We received our print of 'Bless The Child' from Buena Vista on Monday night. My colleague opened up the box, saw the crushed edges of reel six from a crappy rewind ex USA and rejected the print.

Our 'replacement' print was made up by another colleague. He said it wasn't much better than the first. Dirty, splices, scratches etc.

We have had a few BV prints lately that have been Photoguarded (or whatever the 'scratch removal' treatment is over there). We have no choice...if one print brought in has photoguard on it, they all do. All this stuff seems to do is lock in the dirt so that neither the media nor PTR's can get at it. Fortunately, this one wasn't treated. With this print, the PTR's would have been useless (well, entirely useless) after three minutes anyway, there was so much crap on the print.

So I ran it through the cleaner before the show on Thursday morning. It looked pretty crappy on screen even with the obvious FG streaks doing their job. At the end of the run, the machine looked like someone had thrown a bottle of powdered dirt over it.

The print then ran 5 more shows yesterday all through the media cleaner. On the first run this morning it looked as though overnight someone had taken away the old print and replaced it with a new one.

This print is now great, considering its faults noted on the make up report. It still has its splices, but there are hardly any scratches and there is next to zero dirt. (But my nice new, blue Film-Tech media is now an ikky browny/grey colour )

I would hazard a guess that all prints of this film brought into the country were of this caliber...I would also hazard a guess that my print now looks and runs better than any of them. So, here's a message to that one person in Australia who would actually, voluntarily come and see this movie. Come see it at our cinema...the movie may be crap, but at least it's now clean crap.

If you doubt Filmguard's effectiveness, don't. Just get your boss to buy you some.

We had the same situation down here in Melboure with our print of Bless the Child - poorly wound with damaged edges, scratches and splices the whole way through.

We also got a replacement print in that after inspecting decided to run with the original copy.

We don't have Filmguard and I don't think it would help the green emulsion scratches throughout the print. It may help with the dirt and dust.

I did a tech-screening of the film and inspite of the poor print quality, the film aint that bad - I've sat through worse.

I have not heard of a good print yet!

The crap projectionists are not on this forum.

At least mine looks fine now...you guys gotta try this stuff.

Hi David

With the complaints BVI will be getting about this one, I doubt they'll be re-using that new supplier.

Whenever you're next in Sydney, drop by and we'll have that beer.

And people wonder why I get a little irritated when there are non-operators in my booth...

~Purple-Tressed Booth B*tch

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At least mine looks fine now...you guys gotta try this stuff.

Hey John, ya meant to be puttin it on the film, not drinkin the stuff!!!

What would help our copy of the film is an axe. Or a chainsaw, some form of explosives, an acid bath or an industrial shredder. At least then it can never be sent to another poor unfortunate soul who must endure the same customer respone the we shall. Hey John, can we have your print when your done with it?

Gracia, for your brain wraps, try getting some Johnstons Paste Wax. Apply a small amount to the top of the print with a wrag. Next session run the soundtrack the other way up and then apply another layer of wax to the other side. I think Kodak recomended this down here in Melbourne to help reduce film wraps.

My Doctor recomended Valium for stressed out trainee projectionists on their first shift.

Frank

Stephen

Frank - um, thanks for the suggestion, but I don't believe in putting foreign substances, like wax or shoe polish, on film.
In fact, I will not use anything other than clear splicing tape when I make up the films each week.

(Things have been going so well that I can't even remember when the last time I had to fix a film that had brain-wrapped!)

~The Purple-Tresses Booth B*tch

quote:

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I don't believe in putting foreign substances, like wax or shoe polish, on film.
In fact, I will not use anything other than clear splicing tape when I make up the films each week.

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Chill, it's from Kodak, the baby's daddy...

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William Hooper
Junk dra

You should give Frank a little bit of credit, eh?

Kodak has consistently recommended proper print lubrication (i.e., edgewaxing) by the labs, but many labs have dropped the practice due to environmental restrictions on the solvents used:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/processing/h242/h2402_04.shtml#164364

The new Kodak VISION Color Print Films have lubricants on both sides of the film, to reduce projector abrasion and improve transport. But additional post-process lubrication does help further reduce abrasion and dusting, and may be needed with projectors that are more prone to abrade film.

"Rejuvenated" prints may be more prone to dusting or flaking, especially if they have not been relubricated, or have the scratch-hiding coatings applied to the edges or perforation area of the print where the projector gate and shoe abrades the film. Any dirt on the film can be "sealed in" by these coatings.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com

I think that the problems you guys have overseas is that theatres here ship out the worst print first. Therefore you get the crappy prints.