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Topic: Photoguard/Imageguard
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Brad Miller
Administrator
Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99
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posted 02-07-2002 11:34 PM
It's primary purpose is to hide scratches. It can actually do this pretty well, but this comes at the cost of image registration. The labs are cranking out poor enough quality prints as it is right now and heaven forbid you should get a "flat" film printed at Deluxe Hollywood! Adding the PhotoGuard/ImageGuard coating only magnifies this problem. It also causes extreme shedding and the film itself is very tacky and runs very rough through the projector. As if that isn't bad enough, the coating acts as a dirt magnet and will manage to grab hold of every speck of dirt in your booth and adhere it to the print. Since the coating is inpenetrable, nothing you do in terms of lubrication or film cleaning will do much good.It's nice in theory and the initial viewing of a scratched print is impressive (provided you can ignore the new registration problems that accompany it), but in the long run it is a terrible thing to do to film, and your presentation will be paying for it a couple of weeks down the road. So if come Oscar time TES decides to make some extra bucks by convincing the studio heads that they should hire them to put this crap on their prints, DEMAND a non-treated print. Even just a regular sub run print will generally look better a week into your run with a film cleaner than a "rejuvenated" print will after one week.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 02-08-2002 12:46 AM
3M insists that their Photoguard coating is NOT a sealant and it allows the base to "breath." The 3m people are quite adamate about that fact (naturally, because if it were not porus to gas, it would promote VS, trapping the acidic gas inside the base like whatever it was that Disney used to do with all their rerelease prints). And although I don't have the experience that you guys have had with it (I never had a full print that was Photogarded), I have had dozens of snipes from Filmack who treat all their stuff with it, and I must say, these snipes, some of which are over 20 years old, have held up much better than non-coated snipes and trailers. They are much more scratch resistant than non-coated and none of them show any signs of VS. And although they do have a different feel than non-treated film, I never found the coating to be sticky; and I've never seen any screen jitter either. In fact, all the Filmack trailers are almost always of static material, titling, still images, etc, the very kind of thing that you would expect see signs of registration problems. So my experience with it is different and hasn't been with whole prints. For snipes that you have to run thousands of time, give me Photoguarded film every time.
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Dave Macaulay
Film God
Posts: 2321
From: Toronto, Canada
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 02-08-2002 09:27 AM
You can tell a photogarded print by the smell. It's hard to describe but unique - a chemical smell very different from the "green print" smell. A well used print doesn't smell as much but new ones reek.
Imax prints were (are?) often photogarded. There were lots of problems at first, but David Keighley Productions took over the machinery and refined it considerably for 15/70 use. The problems were mostly from coating the perforations, tiny flakes would get pulled off and they made an ugly mess, plus they stuck to the field flattener lens (and were in focus). Also if you hurry it the coating doesn't harden completely.
The goop is picked up on a bristly roller and transferred to the film, it gets a bit of time to smooth out and then gets developed in high intensity UV light. It isn't an epoxy, it's a UV-hardening material. I think it's silicon based. An Imax reel takes quite a while to process, it runs slower than projection speed - probably around 35 speed or ~100fpm.
I don't know who does the 35 coating. If they cover the perf area you will get snow around the intermittent.
It does work. Coating a new print protects the emulsion, and the main Imax problem, cinch marks, pretty much goes away. PTR rollers work well with it, the coated surface is very slick and dirt comes off easily. Don't try those sticky "silly putty" rollers - they bond to photogard.
It is rarely used on 35 prints, the cost is nuts for a throwaway print. (and they are all throwaway these days...) but snipes that get reused will look a lot better as time goe by.
Imax has some trouble with the prints coning on the platter with photogard, it's much more slippery than emulsion and the film slides against itself easily. Has anyone seen this with a coated 35 print on a platter?
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