What's your PET PEEVE regarding super 8?

[Chip Gelmini]

This should get some interesting comments. I'll start with mine:

There is only 1 pet peeve:

When multiple (400ft) reels of a feature all have different record levels. The projectionist must turn volume up or down likewise. Either the audience can't hear it - or they jump out of their seats...................

Please post yours below.

[Steve Klare]

The immense pile of films on the table because I am too lazy to put them away!

("When did I watch...this?!")

Well, no!

Maybe the difficulty in getting some reels to grab the tail so I can start a rewind. I show with two machines and changeovers, so this often happens in the dark, and I need the machine loaded for its next reel before the other one is done projecting. (More than anything, I need my take up reels empty first)

Once or twice over the years with an actual audience it's become a horse race!

Some reels are just friendlier to this than others. I like the ones with the auto thread fingers and the little slider clips, but there are so many with just a thin slot down at the bottom of a black, plastic canyon.

[Chip Gelmini]

Steve you need a rewind bench! Thank you for sharing your peeve

[Brian Fretwell]

This should get some interesting comments. I'll start with mine:

There is only 1 pet peeve:

When multiple (400ft) reels of a feature all have different record levels. The projectionist must turn volume up or down likewise. Either the audience can't hear it - or they jump out of their seats...................

Please post yours below.

I did read somewhere that it was also a problem with early 35mm Warner releases, the projectionist writing it said he had to run the whole film and note down the levels befoe a public show so he could adjust on the fly. If running on two projectors connected to a mixer for changeovers your could make a not of the level setting for each reel to adjust in advance.

[Mike Tynus]

The Elmo GS1200. I have three units that I circulate, but I rarely use them because of those soft green parts that will start inevitably scratching film over time.
Changing them is no picnic, what with the reverse tension assembly that has to be messed with when replacing the top threading part. And I'm down to my last two sets of fresh new threading parts. Now I use mainly my Bauer T610's and Eumig 940's. Rant out.

[Rob Young]

"WOW" on the soundtrack! Drives me nuts. Usually it's the projector that causes it; I have a ST1200HD which will randomly throw this up, and I've owned GS1200's that did the same. Nothing like a beautiful piece of music ruined by a hint of "wow". Grr...perhaps I'm just too sensitive to it. Lol.

Thank goodness my Beaulieu doesn't suffer from this with the motor driven capstan. It's the main reason I use this for everything now.

[David Strelitz]

Metal or plastic, (predominately) 50ft reels that will only go on one way and have the film wound with the sprockets on the inside.

[Chip Gelmini]

WOW on the soundtrack (this was a good one)

Check to make sure wires inside are not rubbing on the rotating flywheel that could cause issues. Also check and change rubber belts that could be showing signs of weakness. ESPECIALLY in the Elmo models.

[Steve Klare]

Sometimes I think with these it takes a minute of operation for the lube to warm up and thin so it can reach full speed. It's not that it starts out at a radically slow frame rate, it's that you get to hear the change in speed as it warms up: maybe if it even started a little slow and stayed slow it wouldn't sound as awful as that audible slide upwards in frequency. (Kind of like a singer that can't hold a note steady...)

Maybe I could complain about the storage situation, but since I added 16mm, Super-8 is looking pretty good! (A friend of mine has 50 35mm features...In that light I have nothing to complain about!)

DVDs and Blu-Ray have their own storage issue: since they are so easy to come by they accumulate pretty fast, despite each one being small. There is a second hand charity shop near us that accepts donations. We thin the herd several times per year by donating dud discs to them. (Somebody else can enjoy them.)

[Melvin England]

My gripe is when buying films, quite often instead of using plastic clips, people use really strong heavy duty sticky tape to keep the end of the film wrapped around the spool on top of the film underneath.
The net result is gunge on the first few frames and, worst of all, gunge further down the leader where it was stuck to.

[Joseph Banfield]

For me it would be the obvious elephant in the room regarding Super 8 film...film chatter in the sound! Unless your machine has a roller directly before the soundhead most Super 8 projectors will reveal this fault when the audio is outputed to an external speaker, headphones or amplifier. This well documented Super 8 fault is not possible and not heard on standard 8mm sound films...ever!

[Paul Adsett]

I must say that I have never heard any wow or film chatter at all with any of my Eumig projectors, which are 800 and 900 series machines. I cannot say the same for my Elmo GS1200's which will exhibit wow and/or chatter on some films for no apparent reason, but probably associated with the slipperiness (coefficient of friction) of the particular film being projected. And the Elmo's all have a little pinch roller right in front of the sound head. Looking at the designs of Elmo vs Eumig machines, it seems to me that the Elmo sound head capstan and pinch roller are way too small in diameter to clamp the film properly. That is why Elmo had to resort to that little pinch roller in front of the sound head and the floating spring loaded plastic arm after the sound head, to try and absorb tension variation from the take up spool.
Eumig 800 and 900 series machines have no pinch roller in front of the head, but have a much larger diameter sound capstan and a really large fat heavily sprung rubber pinch roller. Result, zero wow and film chatter - ever.

[Steve Klare]

I hear chatter very infrequently with my Elmo STs. It is usually in musical sections when they become loud and is just background noise. I had one ST-800 that had it worse than others and when I replaced the guides it improved to no worse than average. I found wear on the guide that accepts the lower loop and flattens it out for the head and I believe the wear was allowing the vibration of the loop to get through to the film at the soundhead.

I'm afraid this is just the legacy of Kodak anticipating putting sound film in the Kodapak cartridge and deciding where the best place for the recording head would be.

[Chip Gelmini]

This has been an excellent thread. Thank you to everyone who has commented.

On my ST 1200's I think I have heard the chatter. Mostly when sound was VERY active.

On my GS 1200 machines I get WOW from time to time. But NEVER the chatter.

Love it or hate it - part of the joy of this hobby is dealing with little things that drive ya' nuts.

Oh yes one more gripe from me: Ebay sellers who list a projector and describe it as "plugs in, fires up but have no T A P E to test it with." Now there's a mule stuck in a VHS world......

[Osi Osgood]

I've been lucky in that regard too, Paul, but then, I use Eumig's as well.😃