Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: neg dirt on "the boys are back"

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Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 10-09-2009, 04:49 PM:

my print (#165) of the boys are back has a serious case of negative dirt on the left half of the image in reel 4. any one else have this? i don't want to order another reel with the same problem.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 10-09-2009, 04:55 PM:

Had no problems here with the studio prints in NYC.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 10-12-2009, 10:02 AM:

That's interesting. The print I received of THE INFORMANT
several weeks ago also had a lot of neg dirt on reel 4.

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 10-12-2009, 01:51 PM:

Wanna bet both reels came from the same lab?

What lab did those reels come from guys?

Posted by Karl Borowski (Member # 5424) on 10-12-2009, 04:20 PM:

I'm sure this is what you already mean, but these days it is probably dirt on the IN, not OCN or IP steps.

Despite my disliking the DI process, I have to admit that physical problems, like lab splices, seem to have gone way down since the optical finish days.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 10-12-2009, 06:05 PM:

That doesn't make any sense, Karl. Lab splices should be just as frequent. I haven't noticed a reduction (not that I keep stats). WHy would you think it might be related?

--jhawk

Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 10-12-2009, 06:14 PM:

jHawke

I'm guessing he's referring to "scene splices" that used to be seen frequently on 'scope prints from internegs with no digital intermediate.

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 10-13-2009, 01:08 AM:

our replacement reel, despite having played at least 2 theaters previously, was not overly abused, looks good, and has no negative dirt (which seems like a perfectly valid term to me).

and of course this was a DI movie. with 2 lab splices.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 10-13-2009, 06:06 PM:

Tony-
I no longer have that print in house.
It was a deluxe print. I don't know for sure where
it came from, and yes, I should have made note.

I also want to clear up (no pun intended!) my
comments. My problem with reel 4 was many many
black specks dancing through the image for most
of reel 4, but most pronounced towards the end
of the reel. At first it looked simply like a
dirty print, except that my print was new and
on further inspection I found that it was IN
the print, not ON the print.

I've always thought 'negative dirt' would show
up as white specks, but these were black. So
I'm not sure what they were, but they definately
were lab-related, and did not appear to be simple
water spots, etc.

Posted by Karl Borowski (Member # 5424) on 10-13-2009, 06:23 PM:

So they were from the IP (interpositive) not the IN step .

As for my references to lab splices being down, I'm talking about the printed-through kind more than actual splices on the prints. However, I have noticed, though unrelated, that the latter also seems to be down since DIs predominated the movie business.

I remember seeing a print of "The Alamo" (the 2004-5 movie with Billy Bob Thornton in case I got the title wrong) where there were very noticeably splices between shots. These don't really bother me, because anamorphic is really beautiful when it is printed the old-fashioned way, much sharper.

Maybe the print I saw was slightly out of frame which accentuated the noticibility of the problem. Not like, though, that anyone in the audience except us film geeks notices this sort of thing.

Most people in my family think that film hasn't been used in theatrical projection since the advent of VHS tape [Eek!]

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 10-13-2009, 06:43 PM:

On a properly cut aperture a cinemascope negative splice should never be visible. End of story.

A handful of movies have the splices done wrong. Like The Passion of Christ. But usually the problem is just an overcut aperture.

--jhawk

Posted by Karl Borowski (Member # 5424) on 10-13-2009, 07:01 PM:

But wasn't "Passion" a DI?

Yeah, you are right that they shouldn't be visible at all, but obviously there is a lot more room for slop when you are only using 3 perforations instead of four and there are only a few thousandths of an inch between scope frames and several hundred between flat frames.

As for my viewing of "Alamo" I assume there is no way to get around them being visible if the film isn't hard matted in the printer and the film is mis-framed slightly, right?

Not all scope, nor flat films, for that matter are hard-matted. Even now you still see films without the hard-matting.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 10-13-2009, 07:11 PM:

I don't think it was (and the error wouldn't make much sense if it did), but it hardly matters.

If you're out of frame, you will see stuff you should not. That's the definition of out of frame! Don't be out of frame.

Whether it is hard-matted or soft-matted doesn't matter if you are framed right. And if it is hard matted and you are framed wrong, you are still making an error. It's just not a dramatically noticable one.

Anyhow, my point was simple. If you're seeing negative splices (please reserve the term "lab splices" for laboratory ultrasonic splices on raw release print stock), you have a framing problem or a negative problem. There have been zero (or was it one?) major Hollywood releases with out-of-spec negative splice since The Passion of Christ in 2004. Maybe there's some sketchy indy or arthouse film that didn't rise to our notice, but I'd be fairly surprised.

--jhawk

--jhawk

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-13-2009, 11:35 PM:

quote: John Hawkinson
On a properly cut aperture a cinemascope negative splice should never be visible. End of story.

Oh John, you of all people should know that just because you can't see the negative splices in no way means the aperture is cut properly. (Think about it.) [Razz]