The gate was filthy. I discussed it with the projectionist, who said the print, like "Toy Story II" before it, was having "shedding" problems, resulting in dirt in the gate and focus problems. I had been told by Technicolor that this problem had been solved. Has anyone else had this problem with this title?

Jeff Joseph
SabuCat Productions
http://www.sabucat.com http://www.35mmforum.com

The usual cause of this is that the projector is "scuffing" the film. It can happen in several places, like pad rollers, but the usual cause (in my experience) is that the gate is too tight.

You'll probably find out that the projector in question has always seemed to "run dirty". It's just that IB-Tech prints, being made in a totally different way, are a lot more prone to shedding if the projector is maladjusted like that.
I once had a print of GWTW that shed like crazy. I'm telling you it looked like a snowstorm! A quick adjustment of the gate solved the problem.... mostly. You see, once a print has been scuffed up like that, it's likely to ALWAYS run dirty. It'll do it even if you move the print to another projector. Thus, the next question you should have asked them is whether this print has been exhibinting this behavior for a while or whether it's just starting. The idea is to find out which projector is committing the offence.

The only possible solution would be a nice coating of FilmGuard and lots and lots of run-throughs with the film cleaner. (Which is what you DO when you use FG.) I'd also recommend a through, take-apart cleaning of the projector(s) with a vacuum cleaner as well. (Like I said, that junk that comes off the film really STINKS!)

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Pink, dead fish snowstorm.
Technicolor I.B. print.
Fix the projector!

-Projectionist's Haiku

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