A newbie question about best practices after project ting a reel

[Scott Walker]

Hi all had a super newbie question for you hope this is ok and someone doesn’t mind entertaining this with an answer.

if I project a film that has more than one reel what is the best practice after a reel is coming to an end? As in do I stop the film and rewind it and then put the next one on or should I leave it on the take up reel and then setup the next reel so rewinding the film later after the film has been shown.

it seems some reels have a very well connected end of reel. Do all reels release the film at their end so the entirely of the film will be on the take up reel or is it wise to stop the projector before it’s fully off the reel and deal with this in some other way?

I have a 1200st and that is all so would have to use this to rewind the film. It seems there’s a better way to do this after the film has moved to the take up reel but would love to get peoples replies here.

[Steve Klare]

Years ago I watched someone projecting 16mm feature on a single machine. He came to the end of a reel, removed the full take-up reel and set it aside, moved the empty supply reel back to the rear arm and threaded up the next reel. At the end of the show he rewound the reels starting with the last and ending with the first. (I'm sure most teenage kids in the room remembered the movie instead of the process!)

My favorite method is two machines side by side to do kind of an awkward changeover. (This would be much easier if I had two right hands...) I look down during the change and pretend it came off perfectly. (-attitude is everything!)

The vastest majority of Super-8 films release cleanly at the end of the supply reel. The rare exception is reels set-up for auto-rewind. The tail is looped around a peg on the take-up and at the very end the machine reverses, retracts the claw and pulls the film backwards through the same path. I have never, never, never seen a commercial print done like this: just some home movies.

The ST-1200 is fully capable of doing a rewind. Many of us prefer to use hand cranked rewinds instead.

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

For single projector setup what Steve described is probably the most logical practice - shortest possible reel break interval, and you can mind the rewinding work after the show is complete. For dual projectors you can do about the same as 35mm changeover setup by switching between the two, hence no interruption at all (at least in theory). Then you can do the rewind on the now idle machine.

But in any circumstances, just don't do this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgajeTkYZB4

[Scott Walker]

Oooh yep not going to do that in the video haha.

ok thanks everyone. I think using the one projector I’ll sort out the rewinds afterwards.