Seeking parts list for Speco LP-270 MUT

[Dana St. Amand]

Hey Y'all,

I'm helping a small theater get their 35mm system back up and running, but they're missing their MUT for their Speco LP-270 platter. They haven't been able to find one for sale so I'm helping rebuild one from the ground up. I'm armed with the schematics from the original manual, but they're not as detailed as I would like. Does anyone have either the original parts list PDF that I saw linked on the Speco website (Wayback Machine) or could anyone help me out by looking at their MUT and taking down the parts numbers? The big ones I need are the motor, variable transformer, and gearbox if that's not a custom Speco part.

[Ryan Gallagher]

The obvious question to ask is what is their intended use of a restored 35mm capacity (what type of bookings)? If they want to do anything other than exclusively brand new release prints, the platter project is not worth the effort in my mind. Pretty much any back-catalog print you can book is going to prohibit you from building it up and breaking it down for platter.

And first run release prints (of which there are a tiny smattering) can be specified in standard 15" and 24" changeover reels.

[Dana St. Amand]

Full disclosure, I'm not a projectionist. I'm just someone who makes things. Forgive me if I get something wrong here and for transparency's sake, it's in my favor if the MUT rebuild goes forward.

That being said, the theater is a small single-screen theater that primarily shows older films. It's not near any major metropolitan area if that changes how reels get shipped. If they wanted to forgo the platter system, what would you suggest for sending the film through the projector? Wouldn't there still need to be a beefy system for the reels to spin on? It's a Simplex X-L if that changes your answer at all.

As far as the MUT is concerned, I know from the schematics how things are put together and I can build out a new table pretty quickly if I can find the part specifics.

[Frank Cox]

There are two main transport mechanisms for showing movies using a film projector.

The first (original and oldest) method is reel to reel. You mount a payout reel above the projector and a takeup reel below the projector, and the film winds from the top reel to the bottom as the movie plays. You can have a second (changeover) projector beside the first one and then you set up the second reel of the movie on the second projector and have it ready to start as soon as the first reel hits the end. There's a bit of an art to doing this in a way that's invisible to the audience.

The other method is with a platter system where you splice all of the reels together end-to-end on the platter table so you have what amounts to one big reel of movie sitting horizontally on the table, and then run the whole movie through a single projector from start to finish without stopping. This is what the Speco platter you're looking at is for.

For platter systems you have to build up and tear down the film, cutting the leaders off and splicing the reels together and then undoing your splices and winding the film back onto the shipping reels after your presentation is over.

For reel to reel systems you can (usually) just run the movie as-is -- pull the reels out of the cans, rewind them if needed and then thread up and start playing the movie.

Google will show you many pictures of projectors using both of these transport methods.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Full disclosure, I'm not a projectionist. I'm just someone who makes things. Forgive me if I get something wrong here and for transparency's sake, it's in my favor if the MUT rebuild goes forward.

That being said, the theater is a small single-screen theater that primarily shows older films. It's not near any major metropolitan area if that changes how reels get shipped. If they wanted to forgo the platter system, what would you suggest for sending the film through the projector? Wouldn't there still need to be a beefy system for the reels to spin on? It's a Simplex X-L if that changes your answer at all.

As far as the MUT is concerned, I know from the schematics how things are put together and I can build out a new table pretty quickly if I can find the part specifics.

If their booth has space, there is no "harm" in continuing to revive their platter system and having it be available in tandem with a two projector reel-to-reel option. But the current reality of back-catalog prints is that the distributors or archives will REQUIRE reel-to-reel two projector change over systems. If there is only one projector at that venue they have bigger obstacles than restoring the platter drive.

If they were aiming for exclusively first run 35mm, priorities might be different relative to the platter. Or if they had access to a large personal collection of prints with permissions to platter them. They might also aim for owning a print or two that they can do whatever with and show them annually on 35mm via the platter. Rights purchase are still required but at least there would be no restrictions on the projection methods. But to be serious about showing existing prints these days you at minimum need the two projectors and associated accessories for change-over operation.

[Dana St. Amand]

Ah, there's the rub. It's such a small both they have the theater's original 35mm projector and platter system minus MUT and where a second projector for reel-to-reel could go they have their digital projector, and they're not about to stop showing DCPs.

How do you mean they "require" reel-to-reel? couldn't any reel be transferred to the platter, spliced or not, assuming you had room to spin it?

[Dana St. Amand]

There are two main transport mechanisms for showing movies using a film projector.

The first (original and oldest) method is reel to reel. You mount a payout reel above the projector and a takeup reel below the projector, and the film winds from the top reel to the bottom as the movie plays. You can have a second (changeover) projector beside the first one and then you set up the second reel of the movie on the second projector and have it ready to start as soon as the first reel hits the end. There's a bit of an art to doing this in a way that's invisible to the audience.

The other method is with a platter system where you splice all of the reels together end-to-end on the platter table so you have what amounts to one big reel of movie sitting horizontally on the table, and then run the whole movie through a single projector from start to finish without stopping. This is what the Speco platter you're looking at is for.

For platter systems you have to build up and tear down the film, cutting the leaders off and splicing the reels together and then undoing your splices and winding the film back onto the shipping reels after your presentation is over.

For reel to reel systems you can (usually) just run the movie as-is -- pull the reels out of the cans, rewind them if needed and then thread up and start playing the movie.

Google will show you many pictures of projectors using both of these transport methods.

Sorry, I forgot to add the context in my original reply of this theater only having one projector and speculating about a non-platter single projector solution. I have at least done my research enough to have seen these two methods!

[Ryan Gallagher]

Ah, there's the rub. It's such a small both they have the theater's original 35mm projector and platter system minus MUT and where a second projector for reel-to-reel could go they have their digital projector, and they're not about to stop showing DCPs.

How do you mean they "require" reel-to-reel? couldn't any reel be transferred to the platter, spliced or not, assuming you had room to spin it?

Physically yes. But it has to do with the permissions the source of the print gives you. Platters are known to cause more damage to prints over time, as is the extra handling of building them up and breaking them down, among other reasons, as such most sources of 35mm prints these days explicitly forbid the modifications you would require to platter a film that is shipped on reels or cores.

Plattering a film when you were instructed not to is a great way to never be allowed to book a print from that source again, and it's a small industry these days, might get blacklisted across multiple distributors until they change their systems and get assurances about print handling and exhibition practices.

Maybe there is a chance they put their 2nd projector into storage? But yeah a bit of booth re-design would perhaps be in order. Getting rid of the platter saves a ton of space, but it if wasn't located on the front wall where an additional porthole can be added, then doesn't really gain the needed projector space.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I should add there are other "valid" reasons to revive a single projector and platter other than explicitly for showing films. If this is a historical venue and a non-profit, there is lots of "value" in giving donors booth tours and showing people how it "used to be done". A working projector and platter combination with a venue owned print or whack of trailers spliced together is a great demonstration/education/outreach tool, even if you never sell a single ticket for a 35mm feature length print again.

[Dana St. Amand]

Gotcha, that all makes sense. I've been emailing back and forth with a few theaters that still use Christie platters so I can direct the theater I'm working with to them for when they start trying to book prints as well as bring this up. There's physically no room in the booth for a second projector. The theaters original platter system is behind both the 35mm and digital projector. It's a really small space.

In the meantime, I'm still under contract to do my full diligence and build out a MUT plan to be looked over, so any help on that front is greatly appreciated.

[Mike McFarland]

Was I able to help you with this issue?

[Leo Enticknap]

To enlarge a little on Ryan's post...

The issue is that there is now almost no commercial distribution of 35mm film prints. Very occasionally a newly made movie is released on a small number of prints, if the filmmaker desires it for artistic reasons, but these are almost all arthouse titles. Most of the 35mm prints now in circulation are repertory (older movies) handled by specialist distributors that work in this market, e.g. Janus/Criterion and Milestone, or nonprofit or government-run moving image archives. The Hollywood studios also maintain archives of 35mm prints, but only a very tiny number of venues ever get to play them.

When long-play film handling systems for projectors - platters and large reel systems - were first introduced in the 1960s (when the xenon arc lamp made it possible for a single projector to run continuously for an indefinite time: previously, the length of continuous operation was limited by the capacity of a carbon rod), the head of preservation at the British Film Institute, Harold Brown, who was also a technical advisor and politically influential figure in the International Federation of Film Archives (known by the initials of its name in French, FIAF), formed the view that prints that were used with them would have an unacceptable level of wear and damage inflicted on them, no matter how well they were maintained they were or how carefully a projectionist operated them, built up, and tore down prints. He imposed an absolute "no cutting off heads or tails" rule for any venue that played BFI prints, and lobbied for that rule to become part of the FIAF code of conduct. His argument was pretty much universally accepted, with the result that all the major nonprofit archives and many of the remaining specialist distributors that offer film prints for rent impose that rule today.

IMHO, that rule is overly dogmatic. Most prints held by these archives are not preservation elements: they are prints made from preservation elements, that can be replaced if necessary by writing a check. A print is a means by which access for viewing to preserved movies can be provided. As long as it is possible for that print to be replaced like for like if an accident happens, I see no reason to deny access to it to a screening venue that uses a single projector system, as long as the equipment is well maintained and operated by a competent projectionist, and the financial means exist to replace the print if necessary.

There are specific risks with a single projector system, the obvious one being that a contaminant in a film path that inflicts a scratch on the film will damage the entire print, not just 2,000 feet of it. For that reason, the "no plattering" rule is justified in the case of, for example, a surviving 1950s IB print that could not be replaced like for like if it is accidentally damaged. And of course building up a nitrate print is an absolute no for the obvious reason (though I was told of it being done once). But a single projector system also offers presentation quality advantages: for example, no risk of botched changeovers, and consistent illumination throughout the show. No two lamps and reflectors will produce exactly the same color temperature, no matter how closely they are matched or how carefully they are adjusted.

All this is academic, though: if Dana wants access to any of the remaining 35mm prints currently available for screening, the bottom line is that a dual projector system is needed. Agreed with Ryan that getting the platter working again would be great as a museum/curiosity piece running some trailers or similar, but in reality, that's all it could ever be used for now.