Help! Eclair NPR 120m film jam & sprocket damage

[Tiago Almança]

Hi, I recently bought an Éclair NPR and did a test with a 30m roll—everything went smoothly. The other day, I used it to shoot a friend’s short film with a 120m roll. Throughout the shoot, the camera functioned perfectly, but toward the end, as we were finishing the roll with some extra B-roll shots, it started making a much louder noise while recording.

I checked the footage counter and saw that about 10 meters of film remained. When I examined the film on the magazine, specifically the section passing over the pressure plate, I noticed that one of the sprocket holes seemed damaged. We immediately stopped shooting, and yesterday, I decided to remove the film from the magazine.

First, I cut the exposed section to preserve the remaining 10 meters of unexposed film and placed the magazine in the changing bag. Upon opening the lid, I discovered that the film had become severely tangled on the left side of the magazine, where the transport mechanisms push it forward. It seemed as if a piece had gotten stuck, causing the rest to bunch up. Fortunately, the right side, where the film winds onto the take-up core, was intact. After carefully untangling everything, I managed to neatly roll the film onto the take-up core and store it in the film can.

My question is: does anyone know why my camera started acting up? Has anyone experienced this issue before? My initial thought is that the film wasn’t tensioning properly onto the take-up core—perhaps because there was no space left around it—causing the jam. What do you think? Could this be a magazine-related issue instead? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Attached are some images of the damaged film sprocket and a rough sketch of how the film was jammed.

[Aapo Lettinen]

On most cameras incorrect feed tension or takeup tension causes film to slip on sprockets causing incorrect loops, perf damage and other issues. 

Sometimes worn or badly locking guide rollers on sprockets can also cause slipping. 

I would check the feed and takeup tensions and carefully inspect the rollers etc film path. You can run the mag without takeup side door to inspect with scratch film what goes wrong at the end of the roll.

Insufficient takeup tension is very common spaghetti causing issue but can be something else too

[Aapo Lettinen]

If it works perfectly without the side door then it could be the door which is the issue. If there was no scratching sound then probably not the film roll becoming conical which can sometimes be the cause of excessive friction...you should hear that as it is often screeching intermittent scratching sound if film roll touches the mag door during the take