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Author Topic: Multiple Reference Frames (or, What's up with the "acordian" leaders?) Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 04-11-2012 04:16 PM                     Ever get one of those prints that has six or seven "reference frames" that have all been individually removed and then re-spliced onto the print? What's up with this!? C'mon now... If you really feel the NEED to take a reference frame completely out of the print (for whatever reason) then why keep taking a whole new one? Why not take the same one that the previous BUTCHER(S) took out and put back in? And, please...if you're gonna splice it back in... ...put it back so it matches the other frames, and not upside-down... or flopped... ...use clear tape -- why would you think the frame is worth saving if you don't think it's worth showing? I mean... REALLY!  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-11-2012 06:44 PM                        This probably belongs in Hey, You Suck, but yeah, a zillion splices as if everyone who ever handled it had to leave his mark. At least in the days of cement splices they'd just take out the whole damn frame.  |  IP: Logged Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 04-11-2012 10:00 PM                     I'm not outing a particular film handler, and I'm not simply venting. I really hope someone can clue me us all in as to how this kind of thing happens. I don't check the "you suck" thread with any regularity, and I would guess a lot of folks (who may have some insight) may disregard that thread 100%.  |  IP: Logged Kurt Zupin Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 989 From: Maricopa, Arizona Registered: Oct 2004 posted 04-11-2012 10:49 PM                     I remember 5 years ago we had a print of Star Wars for our grand opening of a new location. Every head and tale had about 15-20 reference cuts made, all types of splicing tape used. As one of the techs that was there said, it's like the rings on a tree. You can get a sense of the life of this print. It's a dumb practice that you really don't have to worry about anymore. Yes, some of us will still see this and have to deal with it, but to most it's a thing of the past.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 04-11-2012 11:42 PM                     What's a "reference frame"? You mean the piece of paper they stick in the hard drive case?  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 04-11-2012 11:45 PM                        Uh oh, I don't want to say who you're starting to sound like there.  |  IP: Logged Lindsay Morris Expert Film Handler Posts: 233 From: Darlington, WA, Australia Registered: Sep 2002 posted 04-12-2012 02:23 AM                     Its not cos people like cutting out and putting back frames it is simply cos the various idiot booth monkeys are toooooo lazy to peel apart the previous splice where the head and or tail was put back on after plattering. Cant be bothered so simply whack it in the splicer and CHOMP at the next bit of free film and often as not.... not even the next clean frame up the reel but a couple at a go. So the film gets butchered bit by bit which is totally unacceptable! I was once standing alongside a fellow operator who did that right before my eyes and when I objected his reply was "takes toooo f---g long to peel apart" Oh come on...it takes about a few seconds extra..made no difference with that guy. Those accordion splices unless totally removed in a changeover site play absolute havoc in many machines as they tend to lay over as they go through the gate and then the film snaps right at the point the leader hits the machine. Most disconcerting to any newbie as absolute panic sets in as I experienced last year at an old country DI that I was training some vollies to run the plant there. One guy when he was making up the film (IE making sure that both sides of the leaders and tails splices were done BOTH sides) missed 2 lots of accordion splices and he copped one film snap as the leader went in and then another vollie copped the other...film everywhere, major panic and I am darn sure they will NOT miss any others in future....was a great demo of what NOT to do. ANY film that comes through my place goes back MINUS any accordion splices and the heads and tails NOT spliced on but each end cleanly peeled apart and the head and tail neatly tucked into the first/last layer and the whole light firmly taped down, packed in the boxes and sent back like that. The next guy gets a reel with NO head or tail splice and nice clean ends on which to build his program..IF it is changeover site he then has to tape BOTH sides but at least he does not have multiple floppy bits of film trying to go through a machine right on start up, ripping apart and then totally disrupting the presentation...which is everything.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 04-12-2012 09:19 AM                     An angle you may not be considering... Sending back a reel of film without the leaders being spliced back on is damaging to the beginning and end of each reel. When the next guy starts to unreel the leader, typically when there is no splice the first couple of feet fall off and hit the floor. Damage ensues. Then at the end of the reel if for any reason the operator isn't winding slow enough to account for no tail leader, the end of the film slaps around. More damage. I understand your reasoning, but bad film handlers are bad film handlers. There is only so much you can do to prevent one of them from messing up a print. I still say a single sided splice made with good splicing tape is the only way to go. Any accordian frames should be discarded as well, because if they were ran through a projector it would look and sound like a disaster, assuming it makes it through the projector in the first place. The biggest problem is almost every type of splicing tape out there is absolute crap.  |  IP: Logged Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 04-12-2012 08:00 PM                     Kurt -- rings on a tree -- that's exactly what it's like! Lindsay -- I'd say you've probably identified how this ends up happening most of the time -- but some people are clearly removing them and then re-inserting them -- because they end up wrong-way-round or out-of-sequence quite often. It really is a pleasure to get an old print that doesn't show its age.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-12-2012 08:09 PM                        I used to do the peel-and-splice routine, but half the time the problem would be that the ends wouldn't butt properly. So I had to cut a frame off of one end or the other to make a good splice. I think this was probably caused by the previous guy just cutting the splice with his splicer rather than unpeeling or ripping it. I finally gave up and just cut at a new spot by default. But, we were usually the first or second place to use a print so most times I could get by with just cutting a frame at the tail end of the outgoing reel. And I always removed and discarded any "extra" cut-off frames that were still on the print.  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-12-2012 08:53 PM                        The additional horror back in the days of 20min changeovers was the creeping cue marks. As the frames got cut away they eventually consumed the cue marks, so all sorts of new ones started being added and creeping up the film. You can imagine how that looked. I'm guessing not many of those prints exist anymore, but it used to be quite common.  |  IP: Logged Jock Blakley Expert Film Handler Posts: 218 From: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Registered: Oct 2011 posted 04-12-2012 09:30 PM                     Oh, we still have our fair share of ex-distributor prints from the '70s and '80s that are brilliant in that regard - a huge succession of scratched, punched, inked, and painted cues dancing all over the side of the picture. They look great on screen. They're also really handy if you're actually trying to use them to make a changeover.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 04-13-2012 12:53 PM                        quote: Jock Blakely They're also really handy if you're actually trying to use them to make a changeover. I suspect that's one of the reasons why blizzards of multiple cue dots end up on these prints. Once a critical mass of them is there to be confusing enough, projectionists start adding their own simply because they know they can recognise them. When I got prints like that, I tended to use click strips (two layers of splicing tape on either side of the film, listen for the click as it goes through the projector and use that as the cue) rather than visual cues to time the changeovers. I would of course remove the strips before returning the print. The only exception were really bad prints that had lots of pre-existing splices in the first and last 50 feet of a reel to start with, which would make it difficult to know which click was the right one.  |  IP: Logged Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 04-14-2012 12:20 PM                     Oh my! "The case of the creeping cues." I love it! (I refer to them as "cues on parade" or "cues gone wild!") These prints are VERY much still in circulation. I use the red china marker. We've discussed (argued?) this issue before but -- the short story is -- I often get prints from archives where they specify that the cues must be removable. So I treat 'em all like archival prints because I know that I'm a creature of habit. I don't own a cue cutter. And I don't like the idea of "click strips" because the tail end is so often damaged. "Was that my cue, or was that just a splice?" White screen. My vote is for consistency. I don't want to be listening for cues on one print and looking for them on another. And I certainly don't want to mix-n-match from one reel to the next within the same print. One day, I'll post pictures of how I make tidy cue marks that don't have the "animated look." We do what we can.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 04-14-2012 12:35 PM                     This is where automated changeovers can become VERY useful. If you look at the way I setup my current screening room, there is a "delay bracket" of rollers. At the beginning of it is the cue detector. I simply place a cue on the tail leader on the first frame I don't want to show on screen. From there I am not handling the ends of the reels at all. No additional cues, no temporary marks (which adds more abuse to the reel through the removal process), etc. The cue is also tremendously easy to take off without ever handling the frames with content on them after the run, or it can be left on because it is just the tail leader at that point. It also makes it ridiculously easy to find the starting frame, as it is able to be placed in the path after it has left the reel. The result is frame accurate changeovers without handling the content frames of the reel.  |  IP: Logged

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