Found: Seattle FilmWorks Film?

[AgX]

The "Free Film" concept. I see.
But that of course makes only sense if one can convince the customer that only oneself can process that film.

 

[ann]

One=of my students recently purchased some. (I will check where) tonight

It was black and white and I was processed in hc110 sol b. Results very nice

 

[abruzzi]

The "Free Film" concept. I see.
But that of course makes only sense if one can convince the customer that only oneself can process that film.

I imagine they got their film cheap—unused cinema ends spoils onto 135 cassettes. Very few places developed that process or were equipped to deal with the remjet without fouling their equipment. Places actively refused to develop ther film, so people were effectively locked in.

 

[Photo Engineer]

They sold that back in the '50s and '60s as well. It was an earlier version of MP film of course, and the Rem Jet still caused problems, but people used it as did I. The slides they produced did not last very long.

PE

 

[Wallendo]

The film wasn’t really “free”. The developing envelope had a box you could check for “no film” and you deduct $2 or $2.50 for 36 exposures. So they were actually selling their weird films for $2 for 20 exposures.

I did the math back in the early 90’s and found it cheaper to avoid the “free” 20 exposure film and buy 24 exposure Kodak or Fuji films.

The lawsuit near the end of their run was due to the fact that they switched to C-41 film and falsely claimed that only they could develop it.

 

[Agulliver]

The lawsuit near the end of their run was due to the fact that they switched to C-41 film and falsely claimed that only they could develop it.

That's interesting, and certainly dishonest of them. When I used them from 97-99 there were specific reasons and I was aware of the provenance of the film. I guess a lot of people would have tried to get their "SFW" films developed elsewhere and encountered problems. I should dig out some negatives from those days and see how they've lasted. I made sure to use up all my SFW film before I moved back to Limey-land but it's not a surprise that there are examples being found.

 

[DWThomas]

[cue Twilight Zone theme ...]

This very afternoon I was going through a supermarket sized bag of old plastic 35mm film canisters that took too much space. I had been saving them for a long time and decided, as part of some de-junkification to pare down the quantity by about 95%. As I got near the bottom of the bag, one canister felt as though it was not empty -- behold -- it contained a roll of SFW 5247 ISO 200!

Who knew? Apparently it missed its trashing a decade or so ago by hiding among the empties.

 

[AgX]

The interesting thing is that it gives the original Kodak designation of the film contained.
The only german version of such offer did the same.

 

[giglaeoplexis]

Greetings,
Last night, I found slides and negatives on that Seattle Filmworks stock. I shot the images in February of 1996. Hadn't looked at them since. I remember shooting only a couple rolls. At the time, I was shooting and developing B&W but wasn't able to process or print colour. Tonight, I scanned the negatives and was a bit confused why the negatives were copies of the slides. I was just eyeing the white balance in the image, just to get a feeling. The colour balance of the negatives is much better than the slides... But, I'll bet, 23 years ago they looked pretty much the same. Both images were scanned using an Epson V550 scanner and EpsonScan software.

 

[AgX]

...was a bit confused why the negatives were copies of the slides.

As you may have understood by now, it is the other way round.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

I used a company in North Hollywood, Identicolor, for quite a few years when I lived in the SF Valley. 5247 was their usual film you could get others. "Slides" were individual frames from Kodak movie print film. Mine taken in the mid 1980's are still just fine.

As movie stock is of much lower contrast than C-41 films, prints were always of low contrast. No way around it.

After I moved back to CO, I discovered RGB Labs, also in LA. They would process C-41 and then "print" slides using the Kodak film meant for that. SO-5022? Beautiful, and of course prints were perfect, too.

A company in - oddly enough - Hollywood, FL, Dale labs also did the SFW thing and the C-41 thing later on. Maybe ten years ago they were still around but hideously expensive.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Isn't Seattle Film Works film is for movie cameras? From what I heard, they buy leftover film stock from movie makers because the ends are too short to run through a camera for a scene. You get slides from negatives because they print the negatives back into a print similar to movie positives. I never shot the stuff. From what I heard, the film stock is thicker because it's movie film and running it through a 35mm still camera is a bit hard on it.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

@Mainecooonmaniac, why would a different film base be harder on a camera? No reason at all.

 

[MattKing]

@Mainecooonmaniac, why would a different film base be harder on a camera? No reason at all.

The polyester based film bases are harder on winding mechanisms - they don't stretch or tear like acetate will - and customers have an infuriating habit of trying to stretch a 36 exposure roll into 37 or 38 shots.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

The polyester based film bases are harder on winding mechanisms - they don't stretch or tear like acetate will - and customers have an infuriating habit of trying to stretch a 36 exposure roll into 37 or 38 shots.

I understand that polyester films don't stretch or tear - which is why they are NOT used in movie cameras. Better the film break than bollix up a hugely complicated and expensive piece of equipment.

And polyester v. acetate doesn't enter into the suggested matter of an alleged thicker base. The fact that millions of feet of movie film have been shot in still cameras indicates that such things are not an issue.

 

[MattKing]

Actually, motion picture film comes on both types of bases. From Eastman Kodak's T12647 data sheet:
BASE
KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Films 5219 and 7219 have an acetate safety base with rem-jet backing.
KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film SO-219 has an ESTAR Safety Base with rem-jet backing.
I've been trying to find information about how thick the substrate is, but so far I haven't been able to.

 

[AgX]

To be fair, the SO version is not mentioned in the Vision3 500T broshure, not even in their pricelist.

It is likely aimed at filmmakers who want their camera-master-negative to be archival. But would they order a batch large enough to be custom made? Or it is made in small batches, but not listed as lacking regular supply.

 

[shutterfinger]

37 or 38 exposurers on a 36 exposure roll is NOT streaching the film. There is enough film on the roll to easily get 37 exposurers or possibly 38 depending on the distance from the cassette to the take up spool of the camera. Mechanical cameras have 2 dots before 1 on the counter, the first dot might have foging but the second will not unless you have pulled a lot of film out for loading. Autoloading cameras use less leader allowing more exposurers per roll. The extra film is there to ensure the number of exposurers printed on the roll for those that wind extra film onto the takeup when loading. I had the film slip on my Yashica TL Electro once from not winding enough film onto the tkeup and I usually got 37 frames per 36 exposure roll. My F4 does it without trying.

 

[dmr]

37 or 38 exposurers on a 36 exposure roll is NOT streaching the film. There is enough film on the roll to easily get 37 exposurers or possibly 38 depending on the distance from the cassette to the take up spool of the camera. Mechanical cameras have 2 dots before 1 on the counter, the first dot might have foging but the second will not unless you have pulled a lot of film out for loading. Autoloading cameras use less leader allowing more exposurers per roll. The extra film is there to ensure the number of exposurers printed on the roll for those that wind extra film onto the takeup when loading. I had the film slip on my Yashica TL Electro once from not winding enough film onto the tkeup and I usually got 37 frames per 36 exposure roll. My F4 does it without trying.

LOL, I've been known to occasionally load the film in the dark bathroom to get that 25th or 37th frame.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

@Mainecooonmaniac, why would a different film base be harder on a camera? No reason at all.

Film for movie cameras have to be more robust. A movie camera can have hundreds of feet of film while 35mm film will only have 6' of film for a 36 exposure roll. Also, Movie film is exposed 24 frames per second while 35mm cameras don't expose film at those frame rates.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Film for movie cameras have to be more robust. A movie camera can have hundreds of feet of film while 35mm film will only have 6' of film for a 36 exposure roll. Also, Movie film is exposed 24 frames per second while 35mm cameras don't expose film at those frame rates.

Still. Makes. No. Sense. Sir.

(That a thicker film base is somehow harder on a still film camera's system.)

 

[Photo Engineer]

I have seen a motion picture camera use a 1000 ft (~300m) roll of movie film in under one minute. I have seen a roll of estar based MP film jam under such conditions and the camera literally exploded with parts scattering over a wide area with great force.

It makes a difference!

PE

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I have seen a motion picture camera use a 1000 ft (~300m) roll of movie film in under one minute. I have seen a roll of estar based MP film jam under such conditions and the camera literally exploded with parts scattering over a wide area with great force.

It makes a difference!

PE

Was it a Mitchell? BTW, do regular 35mm still cameras have problems using movie film stock? Or they're more or less the same.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I don't remember the camera type. It was an ultra high-speed model, and that's about all. MP and still film use different pitch perfs and different shapes. IDK what kind of problem this might cause for either camera, but I am quite certain that still -> MP is worse than MP -> still.

PE

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I don't remember the camera type. It was an ultra high-speed model, and that's about all. MP and still film use different pitch perfs and different shapes. IDK what kind of problem this might cause for either camera, but I am quite certain that still -> MP is worse than MP -> still.

PE

Thanks for your input!