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Author Topic: Emulsion peeling problem. Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 12-18-2005 11:35 AM                     Have a print of 'It's a Wonderful Life' in at the moment. On the ends of the reels and leaders, where the splicing tape has been peeled off, the emulsion has come away with it, sometimes in quite large areas, as can be seen here: The emulsion has come off the base quite cleanly, the dark marks in the picture are just sticky muck from the tape. I have never seen anything like this before; does anybody know what is causing it? Most of the emulsion was missing before the old tape which I removed was applied, so I don't know what type of tape removed it. The print is on Kodak stock, with a triacetate base. I don't know the date of the stock, but think the print probably dates from the 50th anniversary release. [ 12-18-2005, 02:11 PM: Message edited by: Stephen Furley ]  |  IP: Logged Peter Mork Expert Film Handler Posts: 181 From: Newton, MA, USA Registered: Jun 2002 posted 12-18-2005 01:13 PM                     I used to see this happen with a lot of black and white prints in the 90s - I haven't run one for a while, but I believe I read somewhere that the problem was noted and had been dealt with. Your print may well be from the problem era. It may also shed a lot of emulsion, which caused real headaches. Films like Ed Wood and Schindler's List got covered with specks in no time, and wouldn't hold focus 'cause the gate would get gunked up. Bad news for you.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 12-18-2005 01:41 PM                     I've seen some B/W safety prints do the same thing after with age - the emulsion separating from the base. "Wonderful Life" was released in 1947 and prob at that time was on nitrate positive stock. Look at the edge of the print that you run now and if there is wording "nitrate", or lateral hash marks that run on the soundtrack edge of the print, meaning a nitrate negative was used to print the safety positives.  |  IP: Logged Dan Lyons Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 698 From: Seal Beach, CA Registered: Sep 2002 posted 12-18-2005 01:50 PM                     Is the rest of the film as dirty and scratchy as that one frame?  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 12-18-2005 02:06 PM                     Monte, I don't know what this what negative this print was struck from, though I doubt that it was an original one. I don't think there are any negative edge markings on the print, though I didn't look that closely at it. However, the negative used couldn't possibly cause emulsion peeling on the print film. I've never seen this sort of thing on any film stock, black and white or colour, negative or positive, any gauge, any age, nitrate, diacetate, triacetate, or polyester. About the nearest thing I've seen is around the edges of glass plates, I think caused by mis-handling while wet. I've never seen dry emulsion peel away from the base in large areas like this. quote: Dan Lyons Is the rest of the film as dirty and scratchy as that one frame? The print is generally very good, apart from a couple of slight scratches, which don't last very long. I removed this frame from the end of a reel when making up the print; I don't like doing that, but I don't really think I had much choice in this case. I brought the frame home to scan, but I don't have any suitable solvent handy to remove the muck that several generations of splicing tape have left behind.  |  IP: Logged Stewart Anderson Expert Film Handler Posts: 105 From: Sandy, Utah /United States of America Registered: Aug 2003 posted 12-18-2005 06:54 PM                        We use to run classic movies. We even devoted one of our small theatres to our "Classic Cinema" program. I couldn't believe how awful those prints were. They were printed on that old acetate film, they always had scratches every where, they were always breaking, and after doing the Thursday night build up and screening of a few of them I could tell that these prints have had a hard life and should probably not be in service anymore. 'It's a Wonderful Life' was one of those prints. Emulsion peeling near splices was near the least of our problems we had with those old films. We dropped the Classic Cinema program about two years ago. You must have been very lucky to find a print of 'It's a Wonderful Life' that actually looks presentable.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 12-18-2005 07:53 PM                     ..and what's sad is that if FG was invented back then, these old prints would be a whole lot better off. I did my father's old 8mm reels with FG and it seems to bring back some life in these old films. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-18-2005 08:12 PM                     Stewart, did you not do full inspections before you played those movies? Either you didn't do that properly, or your equipment needs some immediate attention. I handle older acetate prints all the time and never have such problems. Paramount has struck some new prints of Wonderful Life. They have some pretty nice condition acetate prints circulating from the Library of Congress master (along with some horrible ones), but this year you should start seeing some brand new prints getting into circulation.  |  IP: Logged Stewart Anderson Expert Film Handler Posts: 105 From: Sandy, Utah /United States of America Registered: Aug 2003 posted 12-18-2005 09:08 PM                        It wasn't an equpment problem (of ours). This was just how they came. It was obvious not only in the Thursday night dry run but also just building it up. Sometime we were lucky enough to get a print that wasn't thrashed. The only two that come to mind right now is Beetle Juice, and Jurassic Park. I'm sure there were others. The point is a lot of them sucked. The worst ones that I can remember was one of the Indiana Jones movies (I can't remember which), and Mr Smith Goes to Washington. This may be different now, as I said we stopped our Classic Cinema program about two years ago, and maybe we just had a lot of horrible luck with the prints we received.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 12-18-2005 09:54 PM                     quote: Stewart Anderson maybe we just had a lot of horrible luck with the prints we received. ..reminds me of my carbon arc days with Kid Shows that we would get that were in horrible condition: having to go through each reel and taking about an hour each per reel to check and to "wet" splice what was needed for repair so the print can run the 2 or 3 days without any problems. Big time inspection was needed on these prints and that was AFTER the depot had already inspected that same print (back in the old days when NFS would inspect prints before they shipped them out..), and oh yes once again, when I would pull a taped splice on an old B/W print, the emulsion would peel off from the base-being so dry and brittle. "Old School" was that every print arrived in that theatre, especially the old ones, were severely inspected for any flaw that would prevent any problems during the scheduled run of that print on the rewind table or reel bench-long before the print went through the machine the first time. It seems now that this practice isn't even heard of and almost extinct as with the dodo bird .. -thx Monte  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-18-2005 09:57 PM                     Unfortunately LHM theatres did not/do not use Filmguard while the projectors are running... its just applied on the MUT on an as needed basis... This is not necessarily the best way for Filmgard to be able to do its thing..... sometimes it takes repeated Filmguarding of an old print to get it to look and run decent again. Monte... The Dodo is not extinct we have plenty of them down here..... Mark  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-18-2005 10:46 PM                     Stewart, while in this day and age of brand new polyester prints *can* be ran without inspecting them and 99% of the time there is no problem, ANY used print and ESPECIALLLY anything on acetate film stocks absolutely MUST have a full hand inspection on the bench before even considering loading to a platter or running through a projector. This sounds like a training issue.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 12-18-2005 11:34 PM                     quote: Mark Gulbrandsen The Dodo is not extinct we have plenty of them down here ..LOL - like around up here? Yea, the other 1% are usually the crummy lab splices.  |  IP: Logged Stewart Anderson Expert Film Handler Posts: 105 From: Sandy, Utah /United States of America Registered: Aug 2003 posted 12-19-2005 12:37 AM                        Mark - we did and do FilmGuard, ESPECIALLY when we were running the classics Brad - We inspect films while building them and then we do a dry run. This is part of the reason those films left this building in much better condition then when they arrived. Training issue? Please explain...  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-19-2005 01:39 AM                     quote: Stewart Anderson They were printed on that old acetate film, they always had scratches every where, they were always breaking There's your answer  |  IP: Logged

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