[35mm] PRISCILLA (2023)

[Sascha Roll]

PRISCILLA [ 2023 - Dir: Sophia Coppola ]
MUBI

112min 49sec
7 Reels - Kodak 2383
Digital Film-out
Print by Colorlab (Rockville, MD)

SRD/SR [Cyan]

Horrible SRD error rate (between 5.5 and 8) on our print (brand new from lab).
Pretty short reels.

[Andy Jenkin]

Hi Sascha,

Have you listened at all to the SR track? We had to revert to it due to the high SR-D error rate and it sounded so bad we had complaints. Spent the day looking into it today and can find no problem with our equipment, which leads us to conclude it's the track. We're going to try it in another screen on Friday but I wondered if you'd had a similar experience?

Cheers,

Andy

[Sascha Roll]

Hi Andy,
I didn't find the SR Track too bad, my only issue is that it seems way louder than the SRD Tracks, subjectively I would guess it's 4dB louder.
I got my replacement reels (R5,6,7) from Colorlab today. They also don't run all that great in SRD (between 5,5 and 7) but at least it works without fallback throughout.

I will listen to the SR Track after hours when I find some spare time...

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Hi Sascha,

Have you listened at all to the SR track? We had to revert to it due to the high SR-D error rate and it sounded so bad we had complaints. Spent the day looking into it today and can find no problem with our equipment, which leads us to conclude it's the track. We're going to try it in another screen on Friday but I wondered if you'd had a similar experience?

Cheers,

Andy

If you have a chance to do so, try running the film with no aperture plate, and watch the soundtrack as it plays. If the two channel's tracks ever "clash", i.e. there is not at the very least a fine black line between them, there is nothing you can do about it. (I called it "optical clipping"). That is a fault in the print making process or track recording. Two examples from the past come to mind: Stallone's "Cobra" (he wanted big boom so they pushed the optical track into almost constant clipping) and the other was the "Addams Family Rap" trailer. The bass hits also clashed the track so badly that each hit made a "BLAT" sound, like a badly blown sub. I fielded over a hundred service calls over both of those issues.

As Sacha mentioned that the optical track is recorded about 4db hot (remember a 3db gain is roughly double in perceived level) if your "A" chain alignment is not spot on to reference, you will be clipping the SR decoders and possibly the optical preamps. A tech call is necessary to correct that. A trick I used (with a caveat to the theatre) was to reduce the "A" chain levels in the processor for "Cobra" (back then we had the trim pots, so I wend down 1-2 turns on each) to help reduce the distortion a bit to make it tolerable. I warned them to schedule a return call when the print moved to another auditorium or ended it's run. I had to keep a manual spread sheet so I could track where I had done that "adjustment". If they forgot (or I forgot) then later films would have issues with NR pumping and higher noise levels.

Edited to add: On the SR-D issues, if your lens allows you to see the data blocks of the SR-D with the plate out, check for weave or out of focus issues. Since the data changes in every block, you will see what I can describe as "blur" or "shimmer" of the blocks, but the double-d logo (if present) should remain sharp and steady. This is a very crude way to see the steadiness without using DRAS.

One of the many benefits of film over digital...you can almost always SEE with your own eyes where a sound issue is coming from. (And you can ALWAYS see where an image issue is coming from.) Suck on that, D-Cinema.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

I made an error in my post above..I said:

On the SR-D issues, if your lens allows you to see the data blocks of the SR-D with the plate out, check for weave or out of focus issues. Since the data changes in every block, you will see what I can describe as "blur" or "shimmer" of the blocks, but the double-d logo (if present) should remain sharp and steady. This is a very crude way to see the steadiness without using DRAS.

It is very unlikely that you can see enough of the interperf area to see the SR-D data correctly...and further, the proximity to the gate and trap bands/rails which will be very hot (yet cooler than the direct light thru the aperture area) would affect the stability as to make the results questionable at best.

You mileage may vary though.