of strange things, paper clips and what not. They're a real pain in the ass to close, too.

All in all though I'm a big fan of these boxes. Pretty light, easy to carry, easy to store semi-compactly, great wells for the reels and DTS. I'd certainly like to see more of these put into use.

Posted by Jacob Huber (Member # 1138) on 05-03-2003, 12:30 AM:

Never tried to latch 'em before today, and ya, these things aren't going to last long. I'm actually surprised that we received all of our cases with the latch pin still attached.

Posted by Tim Sherman (Member # 569) on 05-03-2003, 01:40 AM:

Our Print came in the the grey cardboard plastic type box. That thing was a pain to carry being a 7 reels. Seems like fox and sony are using them more and more these days. My print of Anger Management and Idenity also came in the same boxes.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-03-2003, 03:04 AM:

It's on the front page guys.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 05-07-2003, 01:16 PM:

Nice pics, Brad; thanks. And your evaluation is right on the money. If only they insist that the designers spend a week in a real projection booth and another week in a shipping depot before they ever put a single pencil mark on their drawing boards or start up their CAD programs.

This is a nice try but what they should have done was to do a small protype run to see how the things hold up in day in and day out usage. They needed to talk to the people who actually have to deal with these things and THEN go back to the drawing board and fix the flaws. Maybe do this two or three times. Sure it is more costly and probably would take longer to refine the design, but it certainly would be worth it for something we are going to have to live with for decades.

The problem with not doing this kind of preliminary testing is that once they commit to a design, it can become too costly to go back and do redesigns after they've invested in putting a couple of hundred thousand out in the field -- then it's too late and we are the ones stuck with them.

Once again Crazy Glue will save the day!

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 10-12-2003, 05:27 PM:

our print of luther came in these boxes, so i finally got to examine them for myself. these comments are largely in response to points made in brad's review (in the review section).

first of all, improvements have been made to the "locking pin". it is now attached to the box by a durable-looking length of metal "thread", and while the pin itself is still plastic, it is more of a hairpin shape to help lock it into place. on one of the cans the pin went in and out quite smoothly. on the other, the hole was too small and this was quite difficult. i tried to scrape out the inside of the hole a little but i couldn't really get the right angle on it, what with the raised edges of the box getting in the way. over time, these holes will probably be worn into uniformity.

as for stackability, i had no problem stacking the boxes vertically or side to side. either way, they nest very nicely. a vast improvement over the completely unstackable metal cans.
not that i would want to try stacking them more than 3 high.

the reel slots on the inside are well-intentioned, but i agree that they don't really hold things in place very well.

overall, i think they deserve no less than a B or a C grade, especially when judged against the standard of the traditional metal cans.

carl

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-22-2004, 02:23 PM:

I just saw my first set of these boxes today. I guess it takes a while for things to migrate this far north?

--------------------------------------------------------------
EDITED BY AUTHOR - I mostly repeated what Carl said above. (That'll teach me to look over an old thread before posting on it.)
--------------------------------------------------------------
I guess they're OK. Anything is better than those damn boxes.

[ 01-23-2004, 12:26 PM: Message edited by: Mike Blakesley ]

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 2038) on 01-22-2004, 02:55 PM:

I received a print a couple weeks ago in the new plastic boxes. Personally I like them. Beats losing a handle from a Fox Box while it is about halfway winched up the ladder, with predictable results!

I think the plastic cases will last better than the metal cans. Amazing how many of those dented and bashed metal things, probably from the 70s, that are still kicking around. Great design for transport, the old metal ones, but no one addresses that they won't open or close anymore. Pry them open with a crow bar, jump up and down on them to close 'em. You know you're in trouble when you get metal cans with ball peen hammer dents all over the lids.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 01-22-2004, 04:01 PM:

When you really get a case that has "seen better days" and is almost impossible to open and close properly, tag it in some way that alerts the exchange personnel to its bad shape. Maybe a large label over the theatre's shipping tag, or a large tie-on tag through the case's lock.

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 01-24-2004, 08:52 AM:

I received one of these things a month ago held closed by lamp cord.It went out the same way. They will all be in the dumpster soon.

Posted by Jack Rapper (Member # 1958) on 01-27-2004, 11:29 PM:

first post...
yeah i saw one of those for a screening of intolerable cruelty.
definitely dope.

Posted by Adam Budweg (Member # 1901) on 01-29-2004, 11:00 AM:

I've seen about 2-3 of these plastic boxes. the first 2 i had no problems with, but the 3rd and most recent took me about 20 minutes to close. soemting was misaligned or something but i just couldnt get it closed completely. it got to the point where i took a hammer to it just to get it lined up exactly right. one think i couldnt stand about the older containers is that at times the container would weigh more than the film it carried and these new boxes are lighter, and there also convient in the since that they dont put the entier print in one box thas just to akward to carry. so if the designers are reading this dont give it such a tight fit.

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 01-30-2004, 12:34 PM:

I shipped two of these out last night.
Definitely junk.
The film truck guy agreed. He hates messing with them in the depot.