Projectable? Where do you draw the line?

[Ryan Gallagher]

Still being relatively "new" to film projection. Where do you draw the line on projectable versus putting to much further stress on both a print and possibly projectors? In the same vein, for an audience prepped to experience a rough print, how many stoppages are too many before you consider showing the digital backup?

In the context of original used and abused release prints that is, not speaking about archive objects. Our coming print I feel gets really close to that line.

Picture quality, fade, and number of visible base/emulsion scratches will always be a subjective threshold.

I'm talking about run-ability issues such as shrinkage, brittleness, or a print showing a history of stressed and pulled sprockets with a bagillion attempts to reinforce them with splice tape.

It is a 95 Acetate release print of "Strange Days" from Criterion. Two reels are not original to this print (lack Sony soundtrack) and no doubt are donors to complete it again, and R8 is a sight to see, Over 200 edge/perf repairs or reinforcements, I probably added another 50 in my inspection, but that was only to the worst offenders. In places it had .5% shrinkage, but not everywhere I checked, probably just near the heads and tails. I'm aware that 1% is a definite no-go unless you are using special sprockets.

I elected to screen test the worst offender (R8) after my DCP last night, as well as one that had the most hodge-podged repaired HEAD/leader. R8 made it with only one place before the title cards where I had to stop to reset the optical tension and lower loop... but having run it once now I have to give it another go on the inspection bench, find that spot and look for new ones, don't trust it one bit!

Chicago Film Society last showed it in May... and no doubt it's ability to run at all is likely due to their prior heroic efforts in shoring it up, but those R8 perfs are not long for this world, it needs huge sections of actual perf-tape applied, which is like unobtanium it seems. Like others have said, I'm a projectionist, not a magician (aka Restoration Archivist).

Thankfully it is SRD and was tracking surprisingly well for it's condition. At least we got that going for us. I'll be running it with minimum gate tension to avoid further pulling, image stability be damned.

The main problem it now has is that prior reinforcements of perfs were not done to both sides a bunch of the time... so anywhere they fixed one side the other side is starting to pull now. I balanced all the ones I did, and re-balanced a TON of theirs, but I certainly did not have time to tackle all of them, only hit the ones that were really starting to show evidence.

Edit: If it was a polyester print with the same kinds of perf problems, I probably would not even consider running it, knowing it's strong enough to really trash the projector if it doesn't break instead.

[Randy Stankey]

I, once, ran a print of "Phantom of the Opera" (1925) that was so bad it almost crumbled in your hands as you were trying to handle it. It was the only print we could get and it also smelled so bad that it stunk up the booth.

I had to run it four times. Once for my test screening. Again for the orchestra conductor to take notes from. A third time for the orchestra rehearsal and, finally for the audience. I stood next to the projector, the whole time, for every run, with my hand by the controls, ready to take action at any second.

I Film-Guarded the hell out of that print. Once at the bench as I was inspecting. Again as I spooled it onto the platter. (I had a bracket to fit on the MUT/platter.) By this time, the print was sopping wet with Film-Guard. I let the film sit overnight before I did my test screening with, yet another coating of FG with the cleaner on the projector. The print sat overnight, again, before the conductor's screening. This time, I used clean pads with just a light coating of FG. Finally, again, for the go-show with the same pads. That first set of pads was totally crusty before I changed them.

It was, truly, a white-knuckle show! I don't know how the hell it even made it through one run, let alone, four! It was on an old Simplex PR-1003 with a straight gate and a Potts-Alpha platter. All I can say is that I'm glad I won't have to do anything like that again!

When it comes to deciding on whether to run a print or not, I go by the axiom, "The audience will give you one mulligan."

If you think that you can make it through the show with one stoppage or film break, you can probably go ahead. If you don't, go to Plan-B.

As to scratches, fading or crummy soundtracks, that's for you to decide on your test screening. That's why we do them. Use your own judgement and decide based on what you think the audience will accept. If they know that it's an old print, they might be more tolerant but don't try to pass off a bad print just for the sake of "The show must go on."

Also, don't forget that film pile-ups can damage your machines! In this day and age, replacement parts are as rare as hen's teeth.

If you have any fears that equipment might be damaged, forget the film and go to your backup.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I wish I had permission to film-guard a bunch of these release prints. But I gotta get my cleaners serviced and usable again before I can even ask.

This will definitely be a don't leave the projectors kind of night, but no where near as stressful as your experience. Considering R8 mostly made it, and it was my biggest worry... i'm going for it, provided it doesn't look abysmal upon re-inspection. This one is presented by a local film club that is all about the 35mm trash... so I expect their audience is too, and our programmer has been prompted to set the audience up for the potential ride. Just gotta protect the projectors, the rest will be what it is.

I also wish I could have screen tested the whole thing, but this one fell in my lap late because turned out our scheduled projectionist was only flying back into town today and would have been attempting to inspect it day of (that obviously wasn't going to work). I got through the inspection in 2 days during my shifts, but no time to re-inspect this one if I was to run test the whole thing today. (Screening tonight of course).

It's definitely seeming like we need to push our inspections way forward for reasons like this... be less dedicated to projectionist schedule but instead base the projectionist schedule on who can get to the inspections first.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Correction: this print was sealed and signed by prior operator “Chicago FCS”. NOT in fact Chicago Film Society, different entity!