"Protect a Print" Leader Film

[Melvin England]

At one of the film fairs last year, one of the sellers generously gave me several long lengths of this super 8 film that is supposed to be spliced somewhere on the leader to clean the film gate. It is green in colour and is quite rough to touch.

My question is if anyone has got any experience of this special film and whether it is as good as it should be.... or a silent killer ?

A second question... if it is okay, how many inches must be spliced in, please ?

[Lee Mannering]

Guaranteed to wear your sound head out in record time Melvin
Bin

[Paul Adsett]

Sounds like Protect-a-Print works by filing away all metal in the film path! Definately NOT
"a silent killer", but a sound killer , as you will have no sound left if you use it!

[Melvin England]

An unintentional but significant "faux pas" from me, considering the main item that gets damaged !

Thanks Lee and Paul for your contributions. Binned it will be !

[Brian Fretwell]

Well its name is protect a PRINT no mention of it protecting the projector.

[Osi Osgood]

Egad! I have a few prints that I have bought with that leader on them. Bye bye leader.

[Lee Mannering]

Melvin. It was made available in the 70's typically green in colour, smooth on one side and lumpy bumpy facing the projector lamp. Some members of our Cine club also started to use it with my friends Norisound being the first casualty. The idea of a film path cleaning leader probably seemed like a good idea but my goodness it was rough stuff. We used to get amateur films submitted for our film festival and first thing the projectionist did was to remove the green stuff.

Best thing to come to this hobby of ours is FILMGUARD definitely a sound investment used liberally it goes a very long way.

[John Armer]

I received all 8 x 400ft reels of the flat release of BEN-HUR with this stuff spliced on the front of it. No longer (and it's now on bigger reels too).

Being charitable, I suppose it could have a use projecting silent films on a silent projector....

I think, like Lee, I'll stick to Filmguard.

[Melvin England]

[QUOTE=Lee Mannering;n55457

Best thing to come to this hobby of ours is FILMGUARD definitely a sound investment used liberally it goes a very long way.[/QUOTE]


You are probably right there, Lee. Although I must admit I am partial to the concoction that is brewed in Cleethorpes by Phil at CHC. That seems to also do the trick as far as keeping everything clean and lubricated.

The green stuff will get dumped and I don't envy Osi's job of removing the strips from his films..... a very time consuming job !


John - Your post must have popped up just as I was writing the above bit. Once again another task but will be worth it in the end. Enjoy Ben Hur. A great watch !

[Douglas Meltzer]

From the October 1975 Blackhawk Films Bulletin:

[Brian Fretwell]

Well on an Optical sound 16mm projector it wouldn't harm sound heads, so part of the advert makes sense.

[Adrian Winchester]

Dare I say that although I've never used Protect a Print as leaders, I have very occasionally fed a short length through Eumigs that make it difficult to reach and clean parts of the film path. I couldn't see the rationale for one side being smooth, though, so my length has two sections, facing both ways.

Perhaps an alternative that wasn't rough but was very mildly sticky could have potential?

[Osi Osgood]

Fortunately, I do not have too many prints with this leader, so not that much work needs to be done!

[Shane C. Collins]

I read many years ago about people using pipe cleaners to clean a projectors film path. Has anyone used these, and are they recommended?

[Osi Osgood]

I would assume that, as long as the specific brush is not abrasive and we'll made, ( bristles not falling out ), there should be no problem with it.