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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 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

1. Technicolor ads are spliced together and run for generally 4 weeks.

2. NCN are piece parts. You have to solice together the intro, countdown clock, then the ads in the correct order. Then in a couple of weeks, you will have ad changes. Either remove one, replace one with another, add one all together. Oh, and they request them to be in a certain order. And again, this happens almost every two weeks.

3. NCN would trust that we were playing the trailers although we had a slide person checking up on us anyway.

4. Technicolor REQUIRES that we fill out an affadavit that gives them information such as screen #, print name, rating and whether the ad played or not.

5. Technicolor does tell us if an add is rating restricted. Like, DON'T PLAY ON A G or PG feature.

Anyway, I feel that NCN was more of pain because of the constant change out and order sequencing.

The Bud adverts really wind me up, the reason being nothing to do with Anglo-American relations: our company policy is that all alcohol commercials must be removed from any supporting programme for a U, PG or 12 certificate feature. The companies which supply the adverts make sure that the booze ads are never placed one after the other, thus making it a real chore to pull them out. On a long reel, it can take almost as long to get the booze ads out as it does to make up a feature.

I'm just as pissed off at the Boddington's ads (a brewery in Manchester) as the Bud ones, so please be assured that there's no racism going on!

BTW, one of the most popular commercials we've had (so popular that customers have actually requested that we re-show it) is for Miller beer. It shows someone walking in a Scottish glen, with a dead fox on his head. He faces the camera and says "When I told my folks I was going on vacation to Auchtermuchty [a tiny village in Fife, Scotland], they said - 'wear the fox hat'." Miller logo appears, then fade to black. The pronunciation difference between British and American English is designed to suggest "f--k's that?" in place of "fox hat".

I've always wondered about this aspect of production. For example, there might be a tourism commercial. It will feature beautifully photographed aerial-view landscapes, shot with a Wescam mount in 35MM to get the 'film look'. Absolutely no expense spared. Then the ad is post-produced on video and then transferred back to film! The 'film look' is somewhat retained but vastly compromised due to the intermediate video stage. When I ask most people why this was done, they usually answer, 'in order to save money'. Surely the cost of the helicopter, Wescam, pilot, DP, camera equipment, director, etc. must have cost a fair amount, so this argument doesn't seem logical to me, yet why would someone go to all that trouble then not go the extra mile to get it to look incredible instead of OK? It doesn't make sense...