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This just in: My extremely careful projectionist was putting on the 8th reel of Gladiator when the platter ring popped up and out and the whole shebang was slewn into the corner where it looked like a well tossed bowl of pasta. We are carrying it all out on a blanket and it's going to take a week to put it right! Technicolor who I spend a lot of time bad-mouthing has been very good and a new print is in route to us and told us to not worry/do our best. Anyone else ever do this? This was a first dropped print for us in 5 years. What would you have done?

Never happened here. A week? What EXACTLY happened? Something break, or did the print actually tear? Hmm. In ten years I haven't had a print dropped yet (must be that four leaf clover). What would I do? Well, pray that the print gets there. Seriously...I would've done probably the same thing ultimately...but I wasnt there to see the print etc...I guess it would depend on how bad the print has been damaged.

BM
Who avoids TC when at all possible, but, well...

The booth this happened in is a "booth". Teeny with no space. Just enough to walk around the equip. The problem was that because of lack of space we made the firt 7 reels of the print up and then moved itto this platter. The tension was different/more intense on the center ring and when it jumped up and out ...POP! ... the whole thing just slid and triple flopped. Wow. I went back and read Nancy's thrown print posts. I have a lot more sympathy for her. We plan on two guys taking at least 10 hours to re-set this thing. Yikes. First times for everything.

Oh Mike, I can really sympathize with you. Although we've not had a whole film do this just a reel or two and that's bad enough. I remember a story about the previous manager here who had something like that happen and as she straightened out the film carefully she cut and numbered each piece. They were taped to the wall from what I recall. <G> Good luck to you.

Wow.That has never happened to me,yet. I think that I would have just walked across the street and tipped back a few brewskies and called it a night!

We got the last reel put back intact, fairly clean and unspliced, last light. What happened? Although no one wants to get Edward to fess up... accidents do happen and he's a really conscientious guy... we think he goosed the make up a bit too quick and when the center popped centrifugal force took over. It was a remarkable site to see: 8 reels thrown from the second deck. I'm amazed we were able to pull it back. Technicolor gave us another print and I'm really thankful they weren't print for print or we'd have been dead. Lessons? Watch that accelerator pedal.

Sounds like one of my worst nightmares. How long did it end up taking to get it put to rights?

We tossed our print Thursday @ 9:00pm and gave up messing at 1:00AM. We got a new print up for the 6:30 Friday show and kept picking away and got it put back right Sunday night.
The trick (hope you never get to use this little trick!) was to break it out reel by reel and sort of flop it onto a sheet (body bag)and then you could maneuver it into a workable mass. There was no trick but patience.

Hopefully, an on-line film cleaner is being used. By removing the dirt from the film every time it is projected, the dirt doesn't get embedded in the film, and the prints stay immaculate. A few passes through a good film cleaner will even salvage a print that's been dumped on the floor, as long as you didn't tangle it.

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John P. Pytlak
Senior Technical Specialist
EI Worldwide Technical Services
Research Labs, Building 69
Eastman Kodak Company
Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Telephone: 716-477-5325
Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

We did not have enough time to untangle it prior to the first show unless we were willing to pull a really intense all nighter and everyone was way too intimidated for that. We didn't even know if we could salvage the print. It's the most horrible thing I've ever seen made out of film. Don't forget that it was over 3 hours of film and in a very small booth when the print was tossed into the corner! Dreamworks and Technicolor were great and got us another print for the first show. We took 6 days of working on it to pull it apart and get it back onto reels. We ran each reel though the film cleaners twice and sent it back to Technicolor. The prints appeared undamaged and we could not find a scratch.