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Get the FilmGuard. The static will be gone, your prints will look better, and your projector will run quieter.

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We used to have film interruptions almost DAILY!

Last winter, there were several films that had to be baby-sat almost all the time!

[i]Jackie Brown[\i] wrapped 3 times in a row! You'd fix the first one and restart the proj. and it'd wrap 2 minutes later!

S.W.Ep. 1 would wrap at the same place in every show. We'd actually set the timers on our watches and go to the platter when that spot went through.

We got FilmGuard and we have had ZERO wraps. Not one!

If your company doesn't have F.G. in stock, just use petty cash to get it. If the corporate monkeys try to nail you about it, just show them the rain check logs.

In July, we averaged 3-5 interruptions per month. That average was taken over the last two years. Now we have FilmGuard there have been 7 interruptions in since October. Four of them were becasue of mechanical breakdowns. One of them was because of a manager's mess-up.

In the past year, reported incidents of "static cling" have decreased substantially because of these improvements. However, a few prints may still be prone to "static cling" under certain conditions (e.g., non-conductive platter surfaces, if there were variations in the amount of "Staticide" applied to the print, or changes in humidity).

As noted by other posters, proprietary film treatments may help reduce "static cling", either by increasing the conductivity of the film, or by "balancing" the static charge between the emulsion and base side of the processed film.

For help on reducing "static cling", see the article in the September 1998 "Film Notes for Reel People":
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/newsletters/reel/september98/pppp.shtml

Wouldn't it be easier to simply return to acetate?

There's been thousands of dollars of equipment damaged by this Estar stock, because of its unsuitability for platter projection (to say nothing of the countless man-hours expended repairing these mishaps, the interruptions to business, and resultant ill-will generated among customers).

If theatres still ran on reels, there'd be no problems with implementing Estar, but the industry is several decades removed from that now. Dupont tried a polyester base film in the early 50s, after the demise of nitrate stock. Fortunately then, it could not be easily spliced, so it did not gain favor.

Everyone's been doing a lot of backpeddling, trying to make a dielectric material behave like it's not a dielectric. That's why they make capacitors out of polyester.

With all due respect to Mr. Pytlak, shouldn't Kodak just forget about Estar and concentrate on improving acetate, given that improvements are the objective? I know many people would agree that Estar is anything but an improvement. Besides, all good ideas aren't necessarily good ideas. Everyone is entitled to make a mistake from time to time. And Kodak, with all the good work and research they've done over the years, would be due for at least this one.

But distributors and exhibitors demanded it. The January 1991 NATO News reported: "The (NATO) board also resolved, at the (NATO Technical Advisory) committee's request, to approve and recommend the use of polyester film, which is thinner (allowing more film per reel) and less liable to break."

From 1991 to 1995, most polyester prints were printed on other manufacturer's film (e.g., "The Fugitive", "Free Willy", "The American President", etc. Kodak moved slowly and cautiously in converting from triacetate to polyester print film for theatrical prints, and began an intensive program to develop new technology to address the issues of polyester abrasion and static. This technology was used in the new Kodak VISION Color Print films, supported by a massive investment ($200 million) in a new machine to make base for the new film. Kodak VISION Color Print film has greatly improved performance and quality, and additional improvements are underway. Triacetate base is no longer being used for release prints.