Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Jacket: Reel 4 scratches anyone?

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 03-06-2005, 12:28 AM:

Our print of The Jacket came in with random diagonal black scratches all over the middle of the frame in reel 4 only. We called for a replacement reel, and when the depot called back, apparently he said to our manager, "Let me guess... Reel four?"

Our replacement reel still hasn't arrived. Makes me wonder if this is a widespread problem.

Anyone else have this problem?

Posted by Jason Gazaille (Member # 2846) on 03-06-2005, 04:20 AM:

Yes, I called ETS Friday morning. The scratches go for about 3 minutes of R-4. I'm not sure if the depot called back at all, but I haven't gotten my replacement reel either. The film hasn't performed well at our theatre, but I still want a new one.

Posted by Dylan Marchetti (Member # 2764) on 03-06-2005, 11:57 AM:

Saw the exact same thing on R4 at the Rave theatres in Viera, FL, however, they lasted for nearly the entire reel- I'd say three minutes at most might have been undamaged.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 03-06-2005, 01:15 PM:

[Mad]

ARG! What the hell!

Hey, John P. (or others), any idea what could cause that? I doubt it's the negative, although I guess it COULD be... Could it be something screwed up in the printer?

Sorry, but stupid crap like that pisses me off because it makes all theaters look bad. Luckily this time it happened on a movie that not many people are seeing.

[rant]
HEY WARNER BROTHERS... THIS IS WHY SENDING PRINTS OUT AT THE LAST MINUTE IS A BAD FUCKING IDEA!!!
[/rant]

Posted by Jason Gazaille (Member # 2846) on 03-06-2005, 01:58 PM:

I guess I should consider myself lucky, then for only 3 minutes of scratches because it doesn't look like I'll be getting a new one. Interestingly, I didn't like the used print of "The Pacifier" I received Thursday and Technicolor had a replacement at my door in just 4 hours! ETS sucks! And so does Warner QC! I have more problems with WB prints than any other studio when it comes to bad reels.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 03-06-2005, 02:36 PM:

"Hey, John P. (or others), any idea what could cause that? I doubt it's the negative, although I guess it COULD be... Could it be something screwed up in the printer?"
A scratch on the negative will print white not show up as a black scratch unless the rawstock was rubbing something else on the printer or processor

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 03-07-2005, 12:25 AM:

Our replacement showed up today and we swapped it out just in time for the 7pm show... the last show of the weekend at our theater.

[Mad]

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-07-2005, 05:30 AM:

As Gordon noted, base side scratches on a negative element would usually print as white. Perhaps the master postive got scratched, and they didn't find the problem until it was too late to fix in time? Or some mishandling of the processed reels happened to scratch that one.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-07-2005, 06:53 AM:

If Jason's scratches only last for 3-4 minutes but Dylan's affect almost the whole reel, that would seem to rule out damage to a pre-print element. If it were a scratched f/g pos, you'd expect the scratching to be identical on every subsequent generation of element.

Perhaps the reel 4 prints were inspected or rewound using faulty equipment? We had a similar problem with The Mummy in Britain. All but one of the reels were reprinted here because of censorship cuts (they'd cut quite a bit to get it a 12-certificate if I remember correctly), but one of them was unaltered and therefore they imported the prints of it from the US. I think it was reel 2. The one we got was knackered (bad scratching throughout), as was the replacement they sent. I don't think any of the imported reels can have been checked before they were selected for export and re-use.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 03-07-2005, 06:50 PM:

Strange...we had the same exact problem. And I thought I made a mistake during build up. I totally agree: don't send out the prints so late!

AJG

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 03-07-2005, 11:31 PM:

quote: Aaron Garman
I thought I made a mistake during build up

I wonder how many other people thought that.