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Topic: What are these spots?

John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-25-2002 06:35 PM

I've been seeing these colored spots on Deluxe prints on
occasion:

This one is from Behind Enemy Lines reel two. It couldn't possibly be CAP code, could it? What's the deal?

--jhawk

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 02-25-2002 06:51 PM

That certainly looks like "Cap Code done wrong" to me. For some reason the labs like to put the cap code on reel 2 also. It looks like something was out of whack in the coding scriber.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 02-25-2002 09:32 PM

I suspect the CAP Code Printer accidently got knocked out of focus, or a different version of CAP code is being developed.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 585-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 585-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-25-2002 10:31 PM

Hmm. So I should followup with Deluxe, then? We've been seeing it maybe on 10% of our prints, and each time we've seen it has been a DeLuxe print. Does anyone have a recommendation of who to talk to?

--jhawk

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-25-2002 10:33 PM

Oh yes, another detail. This happens very infrequently within a given print. For instance, this was the only frame that had an issue on this print. I wasn't able to see any CAP coding elsewhere on the print, but of course, I'm not 100% sure what to look at.

--jhawk

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 02-26-2002 09:47 AM

Normally, theatres should report problems like this to their distributor contact, or to the film exchange. When details (title, print number, theatre name) are reported here on Film-Tech, I usually call it to the attention of the appropriate lab contact person.

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-26-2002 09:53 AM

Thanks. Over here in non-theatrical land, our "distributor contact," (i.e. booker) is tends to be not-very-technical, and it feels like there's a lot of administrative distance between them and anyone at the Studio or Lab.

Still, I shall give it a shot and see where it lands.

--jhawk

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-26-2002 01:15 PM

Well. Picking up the phone and calling FOX did work a lot better than I expected (that Film Journal contact list is really quite handy). I supplied the above URL and gentleman I spoke with looked at it and seemed quite interested in following up with DeLuxe, so I'll keep film-tech posted on the outcome. While he couldn't give me specifics, given the information about which reel it was from, he was able to say that he thought it was extremely unlikely to be CAP code.

Has no one else noticed these spots on ocassion? Maybe no one on this web site actually watches their prints ;-).

--jhawk

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Greg Anderson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 766
From: Ogden Valley, Utah
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 02-26-2002 02:40 PM

It's been a long time since I saw X-Men in a theatre, but these same kinds of spots showed up (and looked very similar to the example above) in the scene where the senator is being transformed into a mutant. The spots were especially easy to see because the scene had so many bright, white images.

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 03-11-2002 11:58 AM

I followed up with Fox. They say that deluxe does indeed claim that this is a CAP code, though it's clearly misprinted since it's not on the right reel, and it lacks an edgecode number which is supposed to be present.

I'll be sure to followup on future instances of this problem and see if I get similar stories.

--jhawk

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 03-31-2002 11:53 AM

John: Is this a photo or a scan? How'd you capture that image?

------------------
And, hey! Let's be careful out there.

~Manny.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 03-31-2002 02:44 PM

Looks like a scan from one of those 35mm negative scanners to me. You can get almost that good by taking a digital picture through a lens (75mm works good), but there is usually a little bit of distortion that isn't apparent here.

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 04-01-2002 10:45 PM

It was scanned with a Imacon FlexTight film scanner at 1400dpi, downsampled to 720dpi, and then cut to the Film-Tech guideline horizontal resolution of 575 pixels. It's not just a negative scanner, it works fine for positive images, too.

If it had been a 35mm film scanner, you generally would not get the edges of the film, since they need something to grip the film by to scan the image. In this case, there is some distortion since the film was taped to the edge on the left and the right side bent a bit.

--jhawk

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 04-20-2002 09:31 PM

Well, saw some of these today on our print of Ali, on two adjacent reels. When I have some time I'll go and hunt them down and see what I find.

This is also a Deluxe print; how does one tell the difference between a Deluxe Hollywood and Deluxe Toronto print?

--jhawk

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 04-20-2002 09:38 PM

I'll have to take a couple of pictures, but a surefire way to tell a Toronto print is the two squares on either side of the title on the leader.

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