Last January I bought several rolls of Tri-X and Plus-X. I soon discovered that they were the ones with the bad washer that caused the infamous jitter. Having lost the receipt for the original order, I couldn't return them. Anyway, not wanting to throw them out but not knowing what to do with them, I let them sit in my freezer until last Autumn when I began using them for test shots where jitter didn't matter.
For the short silent film I'm currently working on, I've written a script and storyboarded most of the scenes. I had several conflicting ideas about how to set up and shoot a long phone conversation that takes place in a garage. So I popped two Tri-X carts out of the freezer last night, allowed them to thaw overnight, and tonight I blocked out the scene, shooting all of the angles I considered. It took me three hours of crawling over the rafters, clamping floodlights wherever I could and stringing extension cords, but I got my seven minutes and twenty seconds of film.
I shot with a Leicina Super, a Bell & Howell 1235 XL (the Leicina's batteries ran down), and 1,775 watts of light (a 750-watt quartz halogen Lowell Tota, used as a key, a 650-watt Atlas-Warner light, and 375 floodlight.) 95% of the shots were done with the Leicina (lens rated at 1.9) and I used the internal light meter to get the f-stops--which ranged from about 2.8 to just under 11. I shot at 18 fps.
I should have the film developed by the end of next week.
Tom
Jittery Tri-X Cartridges Put to Good Use
Moderator: Andreas Wideroe
Hi, I contacted kodak motion picture direct, regarding the jitter problem, luckily kodak were aware of the problem by then (APRIL 2002), they advised me of the batch numbers affected and asked me to return the cartridges....like you say,may be worth another call to kodak, especially if you are sitting on a few cartridges...good luck....