From: Jerry Tartaglia (email suppressed)
Date: Fri Jun 12 2009 - 07:32:25 PDT
You can probably get them to reduce the charges and settle for a portion of
the amount due. They DO understand the situation, but it will take tactful
communication. Do you have a contact person?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Stark" <email suppressed>
To: <email suppressed>
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 10:19 AM
Subject: DuArt Lab storage fees
> Hi all, I thought I'd report a troubling situation with DuArt Lab in New
> York in case any other filmmakers are in the same situation.
>
> In 1998 I used DuArt to transfer my film Noema from Hi-8 video to 16mm
> negative film, and had them print several release prints. DuArt kept all
> of the film elements and returned the tape to me; I haven't thought about
> it much since, except once a couple of years later when I had another
> release print made.
>
> Last month I asked them to return the film elements to me. I was notified
> that I first had to pay a "storage surcharge" of $40 per month for the
> last ten and a half years (125 months), amounting to $5000 plus tax.
>
> This was obviously a quite a shock to me, first of all since other labs
> I've used (such as Monaco) never charged me a dime for storage. Alpha Cine
> charges a modest $1.25 per month. But more importantly, never once in the
> last 10+ years did DuArt send me any kind of invoice for these charges. If
> they had, I'd have paid it off immediately and withdrawn the elements. Yes
> I see now it's in their literature and I should have read more carefully
> at the time (though I never actually saw their literature, since the
> transaction was handled via phone and U.S. mail at the time). But I wish
> they had billed me 10 years ago instead of letting the charges accrue to
> thousands of dollars.
>
> In the meantime, filmmakers beware: if your elements are being stored by a
> lab, look carefully at the storage agreement.
>
> Scott Stark
> www.scottstark.com
> www.hi-beam.net
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.