Friday, 30 January 2015

Motion film development




I originally started to look into motion film processing because I have an exposed film with mystery content. I wasn’t sure anymore what I had shot years before on the donated film stock that expired in June 1992. I found that Kodachrome film could no longer be developed, as the Kodak Kodachrome process chemicals had been discontinued and the last film was processed in 2009.
http://petapixel.com/2013/01/13/the-end-of-an-era-steve-mccurry-shoots-the-final-roll-of-kodachrome-film/
Then I stumbled on this clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGH1PIhIg3w
of Kodachrome 25 (the same  as mine) being developed in Caffenol, a Black and white developer made from coffee and Vitamin C. With research I found that all film can be processed to a B+W Negative.
I had since being a child, when I first got my Super 8 equipment, wanted to process my own cine films. I had seen films with people developing motion film on turning rigs that dipping in and out of developing solutions in trays.
This clip spurred me on to do something about it.
https://vimeo.com/69736803
So I investigated motion film developing tanks and forum participants mostly recommended Lomo tanks. Most available Lomo tanks seemed to be located in Russia or the Ukraine. I was aware that parts could be damaged or missing and so after much deliberating purchased a second hand tank labelled as new in the box never used.
The creative project gives me the perfect opportunity to fulfil my desire to process film and would make for a great and relevant project.
I realised that the project needed to be more pertinent to the industry than domestic 8mm and so scaled it up to a film an industry standard format of colour 16mm negative. I will look at B+W negative and reversal processes as an appropriate learning curve, and build up to colour.
The questions I am asking with the project are, can motion film be processed in a home lab to an industry standard and could it be commercially viable as a service to offer to the consumer?

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