viewing of films at processing labs

[AgX]

The head of Kodachrome processing at a late Kodak processing lab stated:

The [Kodachrome S-8] films are only seen by those people who shall project the finished film. But these are only few... ... As said, the finally processed Super8 films have here only be seen by few.

Will non-printing films, thus cine-reversal or slide films, ever be viewed in an industrial processing lab under normal circumstances??

[Jeff Searust]

Someone is always going to see your film

[railwayman3]

Not sure of the point of the question...presumably processed slides and cine film will always be "seen" in the course of normal handling and QC checks? But I can't imagine any lab operators having time to sit watching thousands of feet being projected, or a slide show of thousands of boring pictures!

[AgX]

That was my point. If you make checks than you might look at a single slide or so, or if a film identity gets lost, you shall view the film for an exposed identitycard, or for typical scenes to be checked against missing film requests.

But on a normal run even checking for long-wire scratches or so, you would look at the filmstrip as such and not at frames, and even then inserting virgin blank film and examining that would be more informative.

That is why I am puzzled by that statement from that Kodak-lab employee. THe same who had it about up to 10,000 cine-films per day.

[Worker 11811]

From experience in the projection booth, I can say that all film starts to become a blur, after a while.

I have to inspect anywhere between 6 and 8 reels of film (2,000 ft. ea.) per movie and, at times, I would build build or break down as many as six (or more) movies per week.

After a few months of working like that, you don't even "see" the images on the film anymore. It's all transparent strips of plastic to me, anymore.

I can imagine that people who work in labs would think in a similar manner.

[nworth]

With Super 8 and other motion picture stock, a sampling was always viewed for quality control. With still film, it varies with the lab. Quality control is essential, and a sampling is needed in all cases. Some smaller labs mount slides by hand and view each frame. For other work, a small lab will view each roll and may view each frame. Fully automated color negative labs vary a lot, but prints will be seen when packaging them into the customer return envelopes. Larger automated labs will view a sampling, possibly a large sampling, for quality control and will give a cursory look at each roll just to be sure the machines worked right.

[MattKing]

The Kodak lab that my father worked at between 1961 and 1984 used semi-automatic slide mounting equipment. That meant someone was actually watching and monitoring as each and every one of millions of 135, 126, 127, 828 and 110 Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides were cut and installed into mounts.

That must have truly been a mind-numbing job.

[AgX]

Matt,

But that means watching the transparencies being cut and mounted but not viewing the transparencies.

[MattKing]

Matt,

But that means watching the transparencies being cut and mounted but not viewing the transparencies.

As I understand it, it was the people operating the semi-automatic slide mounting equipment who would invariably be the ones who would discover the "pornographic" nudes that (at the time) the lab was prohibited by law from returning to the customer .

[MartinP]

Before family digital snaps, there was an infamous case in the UK where a national TV news presenter made a photo of her two year old child in the bath. The shot was noticed and reported to the police on child-pornography grounds - it didn't do her career any good (Edit: that was even though there was no prosecution as the police decided it was an innocent playtime photo). Even disregarding whether or not a lab has a legal duty to check material submitted, expecting any level of 'secrecy' is not realistic I think.