• This only affected some of the reels with no pattern to it (for example, not alternating reels) and it was no better or worse at the ends of each reel.
• This only affected a small area of the image down the center, the sides of the image are fine.
• This print is in otherwise excellent condition.
• This same print was played a few years ago and there was no color fading at that time.
• A physical inspection of the print revealed absolutely no hint of even minor embossing.
• A physical inspection of the print verified the surface on both sides looked "lab new".
• The edgecode markings read "386 30 Kodak IX 1997".

Anyone have any ideas??? I have never heard of an LPP print fading before, so this would not be good news to find out that LPP filmstocks on polyester base can fade like this.

Watch the clip here. (Don't forget you can click "large view" to see the video larger.)
 

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Posted by Sean Weitzel (Member # 244) on 05-19-2011, 11:03 AM:
 
you mean 1997 not 1977 right?
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-19-2011, 11:05 AM:
 
That's what I said.
 

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Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 05-19-2011, 11:29 AM:
 
I have not seen an lpp print do this but my first thought is that it was run with a hot spot in the center early in it's life.
Perhaps not enough to burn it but over time make it do what it is doing now.

I hope it's not fading like Eastman
I have noticed blacks become lighter in older lpp on occasion.
 

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Posted by Sean Weitzel (Member # 244) on 05-19-2011, 11:37 AM:
 
That's very unusual and unsettling. If it wasn't for the fact that the print was reportedly ok a few years prior I would say lab error. One thing that comes to mind, was this title subject to that beach bypass processing technique that was all the rage in the later 90's ?
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-19-2011, 11:41 AM:
 
I am positive it wasn't. The movie didn't have that "look".
 

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Posted by Fred Georges (Member # 505) on 05-19-2011, 11:42 AM:
 
Bet its just Improper washing from sloppy lab work that finally caught up with the print. If it were truly fading I think it would be over the entire surface of the frame & not just down the center. I have rescued some poly Lpp prints from unbelievably horrid storage conditions (heat & humidity) & have never seen an issue like this.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-19-2011, 11:46 AM:
 

quote: Victor Liorentas

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my first thought is that it was run with a hot spot in the center early in it's life.
Perhaps not enough to burn it but over time make it do what it is doing now.

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That's why I asked about the embossing. The report back was that there wasn't the slightest hint of it.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-19-2011, 01:29 PM:
 
LPP if processed properly is supposed to last 100 years. So most likely it was not handled correctly in the lab. Either was not washed or some chemical contaminant is still in the emulsion causing it to deterioate over time. I used to know all the steps to processing eastman color but can't remember them today... not that many steps really although there is/was a stabilization step at the end and this film may have missed that step or the stabilizer solution may not have been any good.

Mark
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 05-19-2011, 01:40 PM:
 
Clearly it's an alien message embedded in the signal. Has anyone tried to decode it?
 

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Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 05-19-2011, 01:54 PM:
 
I'd also guess it was a processing issue that's an anomaly. I know there's always the fear that it could be just the tip of the iceberg, but although I've never seen this particular flaw, I've seen a number of single film, intermittent anomalies over the years that look like fading, over/underexposure, etc. Of course, the real issue would be if such a wavering fade comes to exist in other LPP prints as time goes on. But I doubt that will happen.
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 05-19-2011, 03:18 PM:
 
I would want to see if that pattern is streaked or splattered looking
One of the early problems with polystcok was the magenta layer delaminating and causing blotches
the worst was the fugitive
 

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-19-2011, 03:28 PM:
 
My first guess would also be that somebody hot spotted the lamp.
If that was the case, not only would there be embossing but the problem would occur on every reel or every other reel.
(If it was run reel-to-reel when one lamp was hot spotting and the other wasn't.)

Is it possible that, somewhere along the line, some reels got shuffled between prints in a half-baked attempt to hide somebody's mistake?

If the film wasn't damaged in a projector the only logical reason would have to be poor processing.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-19-2011, 03:57 PM:
 
Randy, apparently this entire print is in near-mint condition. The odds reels were jumbled between prints is a far fetched one. Even if ran on 2 projectors, the theory doesn't hold any water because it wasn't all odd or even reels (or 6K-mounted quantities).

Gordon, I recall on The Fugitive there were a ton of prints locally that had to be exchanged for new ones. My two prints were flawless and did not deteriorate (un-released FilmGuard). Curiously though other theaters in town did not suffer any problem, and there was never an instance where one of the two prints within the same building had the issue. The only pattern I could find was that every single theater that had problems used XeKote on the edges of the film as a lubricant. Every single theater that did not have problems did not use XeKote at all in their booths. (This informal analysis was between different theater locations and chains from people I knew and with the help of the local union for additional research.)

I think on The Fugitive it was a one-off problem, because some theaters continued to use XeKote and never had the issue again. Regardless it was all over the picture, not restricted to one location in the center of the image.

Remember though on this print, physically upon close inspection it is in lab new condition with no signs of any sort of deterioration. This same print also supposedly had no issues a few years ago.

Obviously if any rep houses are going to be booking Contact, please let us know how the print is. Likewise, does anyone have a list of Warner Brothers movies released +/- a year of Contact? I would be curious to see if anyone books those titles and if those prints show any issues.
 

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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 05-19-2011, 04:11 PM:
 
I know you said the print looked fine but FWIW I once received a used print of BRAVEHEART less than 6 months after initial release. During inspection, I noticed that the individual frames seemed to have been slightly burned, presumably by a hot spot from the lamp of a previous user. When projected on-screen, it looked a lot like what we're seeing in this clip.
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 05-19-2011, 04:11 PM:
 
The fugitive had problems up here after a few weeks on any system over 3K no matter how flat it was focused and xekote was never used in any of them
It was on Gevart stock and John Pytlak had some of it tested and determined that gevart was haveing a bigger problem than Kodak experienced with the estar stock rollout with the dye layer seperating
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-19-2011, 04:41 PM:
 
Interesting on the 3K because I had considered that. There were a few auditoriums that were running 7K lamps here in Dallas that were not using XeKote and had no issues. Similarly there was a couple of theaters where 2K was their biggest lamp with issues. The theater I was running at the time had 4K lamps (Strong without any heat filter).

Anyway XeKote was the ONLY thing I could find that constituted a pattern. Maybe the Texas prints came from a different lab than the ones used in Canada?
 

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Posted by Jim Henk (Member # 3628) on 05-19-2011, 11:16 PM:
 
It's obviously because Saturday is the end of the world. Things get like that when that happens. Rather annoying, really...
 

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Posted by Mike Rivest (Member # 5500) on 05-20-2011, 07:52 PM:
 
Too strong a bulb caused the fading?
 

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Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 05-20-2011, 08:43 PM:
 
The lack of any embossing at all and that the image is affected in a random way and not over the whole width of the aperture would seem to eliminate hot spotting and/or over wattage of the bulb.

It appears to me to look like an application of some sort of liquid or chemical which has contacted a certain spot on the image area and the takeup tension has spread this across the film.
Whether this application was intentional or accidental is a point of conjecture.

This theory can be tested by using a reel of scrap film and drip some liquid ink onto the film and run as per usual. There will be a similar kind of spotting as seen in the example.

What do others think about this theory?
 

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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 05-20-2011, 08:52 PM:
 
Plausible. Worth a try.
 

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Posted by Don Furr (Member # 1469) on 05-20-2011, 11:03 PM:
 
I sent the details to my film lab guy and he had the following comments:
Looks very much like out-gassing to me. I wonder if this print was subject to any sort of "surface treatment", like Scotchguard OR if it was run with Filmguard for an extended period before being stored?

When you permeate the emulsion of a film with a substance, and then wind it up tightly for "a few years" without occasional exercise, fluctuating temperatures and humidity can fade color dyes regardless of how "low fade' they are.

Low fade only refers to properly stored films. Film needs to be exercised and breathe, and it needs to be stored in a stable environment.

My guess.

Don
 

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Posted by Simon Wyss (Member # 6218) on 05-21-2011, 02:07 AM:
 
Oil
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-21-2011, 11:18 AM:
 
He said there was no Scotchguard or anything on the print.

I also remind everyone that only some of the reels were affected. I find it impossible to believe a theater only cleaned selected reels. As far as FilmGuard, I've got various test reels of film going back to around 1990 on all types of film stocks (including a bunch from this era when the industry started switching to polyester base) with no degredation.

Keep the guesses coming. So far the only plausible explanation is that the lab did something in processing that caused selected reels to degrade over time.

Ian and Simon's theory is good except again, not all reels were affected (and that would have been one heck of a leaky projector to put a constant drip in the center of the image like that).
 

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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 05-21-2011, 12:18 PM:
 
Okay, okay...

Since the movie in question is CONTACT, let us consider Occam's razor...

Isn't it possible that a perfect print was loaned out to someone who then swapped out good reels and replaced them with misprinted reels?

This has been known to happen, y'know...
 

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Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 05-21-2011, 03:44 PM:
 
I have had a very close look at this clip and noticed that the fading occurs in a regular pattern. This to me indicates there may be a relationship with the fading and it's position on the reel.

Rough timing tells me that this section of 'Contact' is occurring near the beginning of a 6000 foot spool - assuming a 35mm print - and this is seen reasonably clearly in the opening scenes at around 0:16, so it's my next guess that this reel may have been stored in close proximity to a gas releasing agent or other chemical, perhaps in a spool cabinet.

Here in Oz, there was for a time a line of thought that by placing a bag of either silica gel or napthalene flakes in a can with the film, that this was 'supposed' to stop deterioration of the print. Just what deterioration this was supposed to stop escapes me at the moment but that 'rythymic pulsing' of the damage here does not indicate to me any lab problem.

I'm convinced it's a post-lab issue.
 

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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 05-21-2011, 04:31 PM:
 
Interesting, but if this happened while the reel was still wound onto itself, shouldn't we expect to see the worst damage along the edges?

How/why would the center of the image deteriorate first?
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-21-2011, 10:33 PM:
 
This clip was from reel 4. Apparently 6, 7 and 8 also had the same issue. If this was stored on a 6000 foot spool, then why wasn't reel 5 affected? (Or for that matter reel 3, depending on how it was built-up?)

If this was stored on 2000' reels, then it still doesn't add up.
 

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Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 05-22-2011, 02:01 AM:
 
That's THAT theory blown.

It's got me stumped.
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 05-22-2011, 03:31 AM:
 
I still think it is a lab issue as per Fred and Mark. The fact that it wasn't noticed years ago when the print was new doesn't mean that some of the reels were not process properly, only that the error was not immediately apparent.

There are two factors that could be in play if a lab had not processed some reels propertly -- time, which would allow the errant chemicals to slowly affect the dyes, and the light radiation -- needn't necessarily be excessive enough to cause visible emulsion damage, but just normal within normal heat tolerances, but the light itself could simply accelerated deterioration of the dyes, and only on those improperly processed reels.

Luckily it doesn't seem to be anything inherant in properly processed LPP emulsion or we would see a lot more of it, no?
 

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Posted by Jerry Axelsson (Member # 3175) on 05-24-2011, 12:53 AM:
 
Brad, which lab processed the print of "Contact" in question?
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-13-2012, 07:50 PM:
 
This turned up in discussion recently. The lab that made this print was Technicolor. Any other ideas?
 

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Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 05-13-2012, 08:36 PM:
 
The clip has the same kind of look as a super 8 home movie when the film is a bit overexposed at the head or tail...
This would of course be that way from the beginning and not develop a few years later.
 

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Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 05-14-2012, 10:12 PM:
 
Improper removal of developer during processing...
 

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Posted by Simon Wyss (Member # 6218) on 05-15-2012, 03:38 AM:
 
I take back my silly oil contribution. After watching the clip again I’d like to say that the issue provokes a thought with me that goes with light. It cannot be the positive printing stage, orangeish flickering, so it’d rather have occured during exposure of an interneg. Something bypassing printer valves like varying lamp current. Perhaps the simple agony of a printer lamp?
 

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Posted by Simon Wyss (Member # 6218) on 05-16-2012, 07:09 AM:
 
Still another idea: Someone made light fall onto the film like fumbling around with a torch lamp. She or he went to watch a little whether everything runs alright on that printer, thereby ruining the interneg.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-16-2012, 12:48 PM:
 
The film was perfectly fine for years guys.
 

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Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 05-16-2012, 01:06 PM:
 
Years ago I had on odd reel of a 1985 feature, clearly marked LPP on the edge code, where only the dark (night) scenes faded to brown. No splices.

I suspect that the cause was either a manufacturing defect or a lab processing issue, or possibly both.

This may just be in my mind, but another thing I have noticed is that some Eastman low fade prints seem to get less sharp over the years.
 

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