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Author Topic: How common are film prints for Hollywood movies? David Ferguson Film Handler Posts: 12 From: United Kingdom Registered: Sep 2018 posted 02-07-2019 06:20 PM                     (I know there's this thread already, but it's gone rather off topic, and seems to relate more to art movies and the like rather than current Hollywood movies) I was browsing ebay recently and was surprised to see a seller offering framed 35mm cells of (very) recent Hollywood movie, in this case How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (which actually hasn't even had it's official US release yet!). From this I was wondering how common it is for distribution companies to make 35mm prints these days, and how many they're likely to make? Have you seen prints recently? (particularly for the Dragons movie, as I'm a big fan of that franchise! so if you have seen a print of it knocking around, you know who to PM ) David  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-07-2019 07:39 PM                     I have seen similar offers on ebay germany and UK - from what is shown there, they are fakes, they simply take a still from the movie found on the internet, and print it to a 35mm dummy. If you have some experience with inspecting real 35mm prints, these fakes can easily be identified, because they don't picture a valid 35mm frame/strip. I recently saw such a frame from 'a Star is born', and the cell was missing digital audio tracks. Also, when you compare cells from different movies, the analog audio tracks all look identical (if there's an audio track at all). Also, 'A star is born' is a scope movie, but that cell was more like a 16:9 crop. There obviously is a business model for these fake 35mm strips. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged David Ferguson Film Handler Posts: 12 From: United Kingdom Registered: Sep 2018 posted 02-08-2019 01:08 AM                     That does make much more sense, as I said I was very surprised to see it. Thanks for that. I'll probably ask the seller to send me a more detailed image, just in case it's real.  |  IP: Logged Tony Bandiera Jr Film God Posts: 3067 From: Moreland Idaho Registered: Apr 2004 posted 02-08-2019 10:18 AM                     David, I wouldn't risk buying anything from that seller for a few reasons: One, buying 35mm cells, if genuine, of a not-yet released film is encouraging illegal activities, such as theft of the print, damage to the print (if using trims from an active print), unlawful sales of copyrighted material. Two, unless the cell has properly spaced sprocket holes, frame lines, and real optical and digital soundtracks, it's a fake. In rare cases, even BUYERS of prints and/or cells obtained illegally have found themselves drawn into the criminal charges (Al Beardsley, anyone?). Third, I would not be making inquires on a public forum asking if a print is "knocking about". Unless you somehow obtain consent from the owning studio to possess a print, it will bring you nothing but trouble. In over 30 years in the business, I have personally only heard of one instance where a studio gave an ok for someone (other than Hollywood hotshots) to possess a print...that someone is me, I have a certain print that the studio gave it's ok for me to have for use as a test print only, with some stipulations. (Only myself and ONE client can view it per run, it can never be shown to others in the location or the public, I have to turn it over to them on request, and I cannot loan it out even if licensing is paid.) Since I have had it for over 20 years it is a safe bet they don't care that I do have it anymore. On the other hand, ebay's system has been corrupted to the point of screwing the seller easily, so you could always buy the cell, and even if it is perfect, claim that it is "not as described" and get your money back, AND end up keeping the cell. Since I feel that selling of cells is not right anyway, maybe if enough buyers did that, it would discourage the practice...  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-08-2019 12:03 PM                        In addition to everything said above--if something like this is actually real, it could have come from a postproduction element, such as a workprint or something like that. These would not have optical soundtracks, but would have latent edge numbers and barcodes along the area outside of the perforations. Not that most films do workprints in 2019, but the big-budget ones probably still do. I suppose that these could be faked by re-photographing publicity stills onto slide film with a half-frame 35mm still camera, but the framelines would not be lined up properly, there would be no soundtrack, and the edge numbers for still film look different from those used on motion-picture film.  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 02-08-2019 01:21 PM                     There used to be a company called Senitype, that produced actual collectibles based on spliced 35mm and 70mm film frames. Their stuff was often packaged with official "deluxe" DVD releases, so at least it seems to be legal. Their sources also seem to be real film prints, not just someone printing stuff on a transparent piece of vinyl with their inkjet. I've got one of those in my "2001 DVD Deluxe edition" release from 2001. I still hope they got the frames from a 'recent' copy though and didn't butcher any existing, still good 70mm copy for this kind of b.s.  |  IP: Logged Steve McAndrew Film Handler Posts: 95 From: North Yorkshire, UK Registered: May 2015 posted 02-09-2019 02:08 AM                     I have links to a company that print 35mm from digital files using Cinevator, but I have to say that the prints don't end up looking like this example... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A-Star-Is-Born-35-mm-Framed-Film-Cell-Display-Sig ned-Bradley-Cooper-Lady-Gaga-2/113553621993?hash=item1a7052c3e9:g:B~AAAOSwy-5btMex:rk:1:pf:0 Also the fact he is selling cells from Game of Thrones, a TV show seems to confirm they are not real! So I am a little puzzled how these cells are actually produced?  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-09-2019 07:56 AM                     As Marcel says, you can actually print them with an inkjet printer. Or, if you want to be honest with it at least to some extent, they can shoot if off a monitor, two frames side-by-side, frames rotated by 90 degree, with a 35mm stills camera on slide film. It would at least be 'real film' that way. Some may even have one of these old slide film recorders. However, with slide film, you would clearly see typical slide/reverse film artifacts and branding around the image. But then, this could be even more convincing to lay people who do not know the difference. Heck, I could imagine to use a scan of a real motion picture strip as a 'frame' in powerpoint (or any other graphics/layout software) and just pop-in arbitrary stills found by Google image search, then shoot them with a camera or print them out on transparent A4 sheets, cut and do a cheap perfo. IF at all these cells actually have a real perforation and not just fake perforation hole markers/lines... They probably all come from the same 'factory' and they developed some sort of effective workflow for it. One could probably try to measure and scale the picture in these ebay offerings and find that the cell is not nearly the size of real 35mm film. When I take a quick shot at this, the cell comes out at around 26mm height and around 59mm width. Assuming that they didn't even fake the product picture to make the cell appear larger, that is complete nonsense. Buyers would certainly prefer a larger cell anyway, so more details are visible. It probably resembles more the size of a 70mm cell. Wondering why they didn't choose to advertise it as 70mm, but maybe these folks don't get that anyway. They probably started with tearing apart real trailers back then, but would be out of business now if they hadn't found other means to continue their business. We had exactly the same discussion on a german forum started by someone who found 'A star is born' framed cells on ebay and asked wether that movie had a 35mm release. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Allan Young Expert Film Handler Posts: 125 From: EGHAM, Surrey UK Registered: Jun 2011 posted 02-09-2019 08:47 AM                     quote: Marcel Birgelen I've got one of those in my "2001 DVD Deluxe edition" release from 2001. I still hope they got the frames from a 'recent' copy though and didn't butcher any existing, still good 70mm copy for this kind of b.s. The Senitypes in that release weren't from an actual print, they were a copy of a single 70mm frame. Every copy of the DVD had an identical frame. On the other hand, the 2005 book The Stanley Kubrick Archives came with a strip of 70mm cut from an original 1968 print owned by Kubrick himself. I'd hope the print was in seriously poor condition to allow that to happen.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-09-2019 08:54 AM                     Yep, I have one of these 2001 boxes as well, and I never believed they had enough iconic 'real' 70mm cells for all those boxes sold... Yes, in theory they could have done a real 70mm photochemical mass duplication of a single frame competitively, I guess. So, not from a real print, but, close. In fact, I'm thinking wether that could be another business case for those few remaining labs, they could make these whenever there is no 'real' job to be done, and it could keep machines, chemicals, staff, etc. on line. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 02-09-2019 09:04 AM                        quote: Allan Young I'd hope the print was in seriously poor condition to allow that to happen. Unless it had been stored in an atmospherically controlled vault (or is Kodachrome or IB, neither of which were ever made in 70mm, AFAIK) from the day it left the lab, any dye coupler color print made in 1968 would be so pink as to be unwatchable, now.  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 02-09-2019 10:16 AM                     quote: Carsten Kurz Yes, in theory they could have done a real 70mm photochemical mass duplication of a single frame competitively, I guess. So, not from a real print, but, close. They were always sketchy about the real origin of the frame, although they present it certainly as the real deal. And I could've known it would be something like that. Chances of a print surviving all the way from 1968 to 2001 without massive discoloration are indeed pretty slim. And if such a print would exist, the one who would slaughter it for such nonsense would deserve a single ticket to hell. Still, the material looks like legit celluloid to me. I'm now somewhat tempted to rip it out there and look if they did do any efforts to replicate the magnetic soundtracks. They also made a lot of those for movies that had a massive amount of 35mm prints still in circulation. I figured they could at least recycle them for this purpose. Then again, those boxes also contain a "blowup" of the frame. And since they were mass-produced, they probably didn't go the length to print those blowups individually for each and every frame.  |  IP: Logged Allan Young Expert Film Handler Posts: 125 From: EGHAM, Surrey UK Registered: Jun 2011 posted 02-10-2019 07:09 AM                     quote: Marcel Birgelen Chances of a print surviving all the way from 1968 to 2001 without massive discoloration are indeed pretty slim. I dunno about that. I saw an original 1968 print around 1998 (the cans were marked "MGM Studio Copy") and the colour was mostly intact. Loads of tramlines and splices though.  |  IP: Logged Jack Theakston Master Film Handler Posts: 411 From: New York, USA Registered: Sep 2007 posted 02-11-2019 03:10 PM                     Fade is all about storage conditions and processing. The prints that are being made today I've heard referred to as "elevator prints" since they're supposed to give the films street creds by having 35mm prints in circulation (since, ya'know, 35mm is always better.) Many of these, like the one done for GOOD TIME, look like garbage.  |  IP: Logged Tyler Purcell Expert Film Handler Posts: 180 From: Van Nuys, CA Registered: Dec 2015 posted 02-15-2019 12:39 AM                        Quite a few of the festival bound movies, do have 35mm prints made. I don't know where they go AFTER the festival's, but there is no way someone online got a hold of them. Also, the ebay ad's are all garbage. Star is Born is anamorphic, that right away is a dead clue. The 2nd clue is no digital audio tracks... everything has been digital audio since the mid 90's. Any new film would simply have dolby digital sound track between the sprockets, if ya don't see that, it's 100% a fake. The last generation of Cinevator does look pretty good. No, it's not as good as an arrilaser, but it's getting there. For a machine that can make an entire print in less then a day, it's really an amazing product. Sadly only 35mm Cinevators exist, so if you see any 70mm prints, they have to be done the old fashion way. Photochemically or several days worth of laserout, at a cost of around 100k.  |  IP: Logged

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