Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: How much Film Guard is too much?

This is topic How much Film Guard is too much? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by David Barlow (Member # 2509) on 02-28-2010, 08:49 PM:

At the theater I work at we have 8 screens and 2 film cleaners, we just got them both up and working. Most of our projectionists and management have never worked with media cleaners or Film-Guard before and my own knowledge is a bit limited so I just thought I would ask. With 2 cleaners we could run each of our prints on the media cleaner roughly once a day (some of our screens have 2 or more prints) - but would this be overkill?

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 02-28-2010, 09:31 PM:

Hi David.

Please do a search of the forums...this topic has been covered plenty of times, however as a place to get you going...you can run them as often or as seldom as you like. The more you run them the better your prints will look.

There is no cleaner-use overkill, but you can over-FilmGuard. Again, search the forums for more.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-28-2010, 10:35 PM:

This question requires a bit more detail which I will answer here since there is no sticky topic about it. With only 2 cleaners, it would be hard to do much actual cleaning of the prints. The cleaner must be rewound and run for several passes on any given print before the real difference can be seen. You would really only be able to apply Filmguard which would help a bit against static and maybe shedding. But I don't think you will see much if any difference on the overall cleanliness of your films unless you get more cleaners. Also, if you have Strong platters it will make even less of a difference. I run my cleaners on every print, every show, every day on Strong platters and my films are still quite dirty. Strong platters suck.

But to answer your direct question, don't run a print through a wet cleaner more than once a week. Once the pads have been soaked and run, you can run a print that has been previously soaked through those same pads for up to a week. Sometimes when I have intense shedding I will resaturate the same pads in the middle of a week.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-28-2010, 11:12 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
I run my cleaners on every print, every show, every day

Then in the next paragraph...

quote: Joe Redifer
But to answer your direct question, don't run a print through a wet cleaner more than once a week.

WTF?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-28-2010, 11:14 PM:

Perhaps I should have said "freshly saturated" instead of "wet", but "wet" has fewer letters and required less of my life to type. [Smile]

Anyway the pads aren't wet any more after 1 pass, at least not by comparison to before that pass.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 02-28-2010, 11:22 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
..."wet" has fewer letters and required less of my life to type.

HAHAHAHhahahaha That's hilarious! Thanks for the laugh, Joe! [thumbsup]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-01-2010, 02:12 AM:

quote: Joe Redifer
But I don't think you will see much if any difference on the overall cleanliness of your films unless you get more cleaners.

Yes he will. Even the theaters that only pass the film through FG once a week have drastically reduced shedding, and that is the biggest cause of dirt (and digital sound failures).

David, just run each cleaner for 2 days on a given print, saturating the pads before the first of 2 day's worth of shows on a given print. You will be amazed at the difference.

Posted by Richard May (Member # 2627) on 03-01-2010, 06:12 AM:

Ok, so what does the make of the platter have to do with it??

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 03-01-2010, 10:33 AM:

I was wondering the same thing. I've been using Strong platters for almost 20 years and not had any problems with them making prints dirty. The main main cause of shedding that I found was caused by the intermittent shoe/pad being set too close to the intermittent sprocket. Once I re-adjusted them, the shedding practically stopped.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-01-2010, 10:43 AM:

There is virtually zero backtension on a Strong platter, so the cleaning machine works well in applying FilmGuard to stop shedding and cover up scratches, but it can't clean existing dirt of of an older print up without a lot of passes because there is such little pressure on the film cleaning media pads.

Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 03-01-2010, 12:14 PM:

Strong platter are some of the most reliable platters I have worked with.

The brains can be finicky, but are easy to fix/service. They can be spun by hand in a crunch.

I've used them to do 35mm fast-forwards. I don't like the I/O switch to slave to a MUT, but that is a human failure, really, not the platter's that you have to pay attention to the platters spinning.

Anyway, I would think the projectors have every thing to do with film shedding, and the platters hardly any.

I've used Kelmar film cleaners, or, in a crunch just applied film cleaner to the side of the prints. The film cleaners are much more consistent, reliable, but the side-wipe method works in a crunch.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-01-2010, 11:33 PM:

quote: Jonathan Smith
Anyway, I would think the projectors have every thing to do with film shedding, and the platters hardly any.

No one said that the platters have to do with shedding. He was saying that if you only ran the cleaner a couple times tops, you'd also only get rid of static and minor shedding.