Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: I GOT A FILM-TECH PRINT TOO!!!

This is topic I GOT A FILM-TECH PRINT TOO!!! in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 06-17-2003, 11:45 PM:

One of my prints of "The Hulk" came with a little note saying:

"Dear Theatre Manager/Projectionist,
This print has been treated with the
FilmGuard (patent pending) cleaning
and lubricating system. To learn
more about this product, visit
www.film-tech.com"

Okay, fess up now...which one of you is responsible for this!?

Posted by Nic Margherio (Member # 273) on 06-18-2003, 04:02 PM:

That sounds like the insert one of my theatres puts in the can as prints leave. I used to work at this theatre exclusively and I was the one who made those quite some time ago. What was the print number and the previous shipping address?

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-18-2003, 04:30 PM:

A lot of my prints come from Swank or New Yorker Films so most of you guys will never see one that I have handled. But if you see a print that is labeled:

[Title of Feature] | [Flat/Scope] | [Stereo/Dolby Dig./DTS/SDDS or "Quad Trax"] | Treated with Film-Guard [Date] | <signature>R. Stankey</signature> | rstankey@mercyhurst.edu | www.film-tech.com

it is one that has passed through my booth. The date is always on there somewhere. If anybody ever sees a print with my name on it and something isn't right I want to hear about it! I don't handle every print myself anymore. If one of my "guys" is messing up I will confront him/her. If they don't like it they can leave! (They are Work Study students. They can transfer to Groundskeeping and carry garbage all day if they don't like they way I run things!) Furthermore, if it WAS me who messed up I would like to hear about that too!

Back in the day, wasn't there more of a "projectionist's grapevine"? I have called up or sent e-mail to places that have had the film before me or places that will be gettin the film after me and I always seem to get the same, "Who the hell are YOU?!" attitude from them.

As far as I'm concerned, people should be pissed off if they DON'T get a call or message!

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-18-2003, 05:03 PM:

If anyone gets a print from me, let me know! I know that I've gotten prints from myself (same print that I had shipped out a year before...apparently it sat at the depot without visiting another theatre in that year) and from at least one other F-T member (Steve Kraus's screening room).

I always label prints with blue Sharpie ink (due to my having bought a large box of blue Sharpies several years ago). If they come from a platter house where I had inspected the print, the tail will have 10-20 feet of clear leader attached and be labelled with blue Sharpie (as always) and usually with 1" wide green or red artists' tape. It would say something like "Winged Migration - Flat/1.85 - SRD - DTS (no disks)". Leaders would be re-attached with single-sided splices and the print would be shipped heads-out.

If it came from a reel-to-reel house where I inspected the print, it would have labels on white artists' tape like the ones in the pic below on the head leaders and small labels with just the title and "R<reel number> - TAIL" on the tails. Depending on whether it was to be shown more than a few times, it might have extra head and tail leader as well. The print would normally be shipped heads-out.

I don't normally use FG on the prints that I run in real theatres (mostly because I rarely do film work more than one night per week). [Frown]

I do use it on my personal prints, however. [thumbsup]

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 06-18-2003, 06:16 PM:

Hmmm. That's sure a lot of tape! Is there a reason you use a long stretch like that? Because it looks like all that information could fit on a piece half that size.

I always get pissed when we get a used print from a platter house and it has about 6 feet of tape on the end because someone had to write ALL the information REALLY BIG! [Roll Eyes]

What's worse is when they use that damned blue painter's tape shit that's wider than the film so it coveres up the sprocket holes...

=TMP=

Posted by Per Hauberg (Member # 529) on 06-18-2003, 06:27 PM:

Must have something to do with the price on Tape Factory Stocks

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 06-18-2003, 06:28 PM:

A manager asked that same question when he saw me labeling a print.

The answer is: "easy-to-read."

Now...about that blue ink...blue ink is reserved for laboratory printing of opticals...black ink is for show copies... [Roll Eyes]

Philistines!

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-18-2003, 06:28 PM:

Funny thing about movie theaters... They are DARK! [Big Grin]

I print the labels extra big (with a black Sharpie) so that they can be read from 10 feet away in the dark.

When you have multiple prints I think it's a good thing to mark each print somehow... A, B, C ... X or 1, 2, 3, ... n

I believe clear, accurate labeling is important even if you have only one screen/print but it's even MORE important when you have multiple screens/prints. It's absolutely MANDATORY when you have more than one print on the same platter system!

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-18-2003, 06:47 PM:

I only use white Sharpies. No other colors are allowed. Except maybe clear. Clear is my favorite color.

Posted by Gracia L. Babbidge (Member # 582) on 06-18-2003, 07:29 PM:

Well, I was not a person to put a big chunk of tape on the tail of the last reel to scribble all the pertinent info, as the cue readers I worked with got quite confuzzled by anything stuck to the print other than the optical cue tape. So on the occasions when previously played prints had to be assembled, I would grumble about the amounts of tape I would have to carefully remove from tails of last reels (provided that I wasn't grumbling about the tail having been totally chopped off immediately after the credits).
For easy print identification, I used loops made of old trailers to fit around the print, and would put long stretches of masking tape on those. So on the tape on the loops, I'd write out the feature title, rating, aspect ratio, sound formats, number of reels, depot, studio, and print number. Thus, multiple prints of the same title wouldn't get mixed up.
Then again, I had a set of 12 sharpies, all different colors, and I was enough of a dweeb that anytime I was building more than one print (which was nearly every 'film shift'), each print got a different color, to avoid any and all manners of mix-ups!

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-18-2003, 09:34 PM:

quote:

Gracia: ...and I was enough of a dweeb...

That's not dweeb! No-no-nono! I'll tell you about dweeb!
There is this one guy who has four different colors of hilighter markers in the top right hand desk drawer.

They MUST be in THAT drawer.
They MUST always point in the same direction. (Pointing right.)
They MUST always be in the same order. (Blue, Green, Yellow, Red)
He goes to the desk and checks them several times per day and rearranges them if they are out of order!

Now, THAT's a dweeb! Needless to say, most of us other guys had a lot of fun rearranging them just to get under his skin! [evil]

And don't get me started talking about numbering the splicers!

Posted by Tao Yue (Member # 836) on 06-19-2003, 10:50 AM:

Scott -- quite a few projectionists label prints like you do. Sometimes it comes down to subtle differences like:

Is the reel number written in red sharpie and the rest in blue sharpie?
Is the reel number identified by name as well as by number? (I do this)
Is it labelled "Dolby SR" or just "SR"?
Does the bottom or top of the text face the soundtrack?

etc.
The only surefire way of identifying yourself to a theater getting the print in the future is by doing what Randy does. Though I'm not sure that's wise, as you may get blamed if someone screws up the print somewhere down the chain.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-19-2003, 12:11 PM:

Although I can't guarantee I'm the best film handler in the world... Forced to take shortcuts bacause of sparse budgets... I can guarantee that 90% of the film I get leaves here in MUCH better condition that it comes in

I clip off the junk frames from where people cut and splice the ID frames. I peel off all the old tape. I fix all the crummy splices and clean off all the shoe polish people leave behind. All the old cues are taken off. I clean the film well with FilmGuard and I make sure the film is wound on the reels properly with heads and tails back on the way they are supposed to be.

I make every effort to tell our distrubutors that we put forth so much effort to clean up and take care of our prints. Because I'm so vocal about this and because we've never had any major damage to a film happen on our watch, the distributors are less hesitant to send us their rare one of a kind prints.

The down side of this is that, on more than one occasion, they have sent us their junky prints because they know I will clean them up.

Still, just in case, I am sure to put the date on the film to go against somebody who tries to claim that any damage happend here.

Furthermore, I can say to people, "Why would I put my name on a print if I damaged it?"

Posted by Jeff Taylor (Member # 443) on 06-19-2003, 01:19 PM:

...and for the flip side, I sold a print to a collector, and to please him Film Guarded it before shipping. He complained that there was a funny smell when he opened the box, and that it took him a whole roll of paper towels to "get that stuff off the print". Oh well, you try to do a good deed and look what happens.

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 06-19-2003, 05:25 PM:

Instead of using tape, why not splice a piece of white painted leader on, and then write on that? Leader is not as easly damaged as tape, and leader can be baught for $25 for 1000'(that may even be cheeper than tape). And when used on the tail of a plattered print, it helps protect the tail of the feature.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-19-2003, 09:55 PM:

A little Clorox bleach and and a bucket of hot water will make almost any old trailer (that you were going to throw out anyway) into a nice piece of clear leader that you can use to do just that... and for FREE! [Smile]

Just use a contrasting color of magic marker so it will show up from a distance.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-20-2003, 07:15 AM:

Here are the film leaders available from Kodak subsidiary FPC:

http://www.fpchollywood.com/film-leaders-editorial-leaders.html

http://www.fpchollywood.com/film-leaders-lab-processing-machine-leaders.html

They also carry a variety of other film-handling supplies and magnetic film, cans, and cores:

http://www.fpchollywood.com/supplies.html

http://www.fpchollywood.com/magnetic-film.html

http://www.fpchollywood.com/cans.html

http://www.fpchollywood.com/cores.html

Randy's suggestion of hot water and hypochlorite laundry bleach can be used to remove the gelatin emulsion from any film to make clear leader. Be sure to rinse well and dry too.

Posted by Ken McFall (Member # 845) on 06-21-2003, 04:42 AM:

Personally I hate long lengths of tape attached to the tails of films. If it was always done in a 'standard' way then maybe but until then nothing should be stuck on film.

In house we use approx 12' of Red spacing for Scope, Green for 1.85, Yellow for 1.66 and Blue for 1.33. We put a short length of masking tape about 1 1/2' from the end with the Title, Ratio and Sound Format and nothing else. The use of color is a visual cue for the projectionist lacing up to ensure they know what ratio the feature is in. I only repeat the ratio on the spacing in case a relief comes in at short notice and dosen't understand the system. As we run automated all that is required is to let the computer set the correct program or to select it when you lace up....

Now if I could only get them to lace the correct film up then I'd be very happy!