Richardson Leao Posted May 8, 2008 Share Posted May 8, 2008 Dear all, I found this in the apug.org forum. This is a machine build by a dude in australia to coat photo film. I have been experimenting with home-made film and my coating process is rather primitive but this guy took it to another level: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dark_orange/s...57603226919391/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Site Sponsor Robert Houllahan Posted May 9, 2008 Site Sponsor Share Posted May 9, 2008 OK.. Long after the dinosaur goop has become scarce, making a gallon of gas $467.00 and a Mini-DV tape $1596.00 people will be using film. Bitchin!!! -Rob- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted May 10, 2008 Premium Member Share Posted May 10, 2008 > dinosaur goop What d'you think film base is made of... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Venhaus Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 That machine is awesome! Last I heard, acetate film base was made from a cellulose source like tree/wood-pulp or cotton linters, no petro-chemicals (or dinosaur goop) involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richardson Leao Posted May 12, 2008 Author Share Posted May 12, 2008 That machine is awesome! Last I heard, acetate film base was made from a cellulose source like tree/wood-pulp or cotton linters, no petro-chemicals (or dinosaur goop) involved. i think the base is normal acetate. I am waiting for filmotec (orwo) to reply to see if the sell clear acetate leader precoated with transparent gelatine as photo emulsion does not stick properly to normal uncoated film leader. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Site Sponsor Robert Houllahan Posted May 12, 2008 Site Sponsor Share Posted May 12, 2008 > dinosaur goop What d'you think film base is made of... I think it's made from triacetate, like from cotton or wood pulp. there are companies that make triacetate for other applications than film just google triacetate then you just need to slit and perf it after applying some emulsion... -Rob- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K Borowski Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 Don't forget you need to get one side of the film base "subbed" so that emulsion will stick to it and it won't flake off when it dries. I know Kodak can do it. You'll probably need to buy their triacetate from them and have them sub it for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Site Sponsor Robert Houllahan Posted May 14, 2008 Site Sponsor Share Posted May 14, 2008 Don't forget you need to get one side of the film base "subbed" so that emulsion will stick to it and it won't flake off when it dries. I know Kodak can do it. You'll probably need to buy their triacetate from them and have them sub it for you. Well for now I am quite happy buying their triacetate with emulsion applied and packed in 100', 400' and 1000' cans... :rolleyes: But if society collapses...... -Rob- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K Borowski Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 Well for now I am quite happy buying their triacetate with emulsion applied and packed in 100', 400' and 1000' cans... :rolleyes: But if society collapses...... -Rob- Here here Rob. It was a rhetorical answer. It's not as if anyone is going to take that machine and formulate their own Vision3 with it. At best one'd be able to make some vintage-looking film like some old silent-era film or at best a VERY slow VERY primitive color stock like the orignal Eastmancolor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Michael Lehnert Posted May 14, 2008 Premium Member Share Posted May 14, 2008 I am waiting for filmotec (orwo) to reply to see if the sell clear acetate leader precoated with transparent gelatine as photo emulsion does not stick properly to normal uncoated film leader. Filmotec is selling you anything they can, including their former Berlin Wall patrol dogs and ex-communist engineers. Lately, they built a new Super 8 cartridge for GK-Film that is - well - almost similar to Kodak's design, just fails to transport the film at all. Me, I am back to my garage, finalising a revolutionary new engine design: a motorcar engine that runs ... tata... on leaded petrol! Finally a way to avoid unleaded and diesel that became so expensive... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Paul Bruening Posted May 14, 2008 Premium Member Share Posted May 14, 2008 It is interesting. But, I can't see how it is that useful. If it's one of those collapse of civilization things, he won't be able to get the basic materials. You can't grow plastic in a garden, after all. If the guy wants custom emulsions, then, okay, I can see the artistic validity in that. Even so, what can he get that can't be emulated in DI post off of commercially produced film? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K Borowski Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 It is interesting. But, I can't see how it is that useful. If it's one of those collapse of civilization things, he won't be able to get the basic materials. You can't grow plastic in a garden, after all. If the guy wants custom emulsions, then, okay, I can see the artistic validity in that. Even so, what can he get that can't be emulated in DI post off of commercially produced film? So you're advocating DI over actual vintage techniques in every situation? There are people that still shoot Daguerrotypes, should they all just buy DSLRs and use a photoshop plugin instead? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leo Anthony Vale Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 Even so, what can he get that can't be emulated in DI post off of commercially produced film? A double sided print film for making Cinecolor type prints. Attempts to duplicate the look on DI (The Aviator) have been quite unsuccessful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Site Sponsor Robert Houllahan Posted May 14, 2008 Site Sponsor Share Posted May 14, 2008 Realistically I think this is interesting because it shows that the basic tools for making photographic emulsion are within reach to a DIY type, this implies that a small company could setup a production line for film that does not necessarily rely on a multi-billion dollar megalith corporation to be successful. Also I can only imagine that human ability to manipulate materials with Nano and Bio technology will grow to a point where an artist would be able to make film in possibly every different emulsion Kodak or Fuji had made, maybe the recipes would be available by download. -Rob- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Michael Lehnert Posted May 14, 2008 Premium Member Share Posted May 14, 2008 An intriguing and not too sci-fi-like point you make, Rob. It would have been great to read John Pytlak's angle on this subject matter. I think, however, that one should not get too caried away by the "democratisation" possibility of emulsion-making. Sure, mixing & applying chemical recipes isn't the most complex and unattainable thing on this planet, but it ain't baking muffins from grandma's recipe book either. Such DIY autarcy hopes come up regularly, especially from the amateur end of filmmaking (super 8 shooters seem to invite this mindset, including the "end of civilisation" discourse around K-40 or the Kodapak cartridge or S8 cameras or whatever else they might ever need), but I would say that there is an enormous R&D effort and know-how involved in producing film emulsion of the quality level of Eastmancolor, let alone EXR or the Vision-family that could not be reproduced even with attainable access to biomolecular or nanotechnological lab gear. Although it might be possible to produce DIY film stock that will result in visible depictions of what got filmed - surely of great artistic aesthetics and possibly reproducing early historic emulsion compositions - I doubt that a competitor to Kodak or Fuji will spring up from nowhere thanks to that anytime soon. If we look at the problems established photochemical companies like Svema, Orwo/Filmotec and whatever is left in the former Soviet Union territories have right now, with all the money and existing machinery and greatly underrated engineering talent, I don't see any legitimacy in looking for the next George Eastman, Charles Pathé, William Friese-Greene or Edwin Land in the garage down your driveway. As I said, GK-Film just tried to (mass-)produce a slightly altered S8 cartridge with Filmotec, and has so far not only sunk enormous amounts of money, but produced no working protoype after years of design and modelling. So much for the claim that the Kodapak is just a piece of badly designed plastic pieces everyone could at least copy, let alone better. So let's not get carried away here... :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member John Sprung Posted May 14, 2008 Premium Member Share Posted May 14, 2008 A double sided print film for making Cinecolor type prints. Attempts to duplicate the look on DI (The Aviator) have been quite unsuccessful. I'm not sure it's really so much that they couldn't duplicate the look, more likely they could, but it's just too scary for a major feature. Two color stuff looks very very strange. What they did on Aviator sort of hinted in that direction, it didn't look like real two color. I wonder if the coating machine could handle pre-perforated film. Starting with the film already slit and perforated would be easier as a DIY method, it's only for mass production that coating it on rolls 54" wide is advantageous. -- J.S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Michael Lehnert Posted May 14, 2008 Premium Member Share Posted May 14, 2008 Actually, if we look at various companies that successfully package photo emulsions or 16/35mm cine-film emulsion into the Super 8 cartridge in small quantities (like Pro8mm or Kahl or Filmotec for Velvia/Cinevia), then we can notice that they do all the perforating, spliting and cartridge-threading in their own premises out of originally-supplied raw film reels. So it seems to be the other way round: the mechanical packging production steps could be done DIY-wise with relative ease, whereas the more problematic part would be to get a decent emulsion onto the base, make it stay there and have it react in a cinematically meaningful way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Site Sponsor Robert Houllahan Posted May 15, 2008 Site Sponsor Share Posted May 15, 2008 So it seems to be the other way round: the mechanical packging production steps could be done DIY-wise with relative ease, whereas the more problematic part would be to get a decent emulsion onto the base, make it stay there and have it react in a cinematically meaningful way. This is absolutely true, I have a set of B&H perforator machines at Cinelab and a Slitter too, they are precision mechanical instruments like a milling machine or lathe but not exotic. Perhaps on the DIY nanbot laid emulsion I am letting my imagination run away a little bit :lol: I used to work at an exotic materials company after I got out of NYU and I ran the electron microscope, etc.. modern film emulsion is exotic stuff for sure but who knows what will come about in the next fifty years. I am sure that a laser based stereolithography machine would have shocked the crap out of a 1950's engineer and now even small companies and individuals can buy one.... Imagination is fun... -Rob- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K Borowski Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 Well keep in mind guys that they coat film in 40- or 50 inch rolls over at Kodak to better deal with irregularities in coating. From what I hear, it'd be nearly impossible to get consistancy in something as narrow as 35mm film. Why wouldn't it be as simple as a recipe for muffins? That's basically as complicated as the early B&W films got. Now color is another beast entirely. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richardson Leao Posted May 15, 2008 Author Share Posted May 15, 2008 Hey Michael, love the job you're doing to mother earth (resurrecting the leaded car)... btw, there are other reasons to do film at home more than commerce. I made some film from silver extracted from some litters of old fixer I had (I have an old post about it) and yes, it's ugly and it's ASA 5 or 10 and it's uneven but, I made it... and from waste... Anyway, i actually have a question for you, was it filmotec that was making that 'gk' cartridge? I thought that they'd do only the film that went inside it. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Michael Lehnert Posted May 15, 2008 Premium Member Share Posted May 15, 2008 Hey Michael, love the job you're doing to mother earth (resurrecting the leaded car)... The Day after Tomorrow is very much an inspiration for my own green agenda! (just kiddin', of course) Anyway, i actually have a question for you, was it filmotec that was making that 'gk' cartridge? I thought that they'd do only the film that went inside it. Thanks! Actually, neither of both points is fully correct ;) . The idea and original design for the GK-Film Precision Cartridge is Gottfried Klose's work. The Cinevia film stock inside is supplied by Fuji Film of Japan (not German ops). That gets delivered to Filmotec (ex-Orwo) where they are responsible for slitting and perforating the film into Super 8, threading it onto the cartridge cores, putting it into the cartridge halves, and assembling the cartridge parts. As regards shrink-wrapping the cartridges and packaging it into paper boxes, I have no certain info about where that is done. It would make sense for Filmotec to do the shrinkwrapping straight-away after assembly to avoid contamination by dust or whatever. But Klose once stated that "...packaging..." is done at a third company who in turn gets the printed packaging material from a fourth company involved. Due to Filmotec's key involvement in threading the film into the GK-Film Precision Cartridge and assembling it, they do cooperate with Klose on designing the cartridge. I think they would not be pleased to get a great film transportation design on paper from Klose that they find is unusable for them when it comes to actually getting the film in. Where the punch press and injection moulder is located that actually make the cartridge parts is unclear to me. I have two different sources, one saying it's in Klose's hobby cellar, the other saying it has been outsourced to a fifth company. To keep up-to-date with developments of the GK-Film project, go to this thread here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member John Sprung Posted May 15, 2008 Premium Member Share Posted May 15, 2008 I have a set of B&H perforator machines at Cinelab and a Slitter too, .... Wow. What do you use them for? How much use do they get? What are the maintenance/sharpening issues? Was Mel Brooks right when he said that the hardest part of making "Young Frankenstein" was punching all the holes in the edges? ;-) -- J.S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Site Sponsor Robert Houllahan Posted May 15, 2008 Site Sponsor Share Posted May 15, 2008 Wow. What do you use them for? How much use do they get? What are the maintenance/sharpening issues? Was Mel Brooks right when he said that the hardest part of making "Young Frankenstein" was punching all the holes in the edges? ;-) -- J.S. They are not being used, they are just in the back room. There are already two companies making Super-8 film and we are not exclusively a Super-8 shop as we do 35mm and 16mm projects as well. Maybe someday we will have the time/staff to stuff S8 carts.. until then... -Rob- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member John Sprung Posted May 16, 2008 Premium Member Share Posted May 16, 2008 Maybe someday we will have the time/staff to stuff S8 carts.. Ah, so they're for S-8. "B&H" lead me to think they were punching the kind of Bell & Howell holes used in 35 and 65/70. Thanks -- -- J.S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Site Sponsor Robert Houllahan Posted May 16, 2008 Site Sponsor Share Posted May 16, 2008 Ah, so they're for S-8. "B&H" lead me to think they were punching the kind of Bell & Howell holes used in 35 and 65/70. Thanks -- -- J.S. They are made by Bell&Howell, they have 8mm, 16mm and 35mm punches/movements which are interchangeable... -Rob- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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