It's all on video
To document developing color film for the first time, I decided to do a video diary of the day. I posted these to my Instagram and Facebook, but I wanted to put them all here in one master post to kind of document how it all went.
NOTE: I am not good at video. I am not so great at doing two things at once, and I am certainly not well versed in doing things one handed. SO, if at any time you're looking at this thinking "oh man I could do these so much better" I'm probably going to agree with you.
However, the end result was worth it, and I'm glad I shared my experience with everyone.
First up I made a quick post on Instagram about what my day was going to look like and what I was getting myself into.
I posted the longer videos to my Facebook, because Instagram limited me to 60 seconds. And then I started rambling about mixing chemistry and cost and how gosh darn expensive this is going to be, like wow. For the three rolls I shot at Wondercon I spent roughly $50 on chemistry. I have so much more to do, this is insane. I am going to spend so much money on chemistry. But hey, I'm doing it myself and I love that.
Here: listen to me ramble.
I also did a bit about mixing the actual chemistry. I'd like to remind you that my video skills are nonexistent. I am not good at this.
So don't feel bad if you watch it and are like "wow that's bad" okay? we agree. Just a reminder.
Once mixed I put the bottles in the water bath and discovered that I had uneven water displacement and my set up wouldn't work. I did the next best thing and stuck the chemistry for the development in the sink in the kitchen and filled the sink with really hot water.
Then I made another video.
Okay, yes, I said load my chemistry. I meant film, obviously. But remember, I told you, I am not so good with the video.
I know what you're thinking, chemistry is the easy part, how the heck are you going to get that wide ass film onto a Paterson reel? How are you going to get it into a tank? What the heck are you thinking Deb, this is crazy talk?
I can hear you you know. But thanks to the internet, and those who have come before, I found an awesome solution to home developing 70mm film, color or black and white.
Now, important note, my film does not have sprockets, some 70mm does; this method will work for both.
Okay so, reel issue solved. Also, I downloaded a video editing app for my phone. So now I didn't have to do the whole thing in one take. I would like to say that this would increase the quality of my video diary/journal. But it does not.
oh well.
Here, I'm going to ramble about changing bags and Paterson tanks and daylight film development . . .
Film loaded, chemistry heated, I was finally able to develop film. Which I made only one video of because color development requires constant agitation and my hands were busy.
And let's be honest, my video was entirely based around the color of the wash water . . . which is Leprechaun colored.
I would also like you all to know that I am not allowed to say that it looks like I killed a Leprechaun because my daughter (who is 6) says that I will upset the Leprechauns and they won't be nice to me anymore. I told her I think the Leprechauns can tell I'm joking, she said they wouldn't and who am I to argue with a 6 year old. Anyway, I did make a final video of the results when I hung the film to dry, after I finished crying.
I'm not kidding about that crying bit. I was so relieved to have images that I broke down sobbing. I still gasp and get a little weepy when I pull film out now, on the final roll. It's just so magical and I am so happy to have done this and to have been supported by so many of my friends.
And I can't wait to do it again.
Oh no here we go . . .
I've been nervous.
Really really nervous.
But everything I need to develop the 70mm film I shot at Wondercon is here, and I have no reason to procrastinate any longer.
So it's happening. I'm going to dive in head first and hope I don't drown.
I'm documenting this in videos I'll post to FB, which I will later post here in sequential order.
ohhhhhhhhh dear.
I'm going to need more coffee.
Wondercon in Review
When I first talked to people about this crazy 70mm journey, the question I usually got was: “so what are you going to shoot?”
And while my knee jerk response is “I will shoot literally anything”, I decided I wanted to focus on Cosplay. The colors are bright and the people are fun, and I love shooting it, all of it. I knew then that if I’m going to shoot cosplay I need to shoot at San Diego Comic Con. Some of the best cosplay in the world is out at SDCC; and I want to get it on my highly questionable film stock.
However, I don’t want to fail spectacularly when I’m there, either. The solution of course was to take some 70mm to another convention and give it a test run. That convention being Wondercon in Anaheim.
This is the day by day account of the convention, I'll need to reflect on it when gearing up for SDCC.
This is all the film gear that came with me, 45 feet of 70mm and three rolls of 120
Day One:
I got some great shots of some good friends, and some new friends, and some strangers . . . pretty much like any other convention ever. Except, you know, because of the film thing.
Getting people to stand still is a CHALLENGE I have to remind them that there is no autofocus and that this is going to take a little time. I got better at explaining this as the day progressed. At this point I just hope the photos come out, I would hate to go through all of this and then have nothing to show for it.
As something of a safety net I brought down some commercial 120 film, which I have been shooting intermittently, in sort of a “if everything fails at least I have this” kind of move.
I hope I don’t need it.
I hope the 70mm film is loaded properly.
I hope I nail the development.
There are so many variables.
It feels good shooting film like this though, it feels right.
Day Two:
Saturday at con is always packed, always a big day, today is no different.
I’ll be shooting digital for parts of today, I have a couple of panels that I need shots of for work and as favors to the panelists. Other than that I’m film all day, again.
I have some friends coming into town in some pretty intricate cosplays, a couple of armor builds that are just over the top; I’m hoping I can get a shot of them.
Looking at what I have set aside to shoot today, I don’t think it’s enough. The film from yesterday went by really fast, I wish I had loaded another 70mm cartridge at least. I also think my first roll may have also been a bit short, we’ll see when I develop, I made a note on the canister.
If I run out of film I technically I have digital to fall back on, but honestly, I don’t want to. Yesterday was so freeing, I felt so much more creative and open to shooting than I have in years. I don’t want to lose that picking up the digital camera.
But I’ll have it with me, if I need it.
Day Three:
Yesterday afternoon was really interesting: I must have looked a little strange walking around with a digital camera and not shooting with it. I needed it to shoot a panel at 1pm, but then didn’t have time to put it back in the hotel room because I was meeting people right after the panel; so when I would ask someone to shoot they would see the digital and say yes and then be totally blown away by the film camera.
Just pulling it out of the bag was a shocker, and to my surprise there were people taking pictures of me taking pictures, I was as much a novelty as the cosplayers.
It was different. That’s for sure.
I also need to adjust how many rolls I bring. I had planned on one 70mm per day, but that ended up not being enough. According to my camera there are 70ish exposures on a 15 foot roll. Which isn’t a lot for digital, but it’s impressive for film.
However because of the quantity of quality cosplay on the Saturday of any convention I should have allocated another cartridge. This is going to be even more of an issue for SDCC, I am anticipating a cartridge each for Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Friday and Saturday will each get two. At worst I’ll have extra. I also plan to bring some commercial 120 like I did this weekend, just in case.
Looking Back:
Overall Wondercon was a great experience, the project was well received and everyone I shot with was really excited to be a part of it. For now I’ll take my commercial film to get developed, as I wait on the last bits of equipment to develop the 70mm. These are the last few hurdles before being fully prepared to shoot 70mm at SDCC in a few months.
Yikes.
Chemistry, Math, and Headaches
As I mentioned in a recent post, I’ll be jumping in head first and shooting the first rounds of 70mm at Wondercon this weekend . . . and as I was planning and plotting and scheming my shoots I realized: I should probably figure out how I’m going to develop this stuff.
I’ve pointed out before, I’ll be developing the film myself, I have all the equipment for it but, here’s the thing, I’ve never developed my own color film.
Black and White yes, Color no.
This is going to be interesting.
Anyway.
I looked up the chemistry for color development and decided to buy Tetenal, for no other reason than I recognized the name, I actually have no idea how it’s going to work out.
Tetenal is sold in 1L and 2.5L kits, and I had planned to buy the 2.5L kit, but my purchase options ended up being more limited than I anticipated.
See, Tetenal has an ORM-D code, because it’s potentially volatile or something. I don’t care. What I care about is that this means Tetenal needs to be shipped ground. Not a problem, EXCEPT when vendors decide they’d rather not deal with ground shipping and just . . . make it unavailable. (Looking at you B&H) It’s okay, I bought from Freestyle instead, and even though it meant paying more, they got it to me the same day. Which was magical.
Not so magical is that I had to buy the 1L kit because the 2.5L is sold out until April.
Back to the issue at hand, 1L Tetenal is spec’d at being able to process 12, 36 exposure 35mm rolls. BUT my film is 70mm wide and 15 feet long, per roll, and then I got to thinking; how much freaking chemistry is this project going to take?
I hadn’t thought about it at all, at any point . . . shit.
It’s okay, I have science and math, I can figure this out . . . by creating the most convoluted word problem ever.
First Problem: How much 70mm film can I process in theory with a single kit of chemistry?
A single roll of 36 exposure 35mm film runs about 65 inches, or about 5 feet, and obviously 35mm wide.
I’m assuming the thickness of the film itself doesn’t matter. I hope it doesn’t. We’ll see.
Starting with the width, for every one roll of 70mm I would have the equivalent width of two rolls of 35mm. Therefore: for 12 rolls of 35mm, I would have 6 of 70mm.
Not accounting for the length of the rolls.
For each 15ft of 70mm, there are about 3 rolls of 35mm 36 exposure film.
Simple division tells me that this all amounts to two cartridges of 70mm.
A mere 30 feet (give or take) that I can get out of 1L of chemistry.
That’s a weekend.
That’s less than what I planned on going through this at Wondercon . . . I guess my chemistry won’t get old, it won’t be around long enough.
And then a thought occurred to me:
I can shoot 15 feet at a time, but how much can I process at a time?
According to a site that sells the Paterson tanks that I use, the plastic reels hold a single 26 exposure roll of 35mm.
Which, okay great.
EXCEPT my rolls of 70mm are 15 feet long.
Well this is going to suck.
My options are to either only shoot 5ft at a time . . .
OR
Cutting the roll. Sacrificing two frames, and be able to shoot what is effectively 3 rolls of film at a time.
I hate the idea of cutting two frames in half . . . but not having to change the rolls basically all day, damn, isn’t that part of why I’m doing this?
I have to decide what I’m going to do before I roll the film, which I plan to do before I travel to Anaheim for Wondercon.
I’ll give myself tonight to think about it.
The Starting Line
So, it’s March now. And I’ve spent the last months, prior to even starting this blog, collecting the equipment to shoot and develop the truly silly amount of 70mm film that I have lying around.
If you’ll remember there were two major pieces of equipment that I needed to shoot the stash of 70mm film: the film back for the camera and the bulk film loader.
Some time in late November I found a film back online (thank you eBay) with six 70mm film cartridges.
It was quite a score and I was very happy with it.
I’ve got to say though, this thing is a beast.
That's the 70mm on the right, a standard 120 back is on the left.
Again, that's the 70mm on the right and a 120 on the left.
While the back is easily twice the depth of the 120 backs, the opening is the same size. I don’t know why I thought the frame size on the back would be larger, it’s still going to be the same as the back I’ve been using because the opening size is determined by the camera and not the back. (and I feel really dumb for having thought otherwise)
My god this film is huge, look at the cartridge . . .
Just the height of this film blows my mind.
The film holders though, they’re far larger than I thought they would be; an inch in diameter and just over 70mm long, they hold about 15 feet of film at a time.
So then the issue became getting the film into the film cartridges.
For that I really do have to get a bulk film loader of some kind.
Up until this point I’d been considering hand rolling the film, however looking at the sheer amount of film I’d have to roll onto a single reel I realized that a bulk film loader of some kind was likely my best bet.
This search did not have an auspiciouis start; I could find none for sale. Not online. Not at one of the many camera and antique shops. No not even at the reseller/consignment camera sites.
I moved off the internet, calling camera stores and suppliers across the US. None of them had anything. A couple didn’t believe me that 70mm film rollers even existed. I left my name and phone number in the hopes that they might come across something, however slim. that chance; and I turned to my friends.
They were full of suggestions.
Some thought I should just roll them by hand; which is still a possibility but I don’t want to. Also figuring out how to measure exactly the right amount of film so I don’t waste very much isn’t that thrilling.
Other friends suggested 3D printing the film loader. And I mean, 3D printing the loader is an option, but the mapping and coding is out of my ability and I’m not thrilled about having to learn an entire system just to build something to load film.
I figure if I ever get really desperate I’ll turn to that; maybe. I want to totally exhaust every other option first though.
With eBay still turning up a fat zero, I combed through the internet to see how other people in my situation were loading their film. I found a guy who had built a roller out of a couple wooden boards, some bolts and washers, and a screwdriver.
His setup was looking really good and I started working on reverse engineering it to build my own.
At this point it was mere days until Christmas.
Still, I roped Keith into a couple long conversations about the best ways to build something that would let me roll the film I had a general idea about what I was going to need, while making cookies.
Multitasking is a thing.
On my next day off I made a list of what I would need from the hardware store and committed myself to a jerry rigged film loader. On a whim and an empty stomach I stopped at Chipotle to grab lunch, while I ate I ran the laziest, loosest search through eBay.
-70 bulk loader-
I got a lot of results for enormous hooks, which apparently load 70 tons of stuff, not what I expected exactly, but I figured if I got any results they’d be heavy equipment of some kind. Still, I kept scrolling. And there, at the bottom of the search screen was an Alden 70mm Bulk Film Loader.
I was convinced for a solid minute that my eyes were playing tricks on me.
Exactly what I was looking for, when I needed it, and there was a buy it now option. . . and it was priced at $60.
I had to be dreaming.
I packed up my food and went home to double check the search on a real computer and if it was real, buy it immediately. I was so panicked while driving. I was convinced I was going to get home, it would be gone, and I’d have to go back to the hardware store.
When I got to the computer at home I ran the search again and it was still there, still available, and the same price. I have never hit buy so fast in all of my life.
The going rate for an Alden 70 in 2003 was about $100, without shipping. So when I discovered that I would be paying another $50 some odd for shipping from Austria I couldn’t manage to feel bad about that; after all it worked out to be more or less the same price as 13 years ago.
Yes you read that right, Austria, that’s why I’m telling you this story months after it happened, I had to wait for shipping; through the holiday season. Ugh.
Anyway, a few weeks later, while fervently tracking the package my Alden was in, I ran another search through eBay just to see if any others had popped up, and low and behold they had. There had been one other sale, tagged to come up with a -70mm Bulk Film Loader- search, the sale price without shipping on that was over $200.
That’s just, it’s not, like I still can’t wrap my brain around it; how did I manage such a score.
I mean look at this thing;
It's so pretty, I'm in love.
It’s been months, I still can’t quite believe it.
Anyway.
The loader came in, I already have the back, all I need now is chemistry and someone to shoot.
The chemistry is up next, I just have to calculate how much I need.
As for the subjects, well, I guess I should tell you . . .
This is all coming with me to Wondercon at the end of this month.
If you’ll be there, and you want to be a part of this crazy freaking project, drop me a line and let me know.
See you soon.