Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Mystery Crackle in Analog Track

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Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 04-23-2018, 04:51 PM:

Testing a 35mm, analog track print today.
Haven't done 35mm in months.

Reel 1 on projector 1 sounds fine.
Reel 2 on projector 2 has a crackle that almost overwhelms the dialog. Sounds like someone crumbling cellophane into a microphone.

Put Reel 2 on Projector 1 and the crackle follows.
Reel 3 on Projector 2, some crackle, only really audible in the quiet scenes.

Print is in good shape. No splices. I check the track very closely and see no emulsion or base scratches. Look at it under a magnifying glass and there are little dots in the track emulsion, but I'm never looked that closely for a problem before,so have no idea if that is normal, or if they are big enough to cause noise.

Any ideas as to what caused this? Thinking of trying some film guard, maybe it will darken the dots enough to help. If I have time tomorrow, will check the other reels.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 04-23-2018, 05:02 PM:

> under a magnifying glass and there are little dots in the track emulsion

I have seen this before. That is indeed the problem. It will probably get worse as the print ages. I am not sure if this is caused by improper processing or later damage, but I do not believe Film Guard will help.

Are you using a red reader, or an exciter lamp?

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 04-23-2018, 05:51 PM:

Red reader.

Posted by Paul Shuttleworth (Member # 9057) on 04-24-2018, 06:23 AM:

Have you tried Reel 1 on Projector 2?

Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 04-24-2018, 10:03 AM:

This has occurred occasionally with archival prints having conventional optical tracks. It seems that sometimes aging causes almost microscopic dots on the track, which reproduce as the described crackle. If you run into this, report it to the distributor. Nothing can be done except to replace the print.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 04-24-2018, 11:05 AM:

Paul: Tried Reel 1 on Projectors 2. The first five or so minutes is clean, then the sound gets more like Reel 3. Light crackle and a regularly repeating "shush shush" like paper being torn instead of crumbled.

Richard: I reported it yesterday. They said they haven't had any complaints, but didn't say how long ago it was last run. We're already going to lose money on this, so even if they have another print, it's not worth it at this point. Ironically (or annoyingly) this is the film where the rights holder wouldn't let us show the 4k restoration because we only have 2k.
[Mad]

BTW: mono track,bilateral area, slight fading, very little dirt.

Just to be sure, I also tried Reel 6 on both projectors, has the shush sound. The dead leader at the end of the reels has no crackle or shush.

Ran some optical loops. No problem. Ran a reel of cyan track trailers. Nothing. It's gotta be the film.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 04-24-2018, 01:32 PM:

Would it help to slightly de-focus the sound lens?

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 04-24-2018, 01:59 PM:

The sound is bad enough, I think it would just make it worse. I've ordered the bluRay. The show must go on, and all of that.

Posted by Donald Brown (Member # 5427) on 04-24-2018, 05:11 PM:

A number of years ago, I had what may have been a similar issue with several reels of a print. There were bubbles in the emulsion which appeared on screen as if they were snow. What I believe had occurred was that the print absorbed humidity, and the heat at the aperture boiled the moisture and lifted the emulsion as it passed through the gate. Although the lamp was equipped with an IR filter and the head was water cooled, several reels of the print had absorbed an inordinate amount of moisture while threaded off of a 6,000' reel prior to the start of the show. On screen, the result appeared as white dots or small circles in the center of the picture.
To prevent further lifting, I backed the lamp focus off slightly, and the snow effect immediately disappeared, although the print remained laden with moisture until the relative humidity of the atmosphere dropped.
I would be very curious to know if moisture caused your issue as well.
After 35mm print services were transferred from Technicolor to the domain of FotoKem, moisture absorption became a more noticeable problem. One can only assume that this was a byproduct of cost cutting measures associated with processing.

Posted by Paul H. Rayton (Member # 1817) on 04-24-2018, 10:06 PM:

We have also occasionally encountered this problem with prints of "a certain age". For example, we had a print from WB of the 1975 show, "The Man Who Would Be King" back in about 2007 with the same problem. The print stock was dated in the late '90s, which is consistent with the others that have exhibited the same issue. (I have a photo of the troublesome track, but for some reason this computer is being refused permission to load the photo here; will see if I can get someone to do it for me.) In our case, the print was (as was your experience with your show) deemed too noisy to run. BTW: Could you please tell us what show (and print number) it was in which you were experiencing this problem? Might save some of us some troubles down the line if the distrib. "forgets" to retire the print and it gets sent out again. Thanks!

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 04-25-2018, 11:10 AM:

Added it to the Feature Info Forum.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 04-28-2018, 08:57 AM:

Postscript: Turns out the distributor does not allow blu ray presentations of their features. But they did send a new print. That print was in very good condition AND the sound was good. The show went on. What audience there was was entertained.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 04-28-2018, 01:14 PM:

This is how the dots look when projected with the aperture removed. The dots are not on the image area, only the optical soundtrack area and they do get worse with time on these prints.

(Ignore the keystone here, I was taking a photo from the front row looking upward at the screen.)

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 04-28-2018, 07:51 PM:

Yup, that's them.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-29-2018, 09:28 AM:

Processing splatter
that is a silver based track that requires a second processing and the applicator sometimes splatters that area

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 04-29-2018, 09:40 AM:

Whatever it is and I don't know, I've seen prints where it took years to show up, almost like rust popping up on a seemingly perfect chrome bumper. It seems to come from within.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-29-2018, 10:31 AM:

My guess is "processing spatter" like Gordon says but also combined with poor washing.

I see effects like this, occasionally, when I make photo prints in my darkroom and don't wash them long enough to get all the residual chemicals out.

I have a really nice photo of some Civil War reenactors posing for a faux-historical group photo. I had a Civil War historian look the image over to find any historical inaccuracies and he said it was "clean" except for a couple of very minor things. I entered the photo in a local contest and won first place. [Smile]

After that, I put the photo in storage and I didn't look at it for a couple-few years. Last week, I got that photo out to look at it and I noticed brown spots!

Damn! I THOUGHT that I washed the print clean enough!

Turns out that I DID wash the print well enough when I developed it but I also sepia toned the print using a sodium sulfide (rotten egg) process.

Even though I washed the print for over an hour after developing, I only washed it for 30 minutes after toning was completed. I thought that would be enough to get all the residuals out but...I guess not. [Frown]

Since it's supposed to be a faux-historical photo, I guess the spots add to the theme but, dammit! I wanted that photo to last!

Anyhow... The spots on that piece of film Brad showed reminded me of the spots on the photo I made.