Unusual Platter Design

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Wasn't a video I shot and what I can see of the rest of the booth I don't think it was one of the locations I serviced, I just found it doing a search.

I do remember the name Clark coming up and mention of the projectionist at 'the other circuit' coming up with some improvements. I don't think Clark was the guy I met. There was someone from Christie that came one time to install some updates and I was the local guy sent to drive, assist, and learn. That guy really didn't seem to know anything about them other than what someone had instructed them to do to install this specific thing. I don't even remember what it was. I also don't remember if that was before or after I basically embedded myself in one of the locations and spent several days running and watching them to figure out what sort of things worked and what didn't and what was important and what wasn't. Everyone seemed to have their thing or their way. Some of those things turned out to be real but many didn't.

I forgot about the single bump issue. That was always fun. IF there was someone paying attention you could see it starting to happen before it started causing film damage and show loss. It generally took several shows to go from the balance 3 bumps to the single so its not like it would happen during a single showing.

I was common for me to be walking though the booth to get to what ever else it was I was supposed to be fixing and see that going on. If it was a longer movie and went on long enough the bump would hit the payout plate in the center which stood up on an extension post so the film would be under the plate and touching the post. This meant that when the bump came around the film had to be forcefully yanked outward and dragged over the side of the plate. At some point you would get a splice that would catch or a tangle going on and you got a pretty normal wrap except no easy fix once you get all the damaged film out.

If you noticed it starting to happen you would finish that show and before the next show break the film and take up the next show onto one of the regular decks, hopefully you were not running a split in that screen at the time. This would unload the elf deck so after that show and it was clear you would clean the deck paying close attention to the raised corner sections of the rubber pads that were sort of acted like the ring sections between the bumps. If it was a long run or the place wasn't generally clean those pads and areas would get glazed and they had to be kinda tacky to do their thing. Once it was clean out come the bean bags and you thread it up in loading mode and the next showing loads up and hopefully forms the 3 nice bumps.

If no one caught it or cared and it did wrap part way through the movie it was really fun. You would clean up the wrap part but then instead of just splicing it back together you had to kinda just start shoving the film around to try and reduce the bump enough that it would kinda clear the payout or if you had help just remove the payout completely and become a human payout that didn't have to be in the center of the platter. You needed help because you were kinda stuck there at least till the bump was reduced so someone else had to run the projector AND control the speed of the deck using the MUT. Even if you were able to get the clearance to get the payout back in you still would use the mut since the fingers would be whipping around so much at first you would risk making things worse.

So at that point you are now taking up the last half of the movie on one deck and that show ends. You still have the first half the movie on the elf deck at this point so you break it at the usual spot and now thread what is the start of the next show to the other hopefully empty deck. The bump will be a lot smaller now so it should unload / payout normally you just may what to use the battery trick which was to take like a D, C, or 9V battery and stick it on the payout plate to limit how far the finger can move to keep it from extreme speed changes. You just keep an eye on it and keep moving it in further as you get more film off the platter. Works on regular platters too if they are the the multi speed type.

Once that half of the movie runs through you have a short intermission while you splice on the 2nd half that is on the other deck. Once that show is done you can then do the cleaning and reload process. Its just that easy. You just need a full time person with above average skills so you can eliminate an average person from payroll. Oh ya and the machine cost more to start with. Trailer changes suck. Moves suck. Splits suck. Average length movies suck. Long movies really suck. Presentation probably could be better too. Why didn't these things catch on?

I had to slow down and re-read your post at the bolded part.

In normal operation on the ELF, the payout plate ("Brain") was placed on a machined aluminum spacer that made it NOT engage the variable density filter for payout, as the ELF deck speed was controlled by the rewind arm under the deck.

When paying the film off of the ELF when the cusps were still there, you removed that spacer post, and we used to tape a spacer (the very small lab core) to the plate to prevent the fingers from going over all the way to full speed. Unless the single cusp was all the way to the center (possible with an over 2hr. film) we never had to resort to the MUT speed control method.

Payout using the MUT wasn't too horrible, as you had a fair amount of leeway to adjust speeds especially as the pack got past the halfway point of the film. But try doing as I had to do once when I lost a speed control card on a full platter (two shows loaded on separate decks) where I had to run the TAKEUP with a MUT. It was a constant juggling act to not let the film go slack or too tight (I left it threaded thru the takeup arm, so it acted as a small buffer.) The REAL fun was when I had to do the same trick on one of my Strong Platters (with the variac and microswitch payouts. The variac failed. I had to run two shows with the MUT, using our interlock loop accumulator on takeup (to provide a buffer so as not to drop the failsafes) and the MUT to control the speed of the takeup deck. I simply spun the payout deck by hand. My right arm got a great workout that day!

[Tj Hopland]

In my original edit I did talk more in detail about those payout spacers but decided to take that and a few other bits out to make it slightly shorter. There were a few messes where the 'operator' had the live one in there when trying to run in elf mode. That particular screen had had issues with wear in the deck belt so it would bind or sometimes the 'pizza cutter' would track itself all the way out so at first I thought that was why it was running so erratic.

That one major single bump issue I got sucked into was a long movie and I really don't know how it continued to run as long as it did but the bump was so big it had kinda pushed past the center post and was still growing. I think what killed it is the more it grew along the side of the post the harder it was pressing so it became very difficult for the film to rip itself though there. It was pretty bad and looking at what was left of the print looked like it had somehow been running that way for quite a while.

I'm kinda surprised how many nuggets I keep remembering about those things. I kinda forgot how often I actually did work on em. Everyone else hated em so once I figured them out somehow it seemed like every time one broke I was the only one available to go. I do remember it getting easier when the converted a couple locations to AW3's at least I had parts to work with. Often pretty beat parts but like when things needed re glued on the decks which was often later in their lives I could swap in a spare and then take time to prep and have the glue properly set before having to return them to service.

Speaking of a nugget, I now remember there was an Elf payout that didn't have the round plate below it. For some reason I don't remember all the sites having those like the one with the giant bump issue being one of em. I remember the film getting dragged around that round bottom plate. That site was an earlier one so I wonder if that was a later mod they did? Or it could be they had just broke em all, without that lower plate there isn't as much protection for the arm and rollers when they hit the floor.

I'm also remembering something about a version where the rollers just hung from the arm above? Was that the very late version? Or very early? Maybe it was a thing where the hanging version was still on the shelf in the booth and I could see where they went on the arms but were no longer in used in favor of the post options? Elf mode you hung this arm roller thing then to unload you maybe used a regular payout?

This circuit had em all but there were a few, especially the newest that I didn't get into very often because they had the best staff so took better care of things. Like I sort of remember a little muffin fan on the control panel door blowing on the motor cards? Was that a late model thing?

[Jim Cassedy]

If early film projectors used square reels, why
didn't they just make star shaped platter decks?

Powers6A.jpg

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Not at all unusual. I serviced locations that had Christie endless loops, which by the way won a Technical Oscar, and others that had Potts endless loops. The Christie's were much easier on the film. And you can not under any circumstance attempt to run an oily print on either one. The down side is the film slides on itself as it winds and gets tamped in. So they do place more wear than normal on a print over long runs. Other than some wear and an occasionally oily pint, they weren't any real problem.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Not at all unusual. I serviced locations that had Christie endless loops, which by the way won a Technical Oscar, and others that had Potts endless loops. The Christie's were much easier on the film. And you can not under any circumstance attempt to run an oily print on either one. The down side is the film slides on itself as it winds and gets tamped in. So they do place more wear than normal on a print over long runs. Other than some wear and an occasionally oily pint, they weren't any real problem.

Ahh so film-guard and cleaners was out of the picture because the print needed to be able to move slightly against itself without fighting that oily suction?

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Ahh so film-guard and cleaners was out of the picture because the print needed to be able to move slightly against itself without fighting that oily suction?

Pretty much unfortunately... At your own risk!

[Brad Miller]

Ahh so film-guard and cleaners was out of the picture because the print needed to be able to move slightly against itself without fighting that oily suction?

Fun fact, that's actually not true. The Classic Cinema chain had endless problems (pun intended) with the endless loop platters until they started using FilmGuard on their prints. Due to the concern of the film needing to constantly rub up against itself, I did tell them to go super conservative with it and recommended they run one wet pass every Friday morning and then skip the cleaner for the entire rest of the week. They tried that and found all of their problems vanished, and the presentation was much better as well. They continued on with that very practice until they converted to digital.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Fun fact, that's actually not true. The Classic Cinema chain had endless problems (pun intended) with the endless loop platters until they started using FilmGuard on their prints. Due to the concern of the film needing to constantly rub up against itself, I did tell them to go super conservative with it and recommended they run one wet pass every Friday morning and then skip the cleaner for the entire rest of the week. They tried that and found all of their problems vanished, and the presentation was much better as well. They continued on with that very practice until they converted to digital.

Interesting. I guess mileage varied with wet cleaned prints, depending on application methods. Prints covered in projector oil was probably another topic entirely.

[Tj Hopland]

I don't remember I assume projector oil? being a problem in the Elf sites I took care of but mine were a fairly even split between Century and Christie projectors so even if they were leakers you didn't have the same volume available that you would have had with say a Pro35 or Xl and all but 2 of em were 1st run so prints were at least clean when they came in. I don't recall the 2nd run sites being any worse for problems either but maybe that was just luck?

Was Classic Cinemas Elf's? Or were theirs Potts?

I really don't remember if mine used Film Guard. I'm guessing they would have at least tried it especially at the height of all the static issues. If they were using it it would have been a one time application sort of thing because there would be no one to rewind the pads and I don't remember any location having a cleaner on every screen. Could you even put a bracket on an Elf in the usual location or was that slack adjuster in the way?

[Brad Miller]

They used Christie ELFs. I think they just used a projector bracket for the first show Friday, then pulled the film out of it.

[Tj Hopland]

Interesting so that's at least 3 regional circuits that had em so thats probably hundreds of units that were sold when you factor in there had to be some single site indys or maybe big guys that did one site as a test. I don't remember the exact time line of builds, additions, and closures but I think around here the number was around 50 units and the talk always sounded like the west coast one had more but I don't know that I ever heard an actual count.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Interesting so that's at least 3 regional circuits that had em so thats probably hundreds of units that were sold when you factor in there had to be some single site indys or maybe big guys that did one site as a test. I don't remember the exact time line of builds, additions, and closures but I think around here the number was around 50 units and the talk always sounded like the west coast one had more but I don't know that I ever heard an actual count.

Very true. The circuit I mentioned and the amusement park were West Coast, and there were others in that region that I knew of using the Christe ELFs. Never ran onto the Potts or Kinoton endless loops.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Pretty much unfortunately... At your own risk!

Bollocks. The park and circuit I mentioned ran Film Guard with their ELFS and never had issues, in fact the park had LESS issues when the Film Guard was applied. BUT you had to do it carefully, not oversaturating the cleaner media.

[Lindsay Morris]

In 2024 I was asked to take care of an exhibition of so called ART on 16mm & 35mm film at a city gallery in Perth Western Australia and the biggest bit was a massive built Dresden projector (Russian make) being fed by a continuous single platter which was similar as described in previous posts.

It was a Kinaton or Philips unit and it had 3 x 2000 foot spools of film with sound loaded onto it being projected onto a 6m screen which the gallery viewers could walk around and observe.

It ran for 6 weeks for 8 hours daily and at the end it showed very little image damage and any was bits of film dust produced by the sprockets sticking to the surface which once a week I would stop the machine and clean out any build up and on restarting it lightly apply Film Guard to the entire print as it came out of the projector going to the platter. The FG made the machine run noticeably quieter.

You loaded the beast by threading each reel through the projector and as it exited the machine took the film over to the platter and when enough had come thru to be able to thread it through the platter, stopped the machine, threaded the film thru all the yo-yo rollers and the feed in/feed out controller section on the edge of the platter and taped the end to the platter then set the platter on and started the projector and ran that reel onto the platter and once all film on the platter, stopped the projector & threaded the next reel thru the projector and ran it until enough film had exited to be able to splice onto the tail of the film on the platter.
Switch the platter on and run the projector doing each reel until all were onto the platter.

Then untape the start and thread it through the payout controller in the middle and across through the feed in/feed out controller on the edge with the film going around one sprocket on both sides going IN and coming OUT of the platter back thru some more yo-yo rollers and up and into the projector, thru that and then joined onto the tail of the last reel.
Took a while but was easy enough.

Then when the exhibition ended you ran the projector and the platter and as the START went through the projector you stopped it as the start exited the projector, un-picked the splice and then fitted a takeup reel to the machine and ran the set up again until the next splice came thru, stopped and unpicked that splice and proceeded to take up the second reel onto a spool and so on.

It only got messy when there were any other splices in the program as you had to edge mark them for easy ID at break down time.

I took some iPhone movies of the thing in operation but not sure as to whether I can post it here into this post so people can see the setup running.

I would go in for an hour or so each week to clean and check all 3 machines involved and apply some lube here and there on the 35mm Dresden, another 35mm Philips machine which had another strange accumulator continuously running 4 minute show and a 16mm Eiki machine with another very strange setup showing a long loop of 16mm film over and over again and on te 16mm unit replacing the lamp with a new one each week.

It paid quite well and the looks on the faces of viewers was most interesting

Any suggestions as to how I can post the short video clip??

[Ryan Gallagher]

Any suggestions as to how I can post the short video clip??

You can put it in a publicly shared Google Drive or Dropbox folder (anyone with the link) and link here. But if you want it embedded you have to put it on YouTube. You can publish them as unlisted and not monetized so only folks from here find it if you wish.