Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: strangeness at the edge of the reel

This is topic strangeness at the edge of the reel in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Edgar Njari (Member # 9500) on 07-03-2016, 07:05 AM:

if it was "real" instead of reel, it could pass for a nice movie title...

Pardon my poetic expression, and let me first say HI to everyone as I'm new here. My name is Edgar, and I recently joined this forum, and film community at large, when I started shooting on 35mm, rather late in it's history I might add. By the end of this year, I hope to project my first 35mm print, as one of the local theaters where I live still operates a 35mm film project, though it rarely uses it except on freak occasions (like when someone like me comes along).

Anyway let me get to the point.

I have fond memories of watching movies in cinemas in the 90s and 2000s, when film projection was still the main standard. I often feel nostalgia towards all the artifacts associated with film projection, such as reel changes (before platters came along), optical soundtrack (before digital soundtracks) vinyl-like crackle etc.

But there is something that I remember seeing in certain cases, which puzzles me to this day.

Specifically I think it was the LOTR (Two Towers) print, and the way it behaved when the reels were changing. I remember that the entire image kind of shifted to cyan or blue at the very end of the reel. Then the next reel seemed to have a significant shift in sharpness for some reason, which I think didn't last long until it settled in, and there was also a contrast change. By sharpness I don't mean better image detail, I mean edge effects; adjacency effects which sometimes happen in development.

So my question is:
what could possibly happen in the lab that could cause significant adjacency/edge effects, contrast shifts and color shifts at the very end or beginning of a reel.

Did anyone else notice such a thing. I remember reading somewhere about color shifts, due to safelight contamination, but I never heard anyone mention edge effects.

Thanks

Edgar

Posted by Mike Schulz (Member # 4297) on 07-03-2016, 04:37 PM:

This was a very common occurrence for release prints, unfortunately. The labs would print more reels than they should before switching negatives and major blockbuster movies like LoTR would have 3500-4000 prints just for North America and probably another 2000 for your region. Quality Control seemed to get thrown out of the window especially in the later years so instead of inspecting one out of every 50 (I'm making this number up as I don't know exactly what it would be) reels for integrity, they would check one out of every 300 or 400 and as a result, lots of prints would ship out with discoloration printing issues as you were noticing and also lab splices which could cause sprocket-run on your print depending on where it was located in the reel. The last first-run venue I worked at before the total digital conversion occured had a policy of removing all of the lab/chemical splices so we wouldn't risk sprocket-run or just the general hideousness of having them flash on the screen in the middle of a movie. As for the discoloration issues, we were fortunate enough to be considered a "high profile" venue so we could get new replacement reels sent to us usually same-day or next-day and swap them out.

I genuinely miss film a lot but some of those release prints would be pretty terrible.

Posted by Edgar Njari (Member # 9500) on 07-03-2016, 06:56 PM:

Thanks for the reply Mike,

You seemed to have done a good job covering the issue of why it happened (due to poor quality control etc.), but what I'm actually most interested is how such effects happened.

For example, what would cause color shifts, and/or pronounced adjacency effects in the print. Perhaps this is more a question for a lab technician, but a lot of you guys seem to know a lot about what happens at the lab too.

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 07-03-2016, 09:18 PM:

Welcome!! You'll find lots of us here, like you, that miss film terribly. It's been over 3 years since I projected to a paying audience and it still hurts. I think about it and miss it on a daily basis.

How old are you? Most venues, at least in the states, had platters since the early-mid 80's and digital sound since the mid 90's.

You can still typically see 'reel changes' on a plattered print, though you're just seeing splices and not an actual projector change-over. It doesn't look much different, and you'll normally have to look into the booth window to see of there's two projectors or a projector and a platter. You can also still see the cue marks before the end of a reel on a plattered print.

With sound, there's no telling. You can still hear artifacts from a digital soundtrack from dirt or when it reverts back to optical for whatever reason, or a poor sound system. Some venues never adopted digital.

I'm also curious how the color shifts actually happen. I always just assumed it was an unchecked dye leak on a high speed printer or something but I have no clue.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-04-2016, 12:45 AM:

quote: Edgar Njari
For example, what would cause color shifts, and/or pronounced adjacency effects in the print. Perhaps this is more a question for a lab technician, but a lot of you guys seem to know a lot about what happens at the lab too.

Factors that could influence the color balance of a release print include...

- The interneg used to print it
- The emulsion on the print stock you're printing on to: though Kodak's quality control on the consistency of 2383 and 2302 has always been pretty darn good, dye couplers in color stock will change with age, as will the speed of b/w emulsion, slightly; so if you're printing onto stock that has sat on the shelf for a long time before exposure, its color and gamma curve will have shifted
- The color temperature of the light source in the printer
- The potency of the processing chemistry: the mixture in each bath needs to be "replenished" regularly, to ensure that it is of the correct strength
- The temperature of the processing chemistry as the film passes through it
- The speed at which the film passes through each chemical bath (in other words, the length of time it is immersed in each solution).

That is probably not an even close to complete list. All these factors need to be monitored and kept within spec: if they're not, the quality of the prints that emerge from the lab will suffer. As Mike points out, towards the end of the 35mm multiplex era, the sheer volume of prints being made and the commercial pressure to make them for the lowest cost per foot put a lot of pressure on the quality control aspect of things.

Posted by Edgar Njari (Member # 9500) on 07-04-2016, 05:59 AM:

Hi,

@Buck: I'm 30 now. Actually where I live, which is a smaller city in Croatia, they didn't get Dolby Digital until 2001. In those days there used to be just two active cinemas in town, which were old-school single projection room theaters. One of them was built in the 20s actually, the other in the 50s or 60s I think. Nowadays both of them are just relics of the past since multiplexes have taken over in malls. They also kept a two-projector system for the longest time, I think even into the early 2000s. But my memory is faded, and I could have actually been seeing just spliced-together reels on a platter that that point. I can't remember.
As for the "dye leak", well there is actually no such thing in the eastmancolor printing process, because the "printing" itself is actually photo-chemical, rather than mechanical as in technicolor IB prints.

@Leo:

Yeah, now we are getting into the gritty stuff, which is what I wanted to find out in the first place. Whatever is causing the shifts, the question is, why does it happen to a couple of meters of footage at the end of the reel and not the entire reel.

Strangely enough I found this thread:
http://www.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=004332#000003

someone else noticed this too...but I just realized I mad a big mistake in my first post which can't be edited anymore. It wasn't Two Towers, it was The Fellowship of the Ring. Sorry.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 07-04-2016, 10:49 AM:

There are a few types of prints released. The problems you described are found mostly in standard release prints. Which have limited QCing per each print run. But Prime First Run theatres (Los Angeles, New York) would get EK / Wet Gate / Show Prints for their engagements. And the EK's / Wet Gate are also QCed and graded before being sent to their engagements. Not all Show Prints are equal. Los Angeles Prime First Run houses in Westwood and Hollywood would be sent their Show Print to run and a second print called a backup for their booking. For First Run 70MM runs the theatre get a 35mm backup print too.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-04-2016, 12:12 PM:

quote: Edgar Njari
... the question is, why does it happen to a couple of meters of footage at the end of the reel and not the entire reel.

The unexposed print stock wasn't threaded into the printer or attached to the processing leader in total darkness, thereby fogging the first or last few feet?

Wouldn't affect b/w prints, because 2302 is blue-sensitized only, and thus the unexposed stock can be handled and threaded under a safelight.

Posted by Brent Francis (Member # 5008) on 07-08-2016, 11:43 AM:

Ghod you make me nostalgic. I remember inspecting reels of a movie with spliced stock in a film lab @ 1989. Only two frames were supposed to be removed prior to shipping. Only problem was, the entire movie rested on one shot, where someone pulled out a gun. Flash shot, maybe 10 frames long... & guess where the splice was.
I couldn't do it - ruin the entire scene everyone'd been waiting for. So I declared the last 400 feet n/g & ordered a reprint... and prayed the boss wouldn't ask to examine the "damaged" footage.
Not every lab rushed through it's release prints.