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Author Topic: Film Gaurd Scratched a print? Micheal Turlock Film Handler Posts: 9 From: Banff, Alberta, Canada Registered: Sep 2003 posted 09-25-2003 06:55 PM                    It's happened to me twice now, I have been running Film Gaurd on the first showing of a new movie and on the second show we notice light base side scratches. The first time it happened it was so bad it looked as if the actors were marionettes dancing on screen! My Managers' best guess is that the sound drum has an excess of Film Gaurd on it and small dirt particles may have scratched it there. Has this even happened to anyone before? Do you think the sound drum is where it may have been scratched? I am running off of a Strong Platter system and into Century Projector.  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-25-2003 07:22 PM                     What film cleaner are you running on and what brand of media are you using?  |  IP: Logged Aaron Sisemore Flaming Ribs beat Reeses Peanut Butter Cups any day! Posts: 3061 From: Rockwall TX USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 09-25-2003 07:22 PM                     Unless you are contaminating the media with an abrasive of some kind or running used dry media, you should be getting scratches of any kind from a film cleaner. The problem lies somewhere else in your film path, as you say it has only happened twice (assuming twice in a good number of screenings). If you are seeing any slippage in a Century sound drum, it is likely to be either too little tension, failing sound drum shaft bearings, or a combination of the two. Seeing you are reporting that its not happening every time, I am leaning toward a threading error of some kind. -Aaron  |  IP: Logged Sam Hunter Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 779 From: West Monroe, LA, USA Registered: Jan 2002 posted 09-25-2003 08:19 PM                     How can a liquid scratch anything? Your pads must have something abrasive in them somewhere, or somebody dropped a taco in the bottle while you weren't looking.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 09-25-2003 08:48 PM                     FilmGuard cannot scratch a print. That simply is impossible. The scratch has to be coming from either excessive tension on the cleaner (not possible with a Strong platter), bad media (doubtful), bad bearings in your sound drum that is causing it to freeze up, a defective cleaning machine, or an operator misthread. Can you spin the sounddrum by hand with minimal effort? When you let go, does it continue to spin on it's own for awhile? What kind of media are you using? Strong platters do not have a keeper roller on every roller in the takeup chain. Many times I have walked into a theater running and the film on the takeup path was dragging over a roller's shaft instead of being ON the roller. Are you SURE that the media advanced during the show? Far too often people blame bad media or something else on a scratch, when it is the person who loaded the film cleaner in the first place who did not tighten down the thumbscrews, or properly secure the head of the media to the takeup shaft, or the cleaner is missing (or cannot grab) the takeup cores. Heck, for that matter if your cleaner has ever been dropped and the main flywheel is tight in the least bit, Strong platters do not have enough backtension to force them to spin. The result is the media does not advance and you scratch the print. There are a lot of possibilities here. Give us all the info you can...especially a detailed description of the scratch location, if they move around or jiggle, vertical/horizontal/diagonal, etc.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 09-25-2003 08:57 PM                        I agree. Check your film path for abrasive components that may be scratching the film in the image area. In most cases, it would be something that contacts the full width of the film, like the sound drum or cleaning media laden with abrasive dirt. Are you reusing the media many times, or trying to clean a print that has so much abrasive dirt (construction debris?) that it quickly overloads the cleaning media? Do you have the film "pulling in" to the center of an undercut roller because of excess tension?  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-25-2003 09:37 PM                     I have a tendency to agree with John. Sounds like a media pad had something abrasive on it.... Make sure the scanner drum turns freely without any binding.  |  IP: Logged Micheal Turlock Film Handler Posts: 9 From: Banff, Alberta, Canada Registered: Sep 2003 posted 09-25-2003 09:59 PM                    It was a new pad on a Kelmar Cleaner. I think that it is just the Generic Media (white media on a cardboard tube). I don't think it was the media (the image looked perfect on the first run), it was on the second run that we noticed it. That is why we think it may be abrasives on the sound drum that may have caused it. There are a lot of vertical scratches all across the screen, that stay very steady in the same place throughout the show. In the forums that people were cleaning films by hand during the make up. How do you do that? what kind of cloth would you use?  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-25-2003 10:13 PM                     Make sure your cue detector is threaded properly. Also check your return path to the platter. There may be a jammed roller. I don't know of anything in the Century that will cause a baseline scratch as you described. The only way the sound drum will scratch a film is if it is not rotating or dragging. Give the sound drum a spin....it should take a good while for it to slow down and stop. Compare that test with another machine.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 09-25-2003 10:44 PM                        I don't think the actual cleaning has anything to do with it if you didn't notice it on the first run. It's scratching AFTER the gate.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 09-25-2003 11:56 PM                     quote: In the forums that people were cleaning films by hand during the make up. How do you do that? what kind of cloth would you use? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Bad idea. Cleaning by hand vs using the Kelmar media cleaner is a no brainer. The media cleaner will ALWAYS do a far superior job. Don't even consider this since you have a cleaning machine at your disposal.  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 09-26-2003 02:06 AM                    sounds to me like it could be the sound drum not turning freely as stated in above posts. CHeck the drum for free turn as mentioned above.  |  IP: Logged Micheal Turlock Film Handler Posts: 9 From: Banff, Alberta, Canada Registered: Sep 2003 posted 09-26-2003 03:44 AM                    I checked the sound drums on the two projectors that have had these scratches and the both spin freely for nearly a minute. We did notice that there was lot of Film Gaurd on the sound drum after the show (we were expexting as it says in the instructions) but do you think that dirt and dust may have collected on the film gaurd and as it passes through the sound drum it got scratched? - That was my managers best guess as to what happened, I just wanted to see if anyone else would have a better guess. -Thanks for all the help!  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 09-26-2003 04:14 AM                     Joe wrote: quote: I don't think the actual cleaning has anything to do with it if you didn't notice it on the first run. It's scratching AFTER the gate. Not necessarily, it could be happening above the gate, but just didn't happen on the first run. The entire film path needs to be inspected to find the cause. Even if the cleaning media were contaminated by abrasive dust they would be less likely to scratch the film if used with Film-Guard than if used dry. Contamination of the Film-Guard with abrasive material is possible, but unlikely, unless removed from its original bottle, and stored in an open container, I can't see why anyone would do this. About the only thing which couldn't possibly cause this is the Film-Guard itself.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 09-26-2003 04:17 AM                     What print was this? The sound drum residue problem is a thing of the past. It doesn't affect current release prints, but was noted in the instructions for completeness. Besides, even if you had a huge amount of whatever on your sound drum, so long as the drum is spinning freely it could not have caused your scratches. Find someone at your theater who has a digital camera and get them to take a few screen grabs of the film scratches during a scene where the actors are not moving around much and the scene is brightly lit so we can see what kind of marks you are getting. Just being able to see the marks will help us rule out a majority of possibilities. If your "green bands" on your trailers have the scratches, that is perfect to take a picture of, as the green shows scratches very well. Be sure to include a shot of your used media pads after one of your "scratched" screenings as well. I can identify a lot of things just from seeing the media roll. Just out of curiosity, you do have actual FilmGuard and not the fake CPI product, right?  |  IP: Logged

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