This is topic Yellowstone IMAX in West Yellowstone, MT in forum Large Format Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-10-2004, 06:09 PM:
 
My wife and I visited this IMAX during a visit to Yellowstone Nat'l Park over the weekend and saw the film "Lewis & Clark."

The movie itself was awesome but the first 5 minutes or so was plagued by incredibly annoying short scratches over the whole frame. The whole film also had the occasional dancing speck floating around the screen.

I thought IMAX was supposed to be super-clean and this kind of crap was not supposed to happen. Whatever -- if you go to Yellowstone, see the always-wonderful park but skip the disappointing IMAX.
 

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Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 09-10-2004, 08:17 PM:
 
IMAX quality is, of course, CAPABLE of having an incredible presentation, but when it comes down to it ... it IS film being run by an operator. And that print probably has 5000 passes on it. (No excuse in "Film Done Right," but reality does exist.)

Running PTR's exclusively should have kept the print clean, but I suppose a theatre like that OWNS the print, and so getting replacement reels for what some managers would deem "minor" or "acceptable" scratches might be an expensive endeavor.

But if I'm ever up that way, I'm sure the last thing I would want is to sit in a theatre auditorium when there's all that OUTDOORS to be had!
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-11-2004, 12:03 AM:
 
Brian - we had been in the great outdoors for 3 solid days of walking, hiking, driving and sightseeing and we decided to see the movie on our last day in Yellowstone.

We decided to see it mostly to fill in gaps in our knowledge of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the movie fulfilled that in spades. A very good movie, presentation aside.

(Although the scratches would not be "acceptable" in my book!)
 

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Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 09-11-2004, 05:53 AM:
 
I didn't mean to imply that you didn't make the most of the outdoors. I'd love to take a trip like that, actually! I simply acknowledged your suggestion to avoid the IMAX up there, especially since I've spent most of my film career in the confines of an IMAX booth/auditorium--seeing a film, in my case, would REALLY be the last thing I would want.

The last time I was up in Montana was when I was 4 years old. I'd love to see that part of the country again. How's the weather up there?

Ditto on the scratches.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-11-2004, 01:19 PM:
 
The weather is amazing right now. We managed to have beautiful weather all the way through our trip, and the area didn't have very much of a fire season this year due to a lot of cool weather and rain late in the summer. So it's pretty much ideal.
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 09-12-2004, 07:44 PM:
 
It should be and like everything out there shit happens
the scratchs are unexcusable but the dirt can be an issue
We had a print of yellowstone a few years ago that even after 2300 passes you still sat there and zapped the field flatner every 10 seconds
Occasionally there is a print that just does that
 

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Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 09-12-2004, 08:04 PM:
 
I remember hearing Wings Of Courage had problems like that, and I remember our Everest needed excessive field wiping. And those movies were all SNOW, large areas of white that don't at all hide the specks of debris!

Now, underwater movies were great ... there's so much debris floating around in the foreground of the shot that you never even notice the specks.
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 09-12-2004, 08:16 PM:
 
Our machine has never had a dusting issue except with yellowstone and it had no problem with triathelon either
One thing it doesn't like is RPG photoguarding it dusts like crazy but DKP's doesn't probably because they dont photoguard the perf area
 

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Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 09-12-2004, 10:23 PM:
 
DKP does, too, photoguard the perf area. That was a source of irritation with one of the prints we had at the museum because it started shedding like hell after about 800 passes.

See this thread
 

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Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 09-20-2004, 02:30 PM:
 
DKP - unless they have a new policy which is unlikely - does not coat the perf area. Photogard in the perfs caused a lot of problems when the process first was available then the applicator brushes were modified to not cover the perf area. Occasionally if there was a problem the uncured fluid would flow out to the perfs but generally it doesn't. This is what I saw several years ago when I visited the DKP site: The fluid is applied to the emulsion side with a rotating brush and then the film traveled a few feet (the film advances quite slowly, a few feet per second I would guess) to allow the fluid to flow into a smooth surface before entering the curing unit which was very bright UV lamps in a closed box about 4 feet long. The coating/curing room had a MKII platter to do complete prints and could do single reels as well.
 

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 09-20-2004, 03:35 PM:
 
Here is a link to 3M's film coater for 35mm consumer films:

http://www.3m.com/market/consumer/photogard/products/coatr100.html

quote:

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The 3M Film Coater 100 protects film with Scotchgard™ Film Protector.

The coating station applies a layer of Scotchgard Film Protector, 2.5 microns thick, to both the emulsion and base of the film.

The coating station is constructed with precision-ground, stainless steel rollers. Additionally, the smoothing rollers are wound with fine stainless steel wire that smoothes the Scotchgard Film Protector.

The curing station consists of a state-of-the-art, 400w per inch, focused UV lamp system that is 50% more efficient at curing.

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