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Topic: EP II ... How's your print look?

Matt Close
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 226
From: Hervey Bay, QLD, Australia
Registered: Sep 2001

posted 05-15-2002 09:21 AM

I'm just running my midnight premiere of EPII right now .... soft, aint it? .... But my reason for posting is 'white specks'.. ?? The print is brand new, but I am seeing erratic white specks popping up all over the place for what looks to be perhaps just a single frame.... ??? Any ideas?

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John Pytlak
Film God

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

posted 05-15-2002 09:44 AM

"White specks" are usually shadow images of dirt buildup on the printing negative. A dirt particle on the negative or raw stock blocks the light in the printer, resulting in a clear shadow of the particle in the processed print. Most printers have on-line film cleaners to remove the loose dirt, but labs occasionally need to "pull" the negative for solvent cleaning on massive print runs.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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Matt Close
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 226
From: Hervey Bay, QLD, Australia
Registered: Sep 2001

posted 05-15-2002 10:04 AM

I guess they pick up all that dirt on the first pass eh? ... Or so I read in Time.

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John Pytlak
Film God

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

posted 05-15-2002 11:00 AM

Some duplicate negatives are used to make well over a thousand prints. Years ago, the maximum number of prints per negative was typically in the hundreds, and the dirt level was higher. Improved film stocks, on-line cleaning, and new printer technology have allowed significant improvements in quality and productivity:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/lab/5242.shtml

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-15-2002 12:16 PM

But aren't all the SW prints supposed to be original-negative prints? (i.e. the digital files were output to several negatives, which were then used for printing, rather than outputting to a single negative and making several intermediate elements from that) Or is that rumor untrue?

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John Pytlak
Film God

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

posted 05-15-2002 12:24 PM

If a laser recorder was used, they would have used the slower (finer grain) intermediate film used for duplicate negatives. Current laser recorders are fairly slow, so most "digital intermediates" are recorded to make one master positive, from which multiple duplicate negatives are made by conventional contact printing. Ted Costas indicated that in this case, they chose to record directly as a duplicate negative, so they had to repeat the slow recording process for each duplicate negative required for the multiple print labs worldwide.

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Adam Wilbert
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 590
From: Bellingham, WA, USA
Registered: Mar 2002

posted 05-15-2002 12:27 PM

My print had the same white specks. There was about a five second period during the scene where Obi Wan was shackled-n-floating (forget the reel number) that was extremely bad. Looked almost like a blizzard had come in.

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John Pytlak
Film God

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

posted 05-15-2002 12:33 PM

Adam Wilbert said: "There was about a five second period during the scene where Obi Wan was shackled-n-floating (forget the reel number) that was extremely bad. Looked almost like a blizzard had come in."

Any chance it was near a "lab splice"? The extra handling of the raw stock ends near a splice can sometimes pick up some dirt particles.

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Bill Langfield
Master Film Handler

Posts: 280
From: Prospect, NSW, Australia
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 05-15-2002 02:02 PM

Matt,
I could not make up any of our prints because, erm well, my Nephew was riding his skateboard the other
day, so I grab it and said 'Watch This', well say no more... I have a stuffed left hip, left knee & sprained right hand.

We got the prints at 4pm for the midnight screening, normally that would not faze me, I knew the 'Daddy Longlegs' prints would arrive late, but I was doing a bio/mgr shift on a Wednesday, when every supplier you can think of rings up or drops
in wanting how many Ice cream tubs / Chips / Candy C-packs / coke BIBs we need. (Even secuitity showed up to change the combo's on the safes. Im amazed the damned auditors didn't turn up - that would complete it!)
Anyway...
At the same time I'm trying to manage the place, run the films, change the trailers, change the ads, send people on their their breaks and taking over for them, conferming programming (read: Fixing programming), and trying to makeup Starwars when they finally arrived, with a stuffed up right hand. We'll there was no way I could wind them onto 6000 ft spools (came tail out, which I LIKE) so I could not play each spool straight to plate so I got a Candy Bar girl come in and wind the rewinder. She was puffed after two reels, and got that normal look from floor staff that says 'you guys are nuts, no wonder I dont want to be a projectionist' So I finished getting reels 1-2-3 of one print ready and gave up.

So started on easier thing on the hand like doing the the ads and trailers until my trainee to arrived.
WASNT HE PISSED that he had to make up of all things STARWARS prints for the big Midnight opening.

So I go home to watch SURVIVER (after helping until 9pm) then show up at Midnight to see how Starwars goes.
All went fine. I was looking for mistakes in the makeup of the prints.
(HEY this funny he (my trainee) was running between platters to see when a join a join was coming up, and start sweating that it might sound track reversed - reel reversed - out of frame) I'm glad he got it all right.

This is COOL. The air-con went off because the damned shopping center turned it off at 12.30am.
It started getting very hot in packed cinema's I so went up to the plant room with the firealarm over-ride key, but it had no effect, so I opened the control panel, and set all the switches that were set at AUTO to MANUAL and the air came back on!!
Heh Heh. Hope they dont read this!
Anyway thats my little story.

However, back to you MATT noticed like you the white specks throughtout all the prints, some sections where very bad others where fine. I kind of forgot about it when there was actually some action, so I'll have too look again.
(the prints were new - clearly)
I was looking for 'filmed on digital' sucks, but could not find any (Though I had a FEW beers before I got there)
The only thing I could pick on was CGI but we know, we can pick on CGI in any movie.

By the way, I ended up seeing most of the movie, and I think it was quite good (Beside the lame attempts at jokes)
you can see links to the to Starwars 'NEW HOPE'
So I really look forward to the next one.

Bill. (Whew - I'll shut up now)

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Jason Black
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1723
From: Myrtle Beach, SC, USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 05-15-2002 02:10 PM

My print looked good, or at least to me. I did notice the erractic brown spots in a few places, but they weren't that distracting. I did, however, notice that nearly ALL the facial scenes looked a little soft. It seems that the imagery looked a little 'fuzzy' throughout the print, except for, of course, the light saber sceens and the clone scenes. I did like the fact that the clones wind up being the Imperial Stormtroopers... I think thats the right term for 'em...
Much better than the first, in my opinion, but the Titanicesque love story could have been left out...

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The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese!

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Per Hauberg
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 883
From: Malling, Denmark
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 05-15-2002 02:37 PM

My print just arrived - 3 hours before start - and not one word on box, cans or discs about es/ex, and i have about 15 minutes from "Gosford Park" ends to make my testrun before those Clones are taking over. -Not much.
Can anyone confirm the 6.1. track being there ?
The white specs are of acuse made by Mr Lucas in person to demonstrate how much better it would have been in digital.

Today, biggest danish newspaper brings an interview with Mr L, who tells the audiences "Your cinema is not good enough for Star Wars", ending up with a journalist tour on the ranch and a DLP screening so bright, so sharp, so whauw, the journalist claims. -Why doesn't the man distribute by internet to peoples computers - Thats where his custumers are anyway...

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Adam Wilbert
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 590
From: Bellingham, WA, USA
Registered: Mar 2002

posted 05-15-2002 03:39 PM

Per said: The white specs are of acuse made by Mr Lucas in person to demonstrate how much better it would have been in digital.

I thought that exact same thing when I saw how much of the backgrounds and sets at the cloning factory were bright blinding white. I can imagine how quickly and obvious scratches and dirt would show on that at most theaters.

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Adam Wilbert
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 590
From: Bellingham, WA, USA
Registered: Mar 2002

posted 05-15-2002 03:43 PM

John, the white specks were nowhere near a lab splice. There was one, a few reels earlier, but it was extremely clean and not discolored at all.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 05-15-2002 04:51 PM

If there are any blinding white scenes (near clear) then that is the perfect opporunity to show off how clean film can be!

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Adam Wilbert
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 590
From: Bellingham, WA, USA
Registered: Mar 2002

posted 05-15-2002 05:41 PM

Joe, I agree. But I think, to some degree, Lucas might be helping his argument along a bit with the projectionistless-multi-plexes. At least starwars came on (at least in my case) brand-new-looking reels and a clean box. Though there were no paper film straps surrounding the reels. Hmm... can you imagine:

Lucas: Look at how bad film looks compared to digital
Shipping Depot lackey: Hurry up, George says to add more dirt to the shipping cans.

-Adam

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