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What better life then running a theatre? I don't think that anyone here would argue that point.

The reason I'm here in the booth is that I'm running a special show of "It's A Wonderful Life" later this week. The print arrived Monday morning and I inspected it and made up the show during the evening. I will be spending part of tomorrow (Tuesday)cleaning every nook and cranny of both my projectors. Everything will come apart, as much as it can so as to clean them as best as possible. It is a brand new print, never before shown anywhere. Even though it's new, I'll run it through the film cleaner when I screen it tomorrow, which I will do to make sure that everything is perfect for the special showing later. The only reason that I got this new print is because I don't have a platter. That in itself is enough reason for me to never change over to a platter. The other thing I have to do tomorrow is dig through my boxes of aperture plates and find the ones for 1:33, and then I'll have to readjust the masking to fit that size picture. Thank god nothing ever gets thrown out here.

Believe it or not, I have never seen this film on a theatre screen, and I want everything to be perfect. It's going to be a wonderful night for a Wonderful Life.

ROXY

That sounds great! I'd love to see this on the big screen. Where did you get the print and what were the terms? Thanks.

Paramount's classics division has been busy striking new prints of repertory titles lately. There were details of some of these movies in the booklet Paramount has sent out in advance of the new Star Trek movie. It says for a complete list of re-released classic titles to visit www.paramountprogress.com

The McMenamins brew pub style theater to the south of me just ran a beautiful brand new print of Miracle On 34th Street last weekend.

Roxy, that's what this business is all about!

Ken, we need a password to get there. Can anyone with a password copy the information?

Thx.

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"Would you like fries with that?"

[This message has been edited by Andrew McCrea (edited December 03, 2002).]

Roxy,
I am showing "It's a Wonderful Life" this week.
You are EXTREMELY lucky to get a new print.
The print I have it in very bad shape, esp reel 3. It has broken on every run.
The print is very, very brittle. Split sprocket holes everywhere.
I've been trying to clean it up a bit with Film-Guard, but I don't have an actual cleaner, so..
I spent 2 hours last night trying to make reel 3 showable for tonight.
It's breaking my heart to have to cut out frames. But I feel a little better knowing that another new print will exist of this classic.

This is the 2nd year we have done this film, and attendance has been excellent.
So hopefully you will do just as well.
And hopefully I'll be able to get the nice new print next year!!!

Tony
Ohio Theatre
Madison, Indiana

tratcliff wrote: "The print is very, very brittle. Split sprocket holes everywhere."

Sounds like you were unfortunate enough to get an old and very used/abused triacetate print.
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/lab/5302.shtml

All color prints made today are on strong, durable polyester base, and most B&W prints are too:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/lab/so302.shtml

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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

Tuesday afternoon I ran the print of "It's A Wonderful Life" to myself and one of my projectionist friends. I just wanted to make sure that everything was perfect for the public showing on Thursday. We adjusted the masking and tried many aperture plates to make it as original as possible. As of now the width is perfect. About 3 inches overflow on the masking on each side. The height has about 5 inches overflow both top and bottom. I can't file out the aperture plates as there is no more available height or the picture will hit the valance at the top. I do have several other sets of lenses and could shrink the picture size down a bit and then move in the side masking, but I like having as large of a picture as possible. I really don't think losing what amounts to about 10 inches in height makes that much difference. What do you think? The print as I said is brand new and beautiful. The last brand new black and white print that I had was Casablanca back in 92.

John,

Thanks for the sympathy. It has been a pain. My efforts proved fruitful last night, as the film did NOT break - for once. But when all the splices when through my old E-7, it sounded like the trap was falling apart.

Roxy,
I'm happy for you. I had the priviledge of running a brand new print of "White Christmas" two years ago. And I got that same print back last year.
This year we are doing "Miracle on 34th Street" as our second Christmas classic. I have not run it in several years, so I'm hoping the print will be in good shape.

Tony Ratcliff
Ohio Theatre
Madison, Indiana