Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Fox and His Friends (Faustrecht der freiheit, 1975)

This is topic Fox and His Friends (Faustrecht der freiheit, 1975) in forum Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-30-2015, 01:33 PM:

While this is an obscure arthouse movie that is unlikely to get many showings, I came across a weird print defect on Thursday that I thought is worth posting about, so that if another projectionist gets the same print and heads for Google, the following info might be found and prove useful.

First, basic print info

Distributor = Janus
Print no. = 2
Master barcode ID = 0812544
6 reels
Kodak 2383 stock dated 2002, hi-magenta track (mono, VA, RCA duplex)
Aspect ratio is 1.66, but see below

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Handwritten labels on the head spacing said 1.66, with others stuck over it saying 1.37. I ran a reel in both during the afternoon before the show. This movie is clearly not supposed to be shown in 1.37, because a boom mike is visible in one shot in reel 2 when played that way.

But 1.66 doesn't look quite right either ‐ heads appear cropped in some shots. IMDB says that it should be 1.66, so for that reason and the boom mikes visible within the 1.37 frame, 1.66 was how I showed it.

I think the problem is that the subtitles are printed too low on the frame (i.e. they're printed in the correct place for a 1.37 show, not 1 .66 one), thereby forcing me to rack the picture too far up to avoid cropping the subtitles at the bottom. It is possible to rack the picture so that the shots look perfectly framed, but in that position the subtitles bleed off the bottom. But if the frame is positioned so that the subtitles look right (i.e. the bottom of the characters about 2 feet from the bottom of the screen), heads are cropped at the top. So are the lab changeover cues, which leads me to suspect that the lab which made this print saw the Academy hard matte on the dupe neg, thought that the show was intended for projection in 1.37, and positioned the subtitles and changeover cues accordingly.

Your two options if you get this print are either to go with 1.37 and live with boom mikes in at least one reel, or 1.66 with the frame positioned so that the subtitles are right on the bottom of the image.