Odd film wear pattern

[Brad Miller]

Jesse - the original still image you posted was a little bit deceiving, but that video you attached to your last post is ABSOLUTELY drying spots.

Randy - it is VERY EASY to have the wrong mix with the wetting agent (ex: PhotoFlo), especially when the film is being dipped into the final bath that is constantly being diluted by the film carrying light amounts of water into the tank from the wash tanks. Having an incorrect mix will absolutely cause those exact spots to appear during drying if the processor is a demand drive system using those tyres I posted a picture of above.

Marcell/Marco - ONLY the base side is on the rollers during processing, so this has nothing to do with the emulsion. I've never been a fan of the demand drive design and have not found it to be any more gentle on the film as compared to a traditional sprocket drive transport, but opinions do vary. As an example I am also very much against the use of squeeges in processors (used to wipe excess fluid from the film between chemical baths). I am a firm proponent of air knives because the only thing touching the film is air.

[Marco Giustini]

Thanks Brad.

How does the "only the base side is on the rollers" work? In my mind, that only allows bends in one direction.

[Randy Stankey]

You might be right, Brad, because there are a couple of different versions of PhotoFlo. There's one version that gets diluted to 200:1 and I think there's another that gets diluted to 1000:1. I have always used 200:1.

I have seen people squirt a whole eyedropper full of stock PhotoFlo into a small, single-reel developing canister of tap water and shake it. The water sudses up like a bubble bath but the film still comes out clean, even when the film is wiped between your fingers. () Personally, I just use three or four drops of the stuff in a canister of DI-water the give the film a careful shake before hanging it up to dry. Never had a problem. Like I said, the margin for error with PhotoFlo is very wide!

I suppose, if they are using the 1000:1 version of PhotoFlo, the margin would be much narrower and the possibility of leaving marks on the film would be greater.

I understand what you're saying and it could, very well, be true but, I'm sorry, I can't get the idea of drag-out contamination out of my head. I've seen it happen and it has happened to me, personally.

When I worked in the plating shop as a lab tech, I walked out on the shop floor and saw blue smudges all over the concrete and one of the chemical tanks was all blue. The boss asked me, "What the hell is all this shit?" I told him that it was Prussian Blue, which gets created when cyanide salts get mixed with iron. He didn't believe me until I went and got a couple of beaker samples from the tanks and mixed them. The solution turned bright blue! I told the boss that somebody isn't rinsing between processing steps. The boss didn't seem to care much until I told him that the iron salt solution was made with sulfuric acid...which should never be mixed with cyanide! Those two tanks were moved to different sides of the aisle by the end of the week.

[Jesse Crooks]

It's Kodak 2383, printed 2024. It is going to Austin, but to AFS. I'd rather not put anyone on the spot by naming the title. And to be clear, it still looked great on screen.

It didn't occur to me that it might be a lab quality control issue because I have only previously seen it on prints that had plenty of other damage, and as I mentioned in my original post, it reminded me of the wear pattern you see from soundhead pinch rollers. Guess I wasn't too far off... it was a rubber roller making contact with the picture area, just not in a projector. And by the time I got it it already had shouldered roller scratching, oil in the countdown, and some damage at the start of R5 that made me think it might have had an aborted false start. So damage from being projected was plausible, even though it was basically brand new.

Just out of curiosity, what title and stock/edgecode/year of print production (i'm assuming 2023 or 24)? Who knows, I might end up with this one some day too.

My hunch would be lab related too. A look under a good loop or scope might prove the chemical vs damage thought. The idea that it first appeared after a screening seems a bit erroneous, probably just didn't get inspected that closely at the preceding ones?

[John Eickhof]

think about this...my theory is a clogged air filter or compressor line feeding one or more air wipers between chemical tanks in the processor, when i worked at Crest National film lab in Hollywood they were still using lipsner-smith processors with sprocket drives but CFI was starting the tyres. Anyway, the tyres apparently work great but when the separate from the film a droplet is placed at point of each dot, when the film leaves one chemical tank, there is an air wiper (a thin high pressure flat nozzle at an angle blowing the surface moisture off the film on both sides) they used to have very soft rubber wipers on the finish rinse baths too, if one is not working right, droplets will dry when film enters the dryer section of the machine and there you have the spots. Also possible that the water displacing chemical is either under mixed or over used and contaminated making the wipers less effective.

[Brad Miller]

John, I think you are confusing Lipsner-Smith with Triese processors since both were distributed by RTI in Chicago. I bought 3 Triese processors which we use here in our lab, and I bought out the entire inventory of Triese equipment and parts when RTI closed, so I am very familiar with them. We also have a couple of other processors which started as demand drive, but I quickly had enough of that and converted to sprocket drive, dumped the stupid squeeges, and so forth.

So as not to confuse others trying to follow, what you are calling air wipers are actually called air knives. All the various designs of air knives have one compressed air input splitting to the two knives (one per side), so obviously since there is no issue with the emulsion side, the compressor was working fine. That leaves one of the knives being clogged, but the reason that's also a bogus conclusion is that the one knife would not be perfectly evenly clogged. There would be a streak or one section of the film where it didn't do its job quite right. (You likely used and remember the Lipsner-Smith ultrasonic film cleaners from Crest National. Those are notorious for their air knife design clogging due to their 0.06mm slit for air to push through, but again those air knives have never been used on processors.) As I wrote above, the PhotoFlo (or whatever the lab is using) is simply not mixed correctly. At least it's not to such an extent as to cause fogging of the image which would be a serious detriment to the image quality.

Randy, yes OVER TIME the drag-out theory could occur, but it would take quite good amount of time.

Marco, the "racks" where the film runs up and down go in loops, not like a platter's takeup elevator. If I have the time tomorrow, I'll take a picture of an example rack. Once you see it, it will make sense.

[Sascha Roll]

And by the time I got it it already had shouldered roller scratching, oil in the countdown, and some damage at the start of R5 that made me think it might have had an aborted false start. So damage from being projected was plausible, even though it was basically brand new.

Btw, i absolutely think that those butchers who did this to a lab new Print MUST be called out, in order to prevent them from destroying any more new prints in the Future.
Not necessarily here in this forum, but I would immediately send an Email to the Distributor (CC'ing the previous Cinema) reporting the damage. Only if this is Done after every single Screening/booking Things Like that can be documented / pointed down to a single cinema. Stuff like that is really driving me nuts.

[Jesse Crooks]

Yeah, I already reported it, with photos. They were shooting some documentary footage about touring with the print, so I physically showed them the oil mottling and the dot pattern when they were in my booth. They saw me take it out of the can and put it on the rewind table, so they know it wasn't me! And I told them about the shouldered roller scratching and the damage in R5 before I projected it.

[Randy Stankey]

Brad, I'm with you on virtually everything except one. I agree that the wetting agent is likely the root of the cause and I think that drag-out happens over time, as well. I just think that drag-out happens in a lot less time than you think it does.

Drag-out is a continuous process that begins from the moment you start the machine and no amount of squeegees or air knives can completely stop it.

[Brad Miller]

Randy, congratulations you are stating the obvious. The problem is that you are failing to take into account the massive differences between different processors. For example you may be conceptualizing in regards to one of those compact mini-lab processors which only hold 10 gallons per tank, so it wouldn't take very long to dilute it, but that's not what Fotokem is using. It's not uncommon to have baths of several hundred gallons and drag-out would take quite some time to dilute. Also remember there should be many tanks of counter-current wash before the film would even reach the issue we are discussing here.

[Randy Stankey]

Yeah, I know what you're talking about. We installed a new silver plating line at the shop I worked at. Brand new everything, custom designed.

You have a line of tanks (4x4x8) making a row of a dozen different compartments, 30 feet long. It started at the left end with pre-rinse and cleaning agents. Then etchants and neutralizers. Next, a double rinse, a pre-plating then a full plating bath. There's a drag-out tank to catch the slop while things are draining, a neutralizer bath, a double rinse then a wetting agent.

Parts are hung on 2 ft. x 3 ft. metal racks, attached to chain hoists on an overhead track. The workers are supposed to dunk their racks of parts in each tank, down the line for a predetermined amount of time. When the timer beeps, they hoist up the rack, let it drain for one minute then blow it off with an air gun before they slide down to the next tank. I'm sure you can guess that guys get in a hurry and start cutting corners. Before you know it, there's cleaning solution contaminating the etch solution and there's etchant in the plating bath and so on down the line.

The line contains about 2,000 gallons of silver solution. Its contents can be described, simply, as silver cyanide plus a little bit of secret sauce to act as brightening agents and restrainers. If some butthead shortcuts his rinses and contaminates the bath, it could cost a million or more to scrap the chemistry and replace it. As they say with photo chemistry, plating baths don't start getting really good until they've been broken in a bit. Properly taken care of, a silver bath can last for years before it needs to be replaced.

Plating and film processing are the same in that there's sequential processing of product through a series of solutions. They're different because film is processed continuously while plating is done in batches. In both you have to clean, filter and replenish your solutions at specific intervals to keep them in good condition. You have to test and maintain things between certain specs. You also have to clean and check all the equipment. Racks and hoist vs. rollers and sprockets.

I've worked in too many projection rooms where people didn't clean the projectors before going home like they should. Sorry to admit, I've been that guy who went home without cleaning up. Haven't we all, at one time? I've worked on too many stages and seen microphone cables left on the floor, tied up in knots. A while later, you're out a microphone cable just when you need it because the connections are all twisted and broken. Why not just coil the cable up and throw it on the table? The same goes for the plating shop where people cut corners and contaminate the chemistry.

I don't think it's a far cry to imagine a film lab where people don't do things like they should, either. I guarantee that people aren't mixing their chemistry right, not doing their QC checks when they should, not cleaning as often as they should and, maybe, taking some shortcuts, too.

It's very clear how those marks got on the film. There was contamination from a roller. It got pulled there as the film traveled through the machine because some butthead wasn't doing his job.

[John Eickhof]

Brad, you are correct on my old memory, we had 50s vintage Huston-Fearless processors, old school, and Lipsner-Smith dryers and cleaners. I agree with the drag out especially if someone mis adjusts the flush flow of water and the auto dispense volume on the wetting agent...