Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: How common are film prints for Hollywood movies?

This is topic How common are film prints for Hollywood movies? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=012400

Posted by David Ferguson (Member # 10588) on 02-07-2019, 06:20 PM:

(I know there's this thread already, but it's gone rather off topic, and seems to relate more to art movies and the like rather than current Hollywood movies)

I was browsing ebay recently and was surprised to see a seller offering framed 35mm cells of (very) recent Hollywood movie, in this case How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (which actually hasn't even had it's official US release yet!).

From this I was wondering how common it is for distribution companies to make 35mm prints these days, and how many they're likely to make? Have you seen prints recently? (particularly for the Dragons movie, as I'm a big fan of that franchise! so if you have seen a print of it knocking around, you know who to PM [Wink]

)

David

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 02-07-2019, 07:39 PM:

I have seen similar offers on ebay germany and UK - from what is shown there, they are fakes, they simply take a still from the movie found on the internet, and print it to a 35mm dummy. If you have some experience with inspecting real 35mm prints, these fakes can easily be identified, because they don't picture a valid 35mm frame/strip.

I recently saw such a frame from 'a Star is born', and the cell was missing digital audio tracks. Also, when you compare cells from different movies, the analog audio tracks all look identical (if there's an audio track at all). Also, 'A star is born' is a scope movie, but that cell was more like a 16:9 crop.

There obviously is a business model for these fake 35mm strips.

- Carsten

Posted by David Ferguson (Member # 10588) on 02-08-2019, 01:08 AM:

That does make much more sense, as I said I was very surprised to see it. Thanks for that. I'll probably ask the seller to send me a more detailed image, just in case it's real.

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 02-08-2019, 10:18 AM:

David, I wouldn't risk buying anything from that seller for a few reasons:

One, buying 35mm cells, if genuine, of a not-yet released film is encouraging illegal activities, such as theft of the print, damage to the print (if using trims from an active print), unlawful sales of copyrighted material.

Two, unless the cell has properly spaced sprocket holes, frame lines, and real optical and digital soundtracks, it's a fake.

In rare cases, even BUYERS of prints and/or cells obtained illegally have found themselves drawn into the criminal charges (Al Beardsley, anyone?).

Third, I would not be making inquires on a public forum asking if a print is "knocking about". Unless you somehow obtain consent from the owning studio to possess a print, it will bring you nothing but trouble.

In over 30 years in the business, I have personally only heard of one instance where a studio gave an ok for someone (other than Hollywood hotshots) to possess a print...that someone is me, I have a certain print that the studio gave it's ok for me to have for use as a test print only, with some stipulations. (Only myself and ONE client can view it per run, it can never be shown to others in the location or the public, I have to turn it over to them on request, and I cannot loan it out even if licensing is paid.) Since I have had it for over 20 years it is a safe bet they don't care that I do have it anymore.

On the other hand, ebay's system has been corrupted to the point of screwing the seller easily, so you could always buy the cell, and even if it is perfect, claim that it is "not as described" and get your money back, AND end up keeping the cell.

Since I feel that selling of cells is not right anyway, maybe if enough buyers did that, it would discourage the practice...

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-08-2019, 12:03 PM:

In addition to everything said above--if something like this is actually real, it could have come from a postproduction element, such as a workprint or something like that. These would not have optical soundtracks, but would have latent edge numbers and barcodes along the area outside of the perforations. Not that most films do workprints in 2019, but the big-budget ones probably still do.

I suppose that these could be faked by re-photographing publicity stills onto slide film with a half-frame 35mm still camera, but the framelines would not be lined up properly, there would be no soundtrack, and the edge numbers for still film look different from those used on motion-picture film.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 02-08-2019, 01:21 PM:

There used to be a company called Senitype, that produced actual collectibles based on spliced 35mm and 70mm film frames. Their stuff was often packaged with official "deluxe" DVD releases, so at least it seems to be legal. Their sources also seem to be real film prints, not just someone printing stuff on a transparent piece of vinyl with their inkjet.

I've got one of those in my "2001 DVD Deluxe edition" release from 2001. I still hope they got the frames from a 'recent' copy though and didn't butcher any existing, still good 70mm copy for this kind of b.s.

Posted by Steve McAndrew (Member # 8865) on 02-09-2019, 02:08 AM:

I have links to a company that print 35mm from digital files using Cinevator, but I have to say that the prints don't end up looking like this example...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A-Star-Is-Born-35-mm-Framed-Film-Cell-Display-Sig ned-Bradley-Cooper-Lady-Gaga-2/113553621993?hash=item1a7052c3e9:g:B~AAAOSwy-5btMex:rk:1:pf:0

Also the fact he is selling cells from Game of Thrones, a TV show seems to confirm they are not real!

So I am a little puzzled how these cells are actually produced?

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 02-09-2019, 07:56 AM:

As Marcel says, you can actually print them with an inkjet printer. Or, if you want to be honest with it at least to some extent, they can shoot if off a monitor, two frames side-by-side, frames rotated by 90 degree, with a 35mm stills camera on slide film. It would at least be 'real film' that way. Some may even have one of these old slide film recorders. However, with slide film, you would clearly see typical slide/reverse film artifacts and branding around the image. But then, this could be even more convincing to lay people who do not know the difference.

Heck, I could imagine to use a scan of a real motion picture strip as a 'frame' in powerpoint (or any other graphics/layout software) and just pop-in arbitrary stills found by Google image search, then shoot them with a camera or print them out on transparent A4 sheets, cut and do a cheap perfo. IF at all these cells actually have a real perforation and not just fake perforation hole markers/lines...
They probably all come from the same 'factory' and they developed some sort of effective workflow for it.

One could probably try to measure and scale the picture in these ebay offerings and find that the cell is not nearly the size of real 35mm film. When I take a quick shot at this, the cell comes out at around 26mm height and around 59mm width. Assuming that they didn't even fake the product picture to make the cell appear larger, that is complete nonsense.

Buyers would certainly prefer a larger cell anyway, so more details are visible. It probably resembles more the size of a 70mm cell. Wondering why they didn't choose to advertise it as 70mm, but maybe these folks don't get that anyway.

They probably started with tearing apart real trailers back then, but would be out of business now if they hadn't found other means to continue their business.

We had exactly the same discussion on a german forum started by someone who found 'A star is born' framed cells on ebay and asked wether that movie had a 35mm release.

- Carsten

Posted by Allan Young (Member # 6332) on 02-09-2019, 08:47 AM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
I've got one of those in my "2001 DVD Deluxe edition" release from 2001. I still hope they got the frames from a 'recent' copy though and didn't butcher any existing, still good 70mm copy for this kind of b.s.

The Senitypes in that release weren't from an actual print, they were a copy of a single 70mm frame. Every copy of the DVD had an identical frame.

On the other hand, the 2005 book The Stanley Kubrick Archives came with a strip of 70mm cut from an original 1968 print owned by Kubrick himself. I'd hope the print was in seriously poor condition to allow that to happen.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 02-09-2019, 08:54 AM:

Yep, I have one of these 2001 boxes as well, and I never believed they had enough iconic 'real' 70mm cells for all those boxes sold...

Yes, in theory they could have done a real 70mm photochemical mass duplication of a single frame competitively, I guess. So, not from a real print, but, close.

In fact, I'm thinking wether that could be another business case for those few remaining labs, they could make these whenever there is no 'real' job to be done, and it could keep machines, chemicals, staff, etc. on line.

- Carsten

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-09-2019, 09:04 AM:

quote: Allan Young
I'd hope the print was in seriously poor condition to allow that to happen.

Unless it had been stored in an atmospherically controlled vault (or is Kodachrome or IB, neither of which were ever made in 70mm, AFAIK) from the day it left the lab, any dye coupler color print made in 1968 would be so pink as to be unwatchable, now.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 02-09-2019, 10:16 AM:

quote: Carsten Kurz
Yes, in theory they could have done a real 70mm photochemical mass duplication of a single frame competitively, I guess. So, not from a real print, but, close.

They were always sketchy about the real origin of the frame, although they present it certainly as the real deal.

And I could've known it would be something like that. Chances of a print surviving all the way from 1968 to 2001 without massive discoloration are indeed pretty slim. And if such a print would exist, the one who would slaughter it for such nonsense would deserve a single ticket to hell. [Smile]

Still, the material looks like legit celluloid to me. I'm now somewhat tempted to rip it out there and look if they did do any efforts to replicate the magnetic soundtracks.

They also made a lot of those for movies that had a massive amount of 35mm prints still in circulation. I figured they could at least recycle them for this purpose.

Then again, those boxes also contain a "blowup" of the frame. And since they were mass-produced, they probably didn't go the length to print those blowups individually for each and every frame.

Posted by Allan Young (Member # 6332) on 02-10-2019, 07:09 AM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
Chances of a print surviving all the way from 1968 to 2001 without massive discoloration are indeed pretty slim.

I dunno about that. I saw an original 1968 print around 1998 (the cans were marked "MGM Studio Copy") and the colour was mostly intact. Loads of tramlines and splices though.

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 02-11-2019, 03:10 PM:

Fade is all about storage conditions and processing.

The prints that are being made today I've heard referred to as "elevator prints" since they're supposed to give the films street creds by having 35mm prints in circulation (since, ya'know, 35mm is always better.) Many of these, like the one done for GOOD TIME, look like garbage.

Posted by Tyler Purcell (Member # 9213) on 02-15-2019, 12:39 AM:

Quite a few of the festival bound movies, do have 35mm prints made. I don't know where they go AFTER the festival's, but there is no way someone online got a hold of them.

Also, the ebay ad's are all garbage. Star is Born is anamorphic, that right away is a dead clue. The 2nd clue is no digital audio tracks... everything has been digital audio since the mid 90's. Any new film would simply have dolby digital sound track between the sprockets, if ya don't see that, it's 100% a fake.

The last generation of Cinevator does look pretty good. No, it's not as good as an arrilaser, but it's getting there. For a machine that can make an entire print in less then a day, it's really an amazing product. Sadly only 35mm Cinevators exist, so if you see any 70mm prints, they have to be done the old fashion way. Photochemically or several days worth of laserout, at a cost of around 100k.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 02-19-2019, 07:54 AM:

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
I have personally only heard of one instance where a studio gave an ok for someone (other than Hollywood hotshots) to possess a print

Tony, never say never (or never say only once). With the "unrestored" 70mm release last year of 2001, seems retrospective art houses were allowed to purchase their own prints if they could fork up the big bucks for one. I guess Warner figured the more orders they could place would bring in a better price break-point. They'd get the price break while others paid for a portion of the print run. I don't know how many are in the ownership of the theatres, but I know this was a deal made with some theatres.

Decades ago, Fox evidently sold prints of ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW to what seamed to me, to be some unsavory characters who would 4-wall neighborhood theatres for a midnight show, come in with a bunch of young bouncer-type thugs and take over the theatre and the box office. After the show, leave with the print and a suitcase full of money. I tried to get some information about where the print came from and I got the distinct impression that if I kept up the questions I'd be taken out back of the theatre where nothing good would happen to me.

And as in the case of Roddy McDowell's fight with Fox, where he was able to prove in court that indeed prints do legitimately get into general circulation because as you say, the big wigs -- directors, actors, DCs etc., over the years before digital certainly, legitimately got their own personal prints. And those prints belonged to them. Once that ownership of the physical entity transferred to the big-wig, what he or she did with that print was out of the control of the studio. Private film libraries in estates were sold and bought, prints were given away and in a variety of different ways, could wound up in the hands of individuals. Copyright, as has been held up in court, has nothing to do with the physical medium. If you have a print gotten in any number of legitimate ways as already stated, if you are not copying it or exhibiting it, copyright is not in play.

Out on Long Island years ago, it is common knowledge that the the head a Projectionist local had a library of hundreds of 35mm prints and his own screening room in his basement. He was particularly a fond of 4trk mag prints and it was said he had nearly every feature ever release in magstereo. And this was common knowledge -- studios knew it, local members knew it. It is said that if he got a print that had any damage, scratches or the like, he'd send it right back to National Screen Service and they'd send him a better one and with the studios' approval. And this in one small corner of the country on the East coast; you can imagine it happening even more routinely on in Hollywood.

All this to say that there is no question that prints were not nearly as controlled as the studios wants the world to believe. If they were, there wouldn't be a collectors community exchanging prints regularly.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-20-2019, 05:26 PM:

It's happening with DCPs now, too. I know of one projectionist at an arthouse who is saving a copy of every unencrypted feature that passes through the booth. Once physical distribution media go away, and DCPs are mainly downloaded, then unless a clause is put in the contract stating that they must be deleted from the exhibitor's server immediately after the show (and any distributor who would be motivated to include such a clause would, I guess, also be motivated to encrypt their DCPs), it's possible that copies will end up in private collections entirely legally.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-21-2019, 10:08 AM:

As I understand it, the deal with the 2001 70mm prints is that the theatres do not actually own them. Warners does. It's a multi-year (renewable) rental thing, where the renter puts up the cash to make the print. Warners can still dictate when the prints can be shown and still collects the film rental as if it were a circulating print. On the surface, this doesn't sound like such a good deal for the theatre, but it does guarantee them a quality print (unless/until the theatres damage them) and avoids the need to pay shipping costs for every playdate.

In any case, it's not as if someone can just call up Warners, write a check for $15-20k, and own a 70mm print of 2001. It would be nice if it worked that way, but it doesn't.

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 02-21-2019, 11:16 AM:

quote:
As I understand it, the deal with the 2001 70mm prints is that the theatres do not actually own them. Warners does. It's a multi-year (renewable) rental thing, where the renter puts up the cash to make the print. Warners can still dictate when the prints can be shown and still collects the film rental as if it were a circulating print. On the surface, this doesn't sound like such a good deal for the theatre, but it does guarantee them a quality print (unless/until the theatres damage them) and avoids the need to pay shipping costs for every playdate.

In any case, it's not as if someone can just call up Warners, write a check for $15-20k, and own a 70mm print of 2001. It would be nice if it worked that way, but it doesn't.

Interesting. Since Warner's still owns the print, does that mean they can request it back from the theatre at any time, say to fill a date at another theatre who damaged their print?

That would be akin (on a much larger financial scale) to a studio calling you and asking you to give them YOUR DVD copy of a movie to send to Redbox or another DVD purchaser to replace their damaged or lost copy.

In simpler terms, if I, as a theatre had (or chose) to BUY a print to run it, then I own it, period. Of course, I would have to pay the proper license and splits every time I chose to exhibit it, but back to the physical property aspects of copyright laws, if I actually PAID for the print, it is mine forever.

If the studio wants it back, or wishes in the legal definition to claim they own it (the physical media), then they have to pay me for it.

It would be interesting to see the full actual contract from any theatre that "bought" a 2001 print.

quote: Frank Angel
Tony, never say never (or never say only once).

Frank, I was speaking from the strict aspect of a private party OTHER than studio execs/actors.

In the sense that you, or I, or any other Joe in the industry couldn't simply BUY a print even if we had the money to do so.

In my case, I actually did work for the studio in question, so they knew exactly what I did and who I was, so when it became known that I possessed the print, I got a letter from the studio granting me the ownership for technical testing purposes only, with no rights for exhibition or distribution (even to fellow techs.) I still have that print.

I do agree with the entirety of the rest of your post. In the latter years of 35mm exhibition, it seemed that print accountability went out the window....my guess is that, with the upcoming digital push, the studios preferred to abandon or "lose" prints rather than deal with collecting and storing them.

Not that print security was all that great for many years...when I worked at a certain location, we had a (damaged) 35mm print of "Teen Wolf" that the studio flat out refused to pick up..it ended up in the hands of one of the assistant managers. [Big Grin]

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-21-2019, 01:25 PM:

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
Since Warner's still owns the print, does that mean they can request it back from the theatre at any time, say to fill a date at another theatre who damaged their print?

No idea. I'm willing to bet that the answer is "no." Otherwise, why would anyone pay for a new print that might get shipped to another theatre and destroyed there.

I haven't seen the paperwork behind any of these arrangements, but it's probably something along the lines of a lease, rather than a purchase. Imagine something like "$20k for the first year, $1 each additional year." In such a case, the theatre didn't buy anything, but has exclusive control of the print during the lease term.

As for abandoned prints, I've seen that happen many times. The reasons vary--shipping errors, distributor went out of business or stopped answering calls to pick up a print, etc. I think that pretty much every cinema that has been around for a while has ended up with a few old prints taking up space in a closet or behind the screen. I have also heard of cases where prints were stored in warehouses where the storage company failed to pay the rental fee for the warehouse. Ultimately, the prints would be auctioned off to whomever cared to buy them. Not that this conveys exhibition rights, but the property right would legally transfer.