Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Platter question

This is topic Platter question in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Sally Ann Burgess (Member # 4746) on 09-05-2008, 04:01 AM:

This happened a long time ago, but I just want to know exactly what caused this situation. Back in ye olde training days, my Tech and I went to check on Analyse This (told you it was a long time ago)...and the first 20 mins or so were just feeding out onto the floor. The projector, a Vic 5, was still going, the platters were Cinemeccanica. My Tech did something, I think manipulate the take up arm, and the film just went onto the platter like that for a while until it was all back on the platter and going along normally. It's almost as if the take up arm itself got stuck but the take up platter stopped for some reason. What happened? Is this something that could ever happen to any projector set up? I now use Kinoton FP30s and AW3 platters.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-05-2008, 04:07 AM:

You don't say what type of platter this happened on, only what you use now, but I am guessing they were Christie platters. Your platters are/were poorly timed or had a bad LED and did not spin fast enough when the show started. I imagine the show started with a timer on the automation. I used to have this happen all of the time until I fixed the timing on the platter (varies by deck). The failsafes should have stopped the show, but I am guessing your failsafes are those crappy FP-350 optical failsafes. This brand of failsafes will not catch this problem since the film will never drop from where the optics are looking. Very poorly designed.

Also, you might want to edit the thread title to be more descriptive.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 09-05-2008, 05:05 AM:

quote: Sally Ann Burgess
the platters were Cinemeccanica.

Posted by Cameron Glendinning (Member # 3516) on 09-05-2008, 06:00 AM:

What your describing Sally could have been caused by a multitude of different things. Equipment failure, operator error etc. We will never know exactly what caused your incident years ago. The only thing for sure is that when the film hits the ground the print is going to be dirty as film is statically charged. This will be seen every time the print is run from then on unless someone has a bottle of filmguard on hand.

Over the past 20 years I have worked in over 50 cinemas and worked with most projectors, platters, 2 projectors with change overs (thankfully never christie!) and all I can say is no system is 100% foolproof. Film can end up on the floor, worse still back up and get crushed in the projector (not likely with kinoton or cinemaccanica)

Parts wear out, motors need maintainence, bearings need to be replaced and some platters need to be timed and sometimes humans make errors or electricity fluctuations can be an issue.

The best thing you can do is have an experienced operator on hand (ie on staff) for when the **** hits the fan you can get a better point of view.

Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 09-05-2008, 07:25 AM:

In case you did not pull the take up arm to the point of "standby" and left it to the full stop position, then the platter most probably never started spinning! If you also did not have the failsafe connection from the platter to the projector, then nothing could have indicated that there was something wrong. Actually Cinemeccanica and Kinoton offer the most failsafe platters and projectors. They stop at almost any error. Kinoton will stop at brain wraps and of course fillbreaks. Cinemeccanica will stop at brain wraps, film breaks, xenon lamp non ignition! And 20 minutes without checking on the projector is surely film done wrong!
Demetris

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-05-2008, 10:40 AM:

quote: John Wilson
the platters were Cinemeccanica.

Ah! I usually ignore that word due to the fact it's not very impressive (unless she did a stealth edit after I posted).