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Topic: Meet The Parents - UK prints.

Lee Davies
Film Handler

Posts: 28
From: Bolton, England
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 12-20-2000 07:18 PM

Hi,

Long time lurker, first time poster.

Just wondering if anyone else in UK had problems with their "Meet The Parents" Reel 1. Ours had no SRD track on it at all, no not even a badly printed one, but none at all. UIP insist this isn't possible and one must be there, yeah right :-)

So they suggested playing in DTS. Ok, no problem but the DTS track is also printed very badly. So the DTS disc will spin up and play for 10 seconds or so but then will revert back to SR and vice versa for the entire first reel - aarrghh!!!

But the distributors insist that problems like these are just figments of our imaginations. Just like the missing SDDS track from Reel 1 of "What Lies Beneath".

Just thought i would share that with you, had a bad day!!

Seeya

Lee D

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John Wilson
Film God

Posts: 5438
From: Sydney, Australia.
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 12-21-2000 06:43 AM

Hi Lee

Welcome to the posting world.

We got Pommie prints too. My colleague made it up but he didn't say anything so probably it is ok. I'll check it out tomorrow. (Opens Boxing Day)

BTW, its gonna be 38 degrees celsius here tomorrow...ouch! I pity all those guys in red suits walking up and down the main street jingling their bells.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 12-21-2000 07:49 AM

If the picture was released with Dolby Digital, and all but one reel have the SRD track, it's likely that the light source on the lab's printer failed, and some reels got out without the SRD track being printed. Separate light sources are used to print the picture, SRD, SDDS, and analog/DTS track areas. So a printer lamp failure could affect one, while the others are okay. For "quad" prints, all four tracks are on the same sound negative.

Ask for a replacement reel.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-21-2000 10:24 AM

I have seen this occasionally. Most notably, on Scream.

We called TES on it and they said that they weren't sure why but they gave us an "excuse" that it wasn't supposed to be in SDDS. However, we got a couple of prints of that movie and we were able to "make" one print that was in SDDS by shuffling reels around.

I'd say that John P. has the best reason but maybe they dropped the ball and didn't print all the reels correctly.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 12-21-2000 10:41 AM

Randy:

Since "Scream" was not printed on Kodak print film, I'd like to say that was the reason you had trouble with the sound. But I won't.

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Lee Davies
Film Handler

Posts: 28
From: Bolton, England
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 12-21-2000 07:47 PM

Hi again,

We did ask for a replacement reel last Friday morning. It arrived today (Thursday) and upon inspection of the old reel, it seems that the SRD track was printed "on" the perforations as you could see a very slight edge of the SRD track where it should be. I can't understand the reason for the intermittent DTS failures on the bad reel though, as the timecode appeared to be ok?

Ah well, all sorted now. Replacement reel in place, happy customers, happy projectionist

Lee Davies, Projectionist
Warner Village Cinemas - Bolton, UK

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Tim Killen
Film Handler

Posts: 13
From: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 12-26-2000 09:23 PM

Here's one for you,

We received our prints of Meet the Parents out of the UK, and reel 4 was Instead of Meet the Parents was actually reel 5 of Red Planet in Spanish. Go figure that one out. I don't know where it came from in England but they sure weren't on the ball, sure maybe you could screw up a wrong reel once in a while, but the wrong language as well.

Kind Regards

Tim

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 12-27-2000 03:13 PM

Tim: That's a lab "Oops!" if ever there was one. The sound negative for reel 5 of "Red Planet" had to be almost exactly the same length as reel 4 of "Meet the Parents". Did the leader ID on the picture area match the ID written on the analog soundtrack area?

(Separate negatives are used to print picture and sound, so a mixup is always possible, but hopefully a rare occurance).

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John Wilson
Film God

Posts: 5438
From: Sydney, Australia.
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 12-27-2000 05:03 PM

Ours is not a great print. New, but not great. High contast some scenes, very low in others...negative marks...etc.

Pretty funny film though but why oh why oh why did they have to put the LAST SCENE in the trailer???

ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 12-28-2000 07:03 AM

Lee Davies said: "We did ask for a replacement reel last Friday morning. It arrived today (Thursday) and upon inspection of the old reel, it seems that the SRD track was printed "on" the perforations as you could see a very slight edge of the SRD track where it should be."

Sounds like the sound negative "jumped the sprocket" on the printer, and wasn't being printed in register with the perfs of the print. If so, the DTS time code would likely be out of proper position too. Be sure to document the problem in writing when you return the defective reel, so the lab can take remedial measures.

Note, all four tracks (analog, SRD, SDDS and DTS) can be put on the same sound negative.

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