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received our 13 Conversations About One Thing and there it is. scratched the long way all the way through, platter scratched, double and triple splice tape...... it made me want to track the projectionists who did this and drop a Brenkert on their dirty butts. I guess it's frustrating because we are always aware that someone else will receive the print we are letting go and we always try to make their job a little bit easier!

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Not that it will always work, but notify the distributor about the severe damage, and ask for a replacement print. It's hard to place blame with a print that's been through many theatres, but you may get lucky and have only one suspect that the distributor can charge for the damage.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services
Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Eastman Kodak Company
Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Telephone: 585-477-5325 Cell: 585-781-4036 Fax: 585-722-7243
E-Mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Website: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Notifying the distributor is a waste of time! Not only do the distributors care less, they also don't want to make enemies by pursuing anyone.

In my 40 years in this business the only time that I have have seen anyone made to pay for print damage is if you ruin a portion of the print while you still need to exhibit it and have to ask for replacement reel(s) to continue the engagement. In that event they know you did the damage. This is also why - in this era of multiple first run prints - the crapped up copies are the first to go back (and also therfore most likely the ones to be recycled)

As I said, it won't always work. But you can try. If you report severe damage like this immediately when you get the print, the onus is on the distributor to provide a replacement print, and it's up to them whether they can prove damage and collect from the previous theatre. If the previous theatre got the print new, and it now has the damage described, the culprit is clear.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services
Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Eastman Kodak Company
Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Telephone: 585-477-5325 Cell: 585-781-4036 Fax: 585-722-7243
E-Mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Website: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

I hope it isn't the same print of 13 Conversations I got: Heads, tails on wrong reels and unspooled in the cans when I got them. The print itself wasn't too shabby, but the first part of each reel looked it was used for polishing broken glass. The only time I got SPC to send me a new reel was for Crouching Tiger. The lab had printed the sound track incorrectly and the new reels were there the next day. But as far as projectionist error damage, I've had TES come up with one replacement print in the five years I've been open.

Two of my last three movies had scratches all the way through them when I received them. One with horizontal scratches on both sides, the other a bright, wobbly vertical scratch nearly centered on the screen. I called and left a message with ETS each time. My WB rep called me the next day the first time. He apologized that he couldn't get me a new print before my run was over (I was only playing it four days), but said he would discount my next booking with them. At least that is something.

We insist on getting good prints at our theater but that just makes our life more difficult. We check our film within minutes of a Technicolor drop off. That way we can call Technicolor for a replacement right away. Then we wait until they can find a print somewhere and schedule a shipment time often via Sky Courier. Often the print arrives between 11 p.m and 2 a.m.. So the projectionist must stay to check the new print and get another replacement on order right away if the 2nd print is damaged. The 2nd replacement shipment will hopefully come in by Friday morning. If we still don't have a good print. We order another but put the best one together. If we don't have another good print by Saturday morning it is too late and we just send the film out on Thursday after placing all the cans in the lobby and pointing them out to every customer who complains about the print. We tried!!

The process is different for ETS prints. We call our booker or film delivery service depending upon whether the booking office is still open. They find us another print or get one from the ETS depot. We usually get the second print delivered by our regular film delivery service that evening unless there are problems locating a print. If that one is bad we call for another print. Often they will let us go up to the depot and pick one out. We can't afford a reputation for scratched prints in our competitive market.

Just a side note - we have found that nearly every film that requires replacement is going to perform poorly for us. I don't know how to explain it but it is true. That even happened with Stuart Little 2 and we opened that one on the release date. So now we just look at each other and groan when we get a bad print - it is going to be a looooong week!

We're fortunate, in that there's an ETS depot right here in town - we pick up our own prints and, therefore, can inspect them on the spot. (Yay) With Technicolor, we've been known to raise unholy hell with them, with mixed results. One of our prints (Vertical Limit), I wound up driving to a Carmike in town that was discontinuing the run, and grabbing their print. Other times, we've had new prints shipped out to us, depending on how badly damaged they are. I don't think we're their favorite people.

Same thing happened to me this summer, Got a print of MIB 2 that looked like a 12 year old had been given the job of tearing down...

Heads and tails not attached, loose film flying around the cans, I was able to identify 1st and last reels but the rest?

Called technicolor and bitched, they sent me frames for each reel to help identify but alas did me no good as the idiots that broke it down just cut the film when the reels were full!

Pain in the A$$...

I did however identify the previous theatre who ran it though they said they would persue it on there end anyways, because the idiot left their custom opener attached to the print!

I would have returned it, but with the grief they caused me I am the proud owner of a Clearview Cinema opener... (wow)

Tony.