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Alright here’s a quick look at hand processing 16mm motion picture film. The stock I shot for this film is called Kodak 3378, it’s a high contrast black and white reversal film stock, which basically means it doesn’t develop as a negative but as the actual viewable image. The process of “hand development” is an interesting one. First 100 ft of film are loaded into a light proof tank. The chemical process I used is called E6 and it consists of a few steps that can be performed at room temperature: first developer, second developer, rinse, bleach, fixer, photoflow. Exposing the film to these chemicals four particular times results in the final image. This step is the rinse, the 3378 stock is the slightly purple film.
Hand processing creates strange patterns and aberrations, disturbances created by a process that is inherently imperfect. It allows the artist to play with the parameters of 16mm image making but maybe more importantly, its results are a direct effect of the artist’s hand on their work. This is why we shoot film in a digital world: it’s something we can physically affect as true human beings.
Mar 19, 2025
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@JVONWORLD planning on putting it up soon, don’t have a scan of it but i have photos of the footage on the editing machine
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I thought I’d delve a little into the behind the scenes of a personal film I’m working on. I’ve been a type one diabetic for about fifteen years and have become recently obsessed with creating a film about the American medical system. I aim to capture the feeling that the medication that provides you with the ability to exist may one day be taken away, or not covered, or not delivered in time. I deal with the insulin saga every month, and while it may be an extreme example, I think many Americans live in similar situations.
That‘s the context. What I really want to delve into is the process of creating 16mm imagery, from shooting to developing, to editing. This is what our rig looked like when I decided to shoot a few months worth of the disposable needles I use to inject. I wanted to create an in camera “split screen” effect. To do that, I covered three quarters of the image plain and shot through my film. Then, I’d rewind and adjust my matte to expose one of the remaining quarters, doing so until I had a complete image. I’ll go a little more into the film stock when I talk about hand development :)
Mar 13, 2025
part 2 of the last post, here is a slightly different approach, i’ve printed my images onto transparent material and am trying to tape them directly to the film. slight problem is the film is slightly irregular so it’s resulted in that white space you can see on the viewing deck…
3d ago
i first bought a film camera at an antique shop last summer and i immediately fell in love with it. despite the cost of film and development, i love it so much more than most cameras. i grew up accidentally collecting cameras from thrift stores and my mom’s friends, including one of the very first popular models of polaroid camera!
when i bought the film, the man who owned the store gave me some free 18-exposure (i think ?) film. when i got the film developed, i realized that there was this blue hue to the photos. i am not sure why and didnt think to google it but for whatever reason, the next set of developed photos had that same hue, but ONLY FOR THE FIRST 8 EXPOSURES
i was so confused but i dont care honestly it looked good while it lasted
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I thought I’d delve a little into the behind the scenes of a personal film I’m working on. I’ve been a type one diabetic for about fifteen years and have become recently obsessed with creating a film about the American medical system. I aim to capture the feeling that the medication that provides you with the ability to exist may one day be taken away, or not covered, or not delivered in time. I deal with the insulin saga every month, and while it may be an extreme example, I think many Americans live in similar situations.
That‘s the context. What I really want to delve into is the process of creating 16mm imagery, from shooting to developing, to editing. This is what our rig looked like when I decided to shoot a few months worth of the disposable needles I use to inject. I wanted to create an in camera “split screen” effect. To do that, I covered three quarters of the image plain and shot through my film. Then, I’d rewind and adjust my matte to expose one of the remaining quarters, doing so until I had a complete image. I’ll go a little more into the film stock when I talk about hand development :)
Mar 13, 2025