As mentioned in another thread I have a 650' part of the 2003 film HULK. After looking at it on my rewinds I noticed that the splices are scotch tape and the joins are in the shape of what you get with a Kodak splicer so I am wondering if there is actually a frame missing at every join? The tape is also just over the picture area and not the sprockets so you can see the tape splices from one side of the spool and not the other. No wonder it was so distracting when I screened it long ago. I am going to run it tonight after dark as I screen 16mm in my living room. I will see if I can take a video of it to show you how it looks running.

These images show the quality of the excerpt and one photo shows what the splices look like. You can see every one of them. I did run the film and the beginning did jump a little but then it settled down and ran smooth. I tried to post a short video clip but I wasn’t able to do so.

Bill
Are the joins annoying on the screen?
If so, you could gently use a black thin felt-tip pen to obliterate them.
You also say they are Scotch Tape. Not proper splicing tape?

I guess my obvious question is this, does anyone think that all the effort to do this to a movie is worth it?

Looks like the Kodak Presstape splice cut.

Maurice...yes at first they are annoying but then you get used to them I guess. It certainly looks like scotch tape. I think the reason it is jumpy at the beginning is seen in the photo of the splice...either the splices are pulling apart or when taped some of them were not joined together completely. It also seemed like there had been frames cut out but not at every splice....I was trying to pay attention to notice.

Tom...no I don't think it is worth it. The only reason I bought this is I really like this movie (most people I know do not) and I thought it would be cool to have part of it on 16mm. There was also a 400' part of TOY STORY that came with it but that one was interesting. Looking at it on the rewinds I could see the parts were not taped back in there original order....a bit of a mess, so that just went on the shelf and has been there ever since.

I was intrigued about "bandsaw" prints so in this case I bought them (I think I paid $20-30) but I doubt I would buy another one. It's sad that the films get chopped up like this. Too bad the films couldn't just remain complete and live on in peoples collections.

Thanks Bill, yes i agree i dont think i would want to take the trouble to put one back together. In your case you made a purchase so all the work was already done.
It does make you wonder why they want to just destroy the prints like this. It's not doing any harm in someone collection. I remember Derek Simmonds explaining how he had to watch as dozens of perfect feature films, (optical prints) were all destroyed before his very eyes. The film industry is a bit backward on this now as it's so easy to just download films for free.

Bill,

Thank you for posting these details on the bandsaw print...very enlightening to all of us who have not owned a bandsaw print....I would speculate the Kodak Presstape splices are a bit worse than CIR splices would be...

I'm a little puzzled as to how these prints are cut up....are they just on a core and then on one side from the core outward then literally sawed in half with a bandsaw? Then at every join the film has to be trimmed? Does anyone else have one or know how the process actually happens?

[Video]http://www.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN_8ZBiYUJ8[/Video]

In the earlier days 35mm films were recycled to obtain their silver content after their cinema runs had finished.
With regard to 9.5mm sound films, after their lease period had expired the negative and any remaining new stock prints were scrapped, often the lease owners actually watched Pathescope staff incinerating their films.

That hurt.....and what I meant to say in the earlier post was from the outside to the core. That hurt me to the core! I'm kind of glad I have the HULK section now.

We are lucky that so many prints have survived. A few weeks ago a British film was advertised on Ebay in the U.S, described as being a lost film, unfortunately, it had VS. I looked at the BFI website, and indeed it is listed as a lost film. I wonder how many films have been lost due to the destruction of 16 and 35mm prints.