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Topic: old mag track films

Paul Linfesty
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1383
From: Bakersfield, CA, USA
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 05-16-2002 11:03 PM

In the old days of mag-striped prints, did movies that utilized only screen channels (3-track for 35mm ) have all 4 mag stripes on the film, with the theatre just turning off the amps for the surround track? Or was that 4th mag stripe even put on the film? Or was there a mixed policy? Also, how prevailent were mono mag releases? I know this format was utililzed by Fox (and possibly others) in the early days of SCOPE films.

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Rick Long
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 759
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 05-16-2002 11:27 PM

I beleive the 4th track was put on the film if only to maintain a "balance", so that the third track would ride the head properly.

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 05-17-2002 05:29 AM

I have never seen a mag print that only had three mag tracks, at least not standard prints anyway -- Samual Goldwyn had a few experimental prints of OKLAHOMA! and SOUTH PACIFIC struck on standard sprocket hole stock and thus eliminated the 4th track simply because it wouldn't fit without CinemaScope sprocket holes (or Fox Holes as they were sometimes called). The CinemaScope format was for 4 mag stripes and small sprocket holes no matter if the surround track carried sound or not. In the early days the surround (effects) track was almost always used to carry audio simply because it was the "hook" in the new stereophonic format. Home stereo might have become the audiophiles new toy in the consumer market, but it couldn't provide a surround channel. Theatre sound, in the theatres equipped for mag playback, could.

Do you have any hard evidence that anyone was using mag strips on theatrical release prints before THE ROBE was released? I thought mag was introduced with the first CinemaScope release. I do know that a few isolated mono releases were made for special engagement through the years (weren't a few prints of THE EXORCIST released with a mono mag track?).

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Per Hauberg
Jedi Master Film Handler

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

posted 05-17-2002 06:53 PM

In Denmark, we've had 3 mag-strips on "Jesus Christ Superstar", "Macbeth" and the latest (about 1978) reissue of "Bridge on the River Kwai". -All others, as far as i remember, were normal 4 strips with "1941", "Star Wars", "Close Encounters" and "Fantasia" being the last ones.

/p.

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John Walsh
Film God

Posts: 2490
From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 05-18-2002 04:53 PM

Scott N. sent me a sample of a 3-track 35mm mag film. It was for a 'special venue' film, not a regular release. I really don't know why anyone would do that; there doesn't seem to be any real money savings. The only thing I can think of is someone wanted to keep the image area that would normally be lost to the surround stripe.

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Paul Linfesty
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1383
From: Bakersfield, CA, USA
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 05-19-2002 12:21 AM

Is there image loss from the placement of a surround mag track? I thought the only thing lost was one of the bilateral optical tracks.

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Keith Davidson
Film Handler

Posts: 6
From: Vallejo, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 05-19-2002 02:38 PM

Two prints come to mind;
Day of the Dolphin
Jesus Christ Superstar
Both of these film had only three Mag stripes.

Keith

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 05-21-2002 01:00 AM

Paul is right....the mag track didn't cause any image loss. In fact, it was the optical track, when it was added back to the original CinemaScope spec, which covered a bit of the image. Mag-Only prints (the original Fox spec) had and aspect rato of 2.55/1 since the mag track that replaced the optical track area was smaller than the optical track, it gave more width to the scope image. When they had to return the optical track back so that the cheap theatre owners who wouldn't spring for the mag soundheads could still play CinemaScope titles, the optical track cut into the scope picture area. So Mag-Op prints wound up with an aspect ratio of 2.35/1, slightly smaller than the original scope prints which only carried mag tracks.

I would venture to guess that those three-track prints of OKLAHOMA! and SOUTH PACIFIC on KS large sprocket stock might have been made because by the 1990s when Samuel Goldwyn got the theatrical rights to those two titles, it might have been hard to find processing labs that could still handle Fox sprocket holes (Foxholes we used to call them). Only a guess.

Or maybe it might have been a practical decision that allowed Goldwyn not to have to worry about their mag prints being ruined by a projector that over the years might have had even just a single sprocket drive replaced with KS sprockets instead of Fox sprockets. I was called into a theatre once that had destroyed every other reel of a mag print and they couldn;t understand how it could be, because everyone insisted that both machines were mag equipped. Not this one little sprocket drive, it wasn't.

How anyone could keep running a print while you hear this incredible chatter, like the thing is grinding coffee, is beyond me. But he did -- ran the whole show with that sprocket just punching bigger and better holes as it went.

If I were a small distirb company and couldn't invest in a big print inventory, I sure would think twice about the advantages of having prints that didn't have the potential of being run through a punch machine. Again, it's just a guess.

Frank

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