"Emulsion side out" request for returning 35mm prints?

[Leo Enticknap]

Three issues with shipping and returning tails out.

1 - Any competent projectionist will want to at least briefly inspect a reel again after projection and before it leaves the building, to check for any accidental damage that could have taken place during projection itself. This is especially important with archival prints, because archives (especially the big nonprofit FIAF archives) will inspect prints immediately on return, and will attempt to bill the screening venue for any damage found that they believe was not there when the print shipped out. So simply pulling a reel off the bottom of the projector, taping the end and sticking it in a Goldberg case is not a risk that I would want to take.

2 - Would you really want to take up onto a plastic shipping reel, which is likely to be at least slightly warped, maybe have a crack or two on the edge, etc.?

3 - While most US archives tend to ship prints in the same way that a commercial distributor would, i.e. on plastic split reels in Goldberg cases, the rest of the world usually ships release prints in cans and on cores. For some projectors, a 3" core is too small a diameter for the take up to handle smoothly, and even if it isn't (i.e. the projector has a separate, direct drive take up motor, and the spindle is not driven by a belt), you would still need a set of split reels in good condition to make shipping without rewinding possible. So if a screening venue handles international stuff, that's another hurdle.

[Brad Miller]

The benefit to shipping tails out is that the wind off of the projector is likely going to be better for shipping than the wind from a rewind table. That being said, it's trivial enough to place the reel on a table and back-wind a few laps off of it and give it a check to verify against an oops in threading before packing in the shipping containers.

An excellent example of what Leo is referring to is that we have seen a surprising number of 70mm prints that are uncut and were never plattered where one reel out of the feature has nasty "cat claws" type scratches all across the image on one face of the film. That happens when someone is using one of those JJs with the exit-out-the-front design where the takeup film path then wraps-around the optical soundhead as opposed to the JJs where the film passes through the optical soundhead. Going around one of those exit rollers the wrong way will put the film dragging up against the cutout part of the projector head's casing. This is also why the scratches are absolutely horrible at the start of the reel and gradually get less and less deep (due to takeup tension lowering as the reel fills up). As expected, we have never seen this happen to reels 1 and 2 of a print. It's always the latter reels where the projectionist is threading in the dark.

Also any way you slice it, there is more shipping damage that occurs to film prints that are shipped on cores than on reels. Putting aside the extra handling care needed, most of those single roll cans don't have a center spindle to place the core onto, so during shipping the film gets lots of slamming onto the side walls of the can, many times enough to literally cause the core to start collapsing such that it cannot be placed onto a split reel or flange. It is ridiculous that the film cans being made today still do not have a center spindle hub to hold the film roll centered and to protect the edges of the film roll. When we need to ship overseas on cores, our standard packaging is to ditch the 3 inch cores and replace them with our 5 inch diameter archival grade cores which are designed to be compatible with any clip-together, screw-together or bolt-together reel and are also compatible with any type of flange. We wind the films on our rewinders which electronically vary the winding backtension throughout the roll to ensure each layer of the wind is wound with the exact same tension (unlike a wind from a Goldberg rewinder or Kelmar table). Finally we shrinkwrap the rolls to keep dust out and we use a couple of different thicknesses of foam around the roll inside the film cans.

[Leo Enticknap]

We wind the films on our rewinders which electronically vary the winding backtension throughout the roll...

I really liked the Philip Rigby flatbed motorized winding/inspecting tables for exactly that reason, but I've never seen them outside the UK. I don't think Rigby ever exported much, and from what I can find out online, the company ceased to exist sometime in the '00s, sadly.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Three issues with shipping and returning tails out.
…
2 - Would you really want to take up onto a plastic shipping reel, which is likely to be at least slightly warped, maybe have a crack or two on the edge, etc.?

All good points, I wasn’t even considering cores. So far I’ve only handled a couple films shipped either tails out or on cores. For reel condition reasons we certainly did not take up onto split or shipping reels. As for taking up onto shipping reels, we only did that with Brutalist due to our lack of good 24” reel inventory and the fact they were pristine FT plastic reels. Also tempting if 70mm shippers have a better core size than ours, but in theory we are getting new 70mm house reels before the next batch of those films.

Brad, One of our JJs has the front cutout, but we only use it for short loops cause we lack the hardware that made up the rest of the bypass path. Everything goes through the optical head, just don’t miss the last take up roller (which I’ve seen almost happen)!

[Brad Miller]

...just don’t miss the last take up roller (which I’ve seen almost happen)!

Ideally alter the position of the roller at the bottom of the soundhead casing so it's impossible to thread around the wrong side of it/miss it. Alternatively mount a microswitch there. Run the motor line through the microswitch (or something to that extent) so the machine won't run if the roller is missed.

[Jim Cassedy]

The "emulsion-in" concept was really pushed for a while. "Emulsion IN
or your focus is OUT!" was one slogan used. At the time, some places did
modify their methods of (reel-to-reel) projection, so that the emulsion would
pay out from off the front of the upper feed reel, turning clockwise, as opposed
to the long-standing tradition of running that upper reel with the film feeding of the
back side, i.e. running counterclockwise.

Just by total coincidence both the 35mm prints I ran
earlier this week had this notice on the reel bands:
EmulsionOut_2.jpg
(Despite the "NFS" Reel Bands, These Prints
Came From The Sony/Columbia Film Library )

Back in the 1970's, when I first started working projection, the union would send me around to
different theaters as a 'relief projectionist' to fill in for different people on their nights off. At that
time, reel-to-reel projection was much more prevalent (and preferred ) than platters and "emulsion
in" was adapted by one particular theater chain they'd regularly send me to. The upper film
magazines and the rewind were clearly marked with clockwise arrows and a big sign which said
"REVERSE WRAP" to remind you which way to load and rewind the reels. It was also
common in many booths at that time to remove one set of the fire trap rollers from the upper
magazine to make threading a little easier, no matter which way the film ran. So with "normal"
wrap, it was the right roller that was removed. I remember there were a couple of venues that
seriously scratched a couple of reels after they switched to the 'reverse wrap' method, because
they didn't realize that the right side fire trap roller had either been previously removed causing
the print to rub against the magazine casting, or the right-side roller hadn't turned in years,
causing scratches as the print got pulled over it. I don't really recall if I noticed any difference in
focus performance with the emulsion being opposite from the conventional way at that time. But,
as I said earlier, I only worked one or two of these booths once a week or less, so I didn't really
have a great frame of reference to compare the 'before and after' emulsion wrap results.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I remember there were a couple of venues that
seriously scratched a couple of reels after they switched to the 'reverse wrap' method, because
they didn't realize that the right side fire trap roller had either been previously removed causing
the print to rub against the magazine casting, or the right-side roller hadn't turned in years,
causing scratches as the print got pulled over it.

Can't tell you how many times I've seen one roller in a fire trap in the past, but LOTS of times. At least with Kelmar, or equivalent arms, one could reposition the input roller in just a few seconds to run either way.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Ideally alter the position of the roller at the bottom of the soundhead casing so it's impossible to thread around the wrong side of it/miss it. Alternatively mount a microswitch there. Run the motor line through the microswitch (or something to that extent) so the machine won't run if the roller is missed.

Good tip. As you are aware I have goofy Strong 35/70 arms, those rollers are not on a adjustable mini arm, but rather you have 3 tapped hole positions to choose from.

We were set up middle. I’ve now moved them to the right/screen side hole, which does not eliminate the chance of missing that roller, but seems to greatly reduce chances.

I suppose if there is room on that metal face, one could tap a custom hole even further that direction... but would not want to attempt such a thing free-hand with a drill... would justify setting it up for trueness in a milling machine or other suitable method. But as you have said, our real play is to just get the 35/70 Kelmar arms eventually.

[Vern Dias]

Many many years ago (early 1950's), when I was a pup, my dad was a theater manager for Consolidated Amusement Company who was the owner of most of the theaters in Hawaii, and I was able to visit many of the theater's projection booths.

Apparently, their corporate standard, which had been in place at least since the '30s, was to feed film from the front of the supply reel.

The power rewinds in the booths were modified to handle this and prints were shipped from their corporate film exchange heads up. It was the practice at Consolidated at the time to examine every print at the theater on receipt from the film exchange and at the film exchange on return from the theater.

The Consolidated film exchange also served all the armed forces theaters in the islands handling all their 16mm prints.

Interestingly, Royal Amusement Co. which was their competitor used the opposite approach.

When I was older, I worked as a relief projectionist for Consolidated.

A photo of the Waikiki Theatre projection booth from the 1940's. (Almost every one of their theaters were 3 projector setups.)

Waikiki Projection Room.jpg

[Ryan Gallagher]

What was the goal/aim of 3 projector booths in the carbon era?

non-inforned guess: so you could be down a machine for maint/repairs and still run a full schedule of film?

PS we still own one of those spotlights in the foreground, it’s partner went to a museum collection.

[Josh Jones]

The third machine was usually used for shorts and trailers. Big houses back in the day didn't want any downtime, so it provided backup should one of the other machines break down.

JJ

[Vern Dias]

What was the goal/aim of 3 projector booths in the carbon era?

non-inforned guess: so you could be down a machine for maint/repairs and still run a full schedule of film?

PS we still own one of those spotlights in the foreground, it’s partner went to a museum collection.

A 3 projector booth came in real handy when CinemaScope arrived. One projector always set up for 'Scope, one for flat and the third one could handle both formats. Worked really well for the flat newsreels and cartoons when the feature was 'scope.
Also notice that you could probably eat off of that floor as every booth was subject to regular inspections by management and kept in immaculate condition.

Not shown in the photo, there as also a Brenograph effects projector that was used to either project slides on the screen or moving patterns on the braille (curtain for those not familiar with the word) during intermissions).

Thee forum doesn't seem to let me delete the link, so please ignore the link and use this URL:
https://www.theatrecrafts.com/archive/images/20922.jpg

[Ryan Gallagher]

Not shown in the photo, there as also a Brenograph effects projector that was used to either project slides on the screen or moving patterns on the braille (curtain for those not familiar with the word) during intermissions).
https://www.theatrecrafts.com/archive/images/20922.jpg

That makes sense, lots of things were shown ahead of films back in the day... and yeah scope would preclude much of that for at least two projectors until the later era when we were down to previews issued in both formats.

Our booth also had two Brenograph style machines at one point, wish we still had one, but we still have the electrical switch panel labeled for them, both upper and lower of two machines.
https://www.film-tech.com/vbb/filedata/fetch?id=42070

[Steve Guttag]

One last of the 3-projector systems I was involved with was built as a 35/70 theatre and the third projector was 35 only. So, as Josh mentioned, it allowed for both having trailers in 35mm with the feature in 70mm without projector conversion (which would result in some misalignment/focus when switching formats.

Radio City Music Hall had 5 projectors (close to 6000 seats...you don't go down with that sort of audience). When they went to 70mm, they had three 35/70s and two 35mm only.

I've, personally, done two 4-projector systems were the theatres have two 35/70s and two 35/16s. (and a DCP projector in both as well, so 5 projectors but just 4 for film). There is a huge flexibility with that sort of set up in being able to optimize machines. For instance, in one of those venues, we used infrared LEDs on the optical sound to optimize on non-cyan prints while the other pair has visible red LEDs for cyan/modern tracks. Again, when you do 1-off shows, you don't just want a spare tire, you want the entire car. Everything gets doubled up (digital sound adapters, for example). A single point of failure is really reduced.

[Ryan Gallagher]

This thread was well timed. Our 1st NAVCC Library of Congress print arrived TAILS OUT Emulsion OUT, but with explicit instructions to return HEADS OUT Emulsion OUT. (Obvious clue was the soundtrack was on the wrong side in setting up the first bottom to top reel). Was a brief moment of confusion, but some TOP to TOP inspecting had us ready to screen.

Separate question. For archival prints, obviously it's good to inspect early so you have communication time if there are any issues caught. But if inspecting from tails to heads as we did, it's not the best wind due to the handling and pausing.

Would it be advisable to do a hands off set of rewinds to avoid storing such an uneven wind for two weeks on house reels? (Acetate Print)
Put it back on the shippers in the cans tails out emulsion in?
Or accept that less handling the better even if it sits like that until screened?