Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Contact Needed to Rent 35mm Films

This is topic Contact Needed to Rent 35mm Films in forum Ground Level 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=5;t=000751

Posted by Joshua Lott (Member # 240) on 03-05-2003, 01:36 PM:

I am curious as to who I need to contact to see what the cost is to rent the following films:

Romeo and Juliet, (1968), directed by Franco Zeffirelli
Much Ado about Nothing, (1993), directed by Kenneth Branagh
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, (1996), starring Leonardo Di Caprio
Twelfth Night, (1996), starring Helena Bonham Carter
Shakespeare in Love, (1998), starring Gwyneth Paltrow

Should I contact the studios directly? I have already contacted Swank to see what they have. Thanks in advance for you advice.

Posted by Robert E. Allen (Member # 1351) on 03-05-2003, 03:11 PM:

It has been reported to me that Swank offers lousy prints. Try Criterion (800 890-9494). I've heard they watch their prints closely. There's also Modern Sound Pictures (800 228-9584). Modern may be 16mm only. Good luck.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 03-05-2003, 04:55 PM:

It's not as if you get a choice. For a given classification (theatrical, non-theatrical) there is one distributor for each title.

Do a search for Swank in these forums if you want to know about their quality, but in a nutshell, for 35mm, they don't keep their own prints and the quality of prints you book through them is about the same as anybody else.

--jhawk

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-06-2003, 08:20 AM:

What jhawk said. Swank has _some_ prints (which are shipped from TES with green labels and an inflated shipping charge), but mostly their 35mm prints come from the regular depots and from the same pool as the prints used for commercial/theatrical exhibition. As one might expect, quality is all over the map. It is not obvious to me why Swank has its own inventories of some prints and not others.

I haven't dealt much with 35mm from Criterion, although the prints that I have gotten from them are Criterion prints, not regular prints. I haven't seen enough to generalize about print quality.

There are also many smaller distributors who have their own print libraries (e.g. New Yorker Films) of variable quality.

I've run quite a bit of 16mm from Swank, Criterion, and New Yorker Films; they all seem to have pretty good prints in general, though Swank seems to be the best.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 03-06-2003, 01:02 PM:

Does Swank offer 16mm in DTS? What sound format is commonly used for swank 16mm prints?

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-06-2003, 01:54 PM:

Swank's 16mm prints are regular optical mono. I've never heard of any 16mm rental prints being available with magnetic sound, though mag prints occasionally show up at festivals (particularly from Germany, which seems to be the only place where one can still get 16mm prints striped.

The only time I've run into 16mm DTS (with sountrack on CD-R) was at a festival where we couldn't play it. We ended up showing the film on Beta SP video in glorious mono.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 03-06-2003, 02:00 PM:

When I was at Warner in the mid 80's, I saw a few mag 16mm prints
. That were used for the 16mm rental.

Posted by Bill Carter (Member # 156) on 03-07-2003, 08:36 PM:

Criterion often strikes their own prints of the titles they handle, rather than inheriting the old depot prints that went out for general release. Their quality can still be all over the map, however. They have only ONE print each of at least a few titles (example: The Girl Can't Help It), and will tell you when it becomes unplayable they simply plan to withdraw the title from distribution.

Criterion also inherited some of Films Inc.'s prints, mainly of classic Fox titles, like Hollywood Cavalcade (which still had the Films Inc. logo spliced on). Some are good, some not so much.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-08-2003, 06:51 PM:

does crieterian handle the first 2 Terminator films?