Pro8mm may have ruined my film project

Post by **wado1942** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 11:23 pm

The best shipping for SUper-8 I've seen has been Forde/Alpha Cine. They ship the carts in cardboard boxes with packing material around them and they ship it back the same way. If you have them prep & clean for transfer, they put them on metal reels along with another cheapie reel and they both go into a 16mm can. They used to ship 16mm films back with 2 reels in a 35mm can but now that Alpha Cine own the lab, they just send it back on a core in a 16mm metal can. Anyways, the cans go into oversized boxes with packing material around them. They REALLY take care of their film as if they improperly package the film, they're responsible for it. But if they package it well, and it gets ruined, then the carrier is responsible.

Post by **DeepBlueEditor** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 11:25 pm

I started the same thread on Cinematography.com forums as well. You can see the comments on this thread. Not as interesting as the ones here maybe but I wanted to get as many opinions on this as I could.

http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004 ... opic=24395

Sean

Post by **DeepBlueEditor** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 11:31 pm

There you go. That's the way it should be. I can put up with higher prices for correct treatment. It's like a rental house. You pay for what you get. I tried going for what I thought would be the most interesting path with the Kodak 250D film and processing. I got burned on that path by the only folks offering it. I will go elsewhere and use different stocks but with higher expectations next time.

Interesting discussions if nothing else.

Thanks,

Sean

Post by **DeepBlueEditor** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:32 pm

Just thought I would point this out too. From the back of the Pro8mm package that the /05 film comes in:

"Prepaid Processing Policy: Processing is included if processed before the process by date. Unused prepaid processing will not be refunded under any circumstances. The return of any film to us for processing or any other purpose will constitute an agreement by you that if any such film is damaged or lost by us or any subsidiary company, the maximum liability to us will be the replacement of an equivalent amount of unexposed film and processing. Except for such replacement, the handling of your film by us without warranty or liability even if the damage or loss is caused by negligence or other fault"

Seems like I should be getting some replacement film then, don't you think?

Sean McHenry.

Post by **MovieStuff** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:21 pm

DeepBlueEditor wrote: Seems like I should be getting some replacement film then, don't you think?
.

Maybe. They might give you another roll simply because they feel bad about what happened but "replacement film" generally means that you give them your damaged film in exchange for new film. I don't think you will get another roll of film and also keep your existing film. Could be wrong but it would not hurt to ask. Talk to Phil directly.

Roger

Post by **wado1942** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:25 pm

That's odd, they say they'll replace any damaged or lost film in one line regardless of who's fault it is (except yours) and in the next, says they won't replace the film even if it's they're fault. Man I love the legal system.

Post by **MovieStuff** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:38 pm

wado1942 wrote:That's odd, they say they'll replace any damaged or lost film in one line regardless of who's fault it is (except yours) and in the next, says they won't replace the film even if it's they're fault. Man I love the legal system.

This is pretty standard fair for labs. It basically means that you could have $50,000 in production costs for short film (crew, catering, etc) but if you only have $300 invested in film and processing from the lab, then that is all they will replace. That's why production insurance was invented.

Roger

Post by **DeepBlueEditor** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:28 am

Just a quick update. Today is August 22, 07. Still no offer to replace the film from Pro8mm. What I have heard, directly from Rhonda V. is that they have put in a claim with DHL and that DHL may be contacting me about the claim. So far nothing from DHL either. Perhaps one day I will receive a mysterious 5 rolls of film in the mail.

That's all I have so far.

S.

Post by **Will2** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:29 pm

I thought Pro8mm gave a choice of DHL or FedEx, DHL being the cheaper route. I know Kodak will give you a choice but my reps prefer FedEx. Fuji uses FedEx.

NEVER use DHL. At least in the U.S. Not sure how they are in Germany. Always use FedEx.

If a package gets lost or damaged, FedEx will unleash a team and you'll get three phone calls from different people that are dedicated to making it right for you. Once when a 2-day package was runing late, they called me from the airport to let me know and they would do everything they could to get it there on the 3rd day, appolgizing so much I felt sorry for them.

My work made us use DHL because they were cheaper. We had 5 or 6 claims in where they damaged shipments or lost them and never got compensated or even a decent followup on their part. We started using FedEx again and paid the difference out of our own budget and have had zero problems since then.

Post by **wado1942** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:25 pm

Then there's UPS. UPS is not only the most expensive but they pretty much guarantee they'll destroy anything you ship through them and then not pay on the insurance. They'll claim insufficient packaging as their reason to deny the insurance for which you paid EVEN IF THEY PACKED IT! US mail is slow but it's cheap and it almost always gets there, but FedEx really is the way to go.

Post by **DeepBlueEditor** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:51 pm

I was not given a choice of carrier and in fact was told specifically they can't use UPS as their volume won't allow UPS to pick them up (or something like that) No other options were offered so I went with their "standard" service figuring if they are using it it must be OK. We know how that went.

I still don't, and never will understand the reluctance of a company to take responsibility for an item they packed insufficiently. That above all else is what bothers me about it - Oh, and the fact that the warranty is spelled out right on the box and I still have to argue about it doesn't help.

- See previous notes from me on all that -

Sean
Still waiting - and hearing only my own echo.

Post by **Will2** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 11:43 pm

DeepBlueEditor wrote:I still don't, and never will understand the reluctance of a company to take responsibility for an item they packed insufficiently.

They must jaded. How hard or expensive is it really for them to at least replace the film quickly?

If I ran the place I would be like, "We're sorry this happened please let us at least replace your film and here's an extra 100 feet for your troubles. Oh, and here's gift card to buy some beer." That would make a customer for life and get them tons of praise on a site like this.

Post by **CHAS** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 1:05 am

Will2 wrote: If I ran the place I would be like, "We're sorry this happened please let us at least replace your film and here's an extra 100 feet for your troubles. Oh, and here's gift card to buy some beer." That would make a customer for life and get them tons of praise on a site like this.

Right -- in a perfect world things would be like that. But this is Pro8mm we are talking about. Maybe they have a thousand complaints like this yearly but since it doesn't affect their revenue in the long run THEY DON'T CARE.

Years ago there used to be a girl named Katie who worked there who came to this board on occasion, for about a month or so. I think all the anti-Pro8mm complaining got to her and since she wasn't able to adequately defend her employer she eventually stopped coming back!

Post by **DeepBlueEditor** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 4:14 am

Sorry to hear that about Katie. I try to go easy on the help if the management is to blame.

I remember that old line though - if you can't stand the heat - get out of the oven... or something like that.

"It's at times like these I remember aht my dear old dad used to say. What the hell are you doing in the bathroom day and night. Give someone else a chance."
From Mel Brooks, Young Frankenstein

Post by **Jim Carlile** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 12:35 pm

You know, if Pro8 or anybody else just went ahead and replaced merchandise they were told was DOA, they'd soon go out of business, because everybody would say everything was DOA. (or perhaps not everybody, but most people.)

So...maybe Pro8's just being cautious right now.

You know, I like Phil. He gets a lot of flack, but he's done a lot to support S8 back when almost nobody else did.

Let me tell you a little story:

Back around 1994 or so, I went into their shop, back when it was called Super8 Sound. They were all sitting around talking-- Doug, Phil, that guy who moved to Arizona and ended up selling anti-Iraq war T-shirts with all the dead soldiers names on them (Dan), the whole gang.

Phil had just gotten off the phone with Kodak. Seems they told him in confidence that they recently scrapped all of their sound striping machines, and had quietly discontinued sound Kodachrome and E160 production. They made a huge amount of it several months earlier, and were planning on formally discontinuing it when supplies got low a few years later.

Now, Phil had this privileged knowledge. He could have hoarded lots of sound film, or raised the price on it, but he never did. It wasn't until a year later that Brodsky and Treadway first revealed in their Little Film Notebook that Kodak had stopped making the film.

But Phil knew this a year earlier, and he didn't capitalize on the tip-off. He didn't exploit the situation or panic anybody and he kept the price the same all through the dwindling supply.

So, give the guy some credit. He could have been a jerk about it, but he wasn't (now, I for one stocked up, because I had the same inside knowledge a year before anyone else... anybody want some K40 200 foot sound cartridges...?)