Seattle Film Works Film

braxus

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Im just wondering if anyone can identify the look of the negative of this film from people who have used it. I work at a lab and a customer dropped off one of these rolls for us to develop and I told him we cannot do that type of film here. I explained about the fact it is a motion picture film and that it is used in different chemicals, etc, plus the fact it will ruin our chemistry if put through our machine.

Anyway he claimed it was a C41 film that is in it and I commented if it has been re-rolled film. He said yes, so I felt safe to take the roll and develop it. I noticed the film had a very black looking antihalation layer which was much darker then most C41 films. That got me worried, but I trusted what he said and put it through our machine. Anyway when the film came out, the neg was very dark in color (very dark brown), the images faded in tone (I suspect because it wasn't properly developed), and on the neg itself I noticed green colored numbers (looked like they were added to the film by the Seattle company). The neg markings looked like typical motion picture film with a large set of numbers intersperse on the neg and no company name or type on the neg (also typical of motion picture film). Also the sprockets were rounded in look instead of more square like still camera film. Also there were bits on the neg that were black, and there was staining on the neg. From all this I suspected what he gave me was indeed Seattle Film Works film and he intently I believe lied to me about the film. We almost got into an argument about taking in the film, so he was pushing me to develop it anyway.

Can anyone backup the look of this type of neg to me and confirm I indeed am correct thinking it is motion picture film?
 

JBrunner

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The black antihalation layer is typical of motion picture film. I do not know of any c41 stock that has it, although there may be. This along with your other considerations leads me to suspect that you are correct.
 

David A. Goldfarb

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It used to be Kodak Type 5247.
 

eng1er

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Actually, they switched to C-41 after a time.
 

msage

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braxus
From what you describe, it was motion picture film. That said, Seattle Film Works also sold regular C-41 color film under their brand. The trick is knowing how to tell the difference. Heres how. Pull the leader out and in a small spot on the emulsion side, scrape the emulsion off. I used my pocket knife. It is easy to do. Hold it up to the light, if were you scraped is clear or slightly pink, it is C-41 and can be safely processed C-41. If it is black or dark it is motion picture film. You are seeing the special anti-halation ramjet coating. Try it first on known C-41 unprocessed leaders so you know what to look for. We used this trick for many years and were able to process many rolls and look like heros too our customers. Then too, we knew which rolls to avoid. Remember, the customer is all ways right, but often doesn't know what they are talking about and sometimes will lie to you.

Michael
 

rwyoung

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eng1er said:
Actually, they switched to C-41 after a time.
Click to expand...

Really!?! I thought all they ever did was the crappy short ends stuff with its slightly wierd color shifts and less than stellar keeping qualities.

Did they mark the outside of the cans with "C-41" like reputible processors or did it always have the "Return to Seattle Filmworks" mark so they could overcharge for mediocre film and processing?
 

eng1er

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Nope, it wasn't marked as c-41. They tried to keep the same business model of "the film is free, but we have to process it." See the post above about the trick for distinguishing the films.
 

PhotoJim

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Can't you tell from the perforations? Motion picture perforations are more rounded. Still photography perforations (on 35mm film anyway) are more square.

Seattle Filmworks certainly did sell standard C41 films. They gradually phased out the motion picture films.
 

mfophotos

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This brings back some bad memories. For a while I was using the Seattle Filmworks film, and getting slides and prints. I believe every one of those slides is now faded to uselessness. Live and learn. I should go and look at the sprocket holes.
 

David A. Goldfarb

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mfophotos said:
This brings back some bad memories. For a while I was using the Seattle Filmworks film, and getting slides and prints. I believe every one of those slides is now faded to uselessness. Live and learn. I should go and look at the sprocket holes.
Click to expand...

How are the negatives? The film was probably printed to print film designed for movie projection to make the slides. If the negatives are okay, they could be reprinted.
 

Photo Engineer

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The rem-jet AH backing on motion picture films will ruin your chemistry! It will probably leave a fine black deposit in all negatives run through the process unless the solutions are replaced.

PE
 

nworth

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Photo Engineer said:
The rem-jet AH backing on motion picture films will ruin your chemistry! It will probably leave a fine black deposit in all negatives run through the process unless the solutions are replaced.

PE
Click to expand...

The RemJet backing is basically colloidal carbon in gelatin. It won't ruin the chemistry, but, as PE noted, it is likely to ruin your processing unless it is carefully and completely removed. The stuff is softened and loosened by alkalies, so it is likely to flake off in the developer. Then it may attach itself to the emulsion and cause black spots that prevent proper development of the film. You can remove it from the processing solutions by filtration, but the damage may already be done.

As for Seattle Film Works, they have offered movie film short ends from many manufacturers packaged in 35mm cassettes over the years. You can often tell the manufacturer and film type by examining the edge markings of the processed film. I have had real problems with their processing, however. Generally, it has been poor in quality, and the results have often been unstable.
 

railwayman3

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I remember seeing ads for this in US photo mags here in the UK, and thinking it would be a great idea to have slides and negs from one film.

It wasn't available outside the US, so, with hindsight, that maybe saved me losing pictures by fading.

I've read that, as movie prints were regarded as disposable once they'd been round the cinemas and suffered wear-and-tear, possible fading with age wasnt regarded as a big issue at that time.
 

Photo Engineer

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ECP (Eastman Color Print) film was not noted for stability. The big studios wanted an inexpensive print stock for making distribution prints. So, the big stability work went into the original negative film and the intermediate film, but not into the print film. This kept the price down for the bulk distribution of prints, but means that those of you using the color negative film for getting "slides" will have stability problems.

PE
 

ken472

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I used to use SFW all the time and loved the print and slide option. The local labs always proceesed the same film too in there C-41 without any trouble. I've never heard of anyone have problems like those stated above. i used it to make photos and slides of my wife's watercolor paintings. It was the only film that would pick up the transparen qaulity of the the watercolors and we need slides for entry into competition-Great film.
 

Photo Engineer

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The problems from Rem-jet are well known.

The problems using C41 for ECN (or Vision) films is also well known.

Good luck.

PE
 

srs5694

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A few observations and comments:

  • The shape of the sprocket holes alone tells me that this is motion picture (MP) film; I've only seen the rounded sprocket holes on MP film, never on C-41 film.
  • To the best of my knowledge, SFW ceased distributing MP film in the early- or mid-1990s. They switched to C-41 film, which initially bore a made up process name ("SFW-XL" or something like that), but more recently they've marked their film cartridges with the C-41 process name. The last I checked, they used Ferrania as a supplier. The date of the switchover suggests that the customer mentioned in the first post probably had some very old film. Perhaps said customer was just desperate to get it processed, or perhaps he was confused about what it was -- maybe it was a forgotten roll and he honestly thought it post-dated SFW's switch to C-41. Best to keep Hanlon's Razor in mind: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
  • I've got SFW-produced slides from the mid-1980s, and they're all fine. I've seen claims that the films used to make the slides were markedly improved in the late 1970s or early 1980s, so newer slides are likely to last longer.
  • Negatives of MP films are likely to last a while, if properly stored. Coincidentally, just yesterday I made a print of one that I took in 1986, and my new print is just fine.
 

Photo Engineer

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Yes, the newer generation of ECP was better than the last one, but it was still no champ for image stability!

PE
 

accozzaglia

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Photo Engineer said:
ECP (Eastman Color Print) film was not noted for stability. The big studios wanted an inexpensive print stock for making distribution prints.
Click to expand...

Incidentally, was this the stock used for movie distribution from the early to mid 1980s, particularly 1982? Around 2000, I watched two films at a local cinema midnight matinée (at separate times) whose reels had been in storage (likely since 1982): Tron and, on another evening, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The latter print was so fragile that it snapped once, then it melted on screen (honestly, I thought that stuff only happened in the movies!), summoning an apology and free film passes.

In both instances, these films were heavily magenta-hued, painfully so. Black screens were a deep, ruddy red hue. Sound about right for ECP?
 

Photo Engineer

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I really cannot remember when they changed couplers for better cyan dye stability. I have some clips of ECP and Ektacolor print film that vary in quality from normal to reddish as well. Snapping in the projector is not directly the fault of the film, although the studios want inexpensive film support as well. The snapping is usually caused by a bad projector or projectionist.

I took our grandchildren to see "First Contact" at its opening in 1996, and the film broke in the last scene and burned in the gate! They fixed it and the film continued for the last few minutes. It happens.

PE
 

pauliej

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I have noticed a lot of tv shows and cable movies seem to be dark, overly so IMHO. Live stuff like baseball, foosball, etc seem normally lighted, so I dont think my tv is the problem. Yes, a lot of idiot directors really go for the noir look, smoky, sepia, other wierd colors, rather than focus on the story and characters. Or is it just me? Please be kind. I wont go into the picture issues due to lack of a tripod, that make me so dang dizzy. Just my 2 cents, before taxes...

paulie
 

Bosaiya

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It's a little late, but this may be of interest. The words are not my own, I'm just passing them along.


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The black backing on the antihalation side is a carbon black coating put on to lubricate the film during transportation thru a motion picture camera. In those times they were running 30-60 frames per second. The "Special Process" (ECN-2) was a bath that would change the pH, thus making the carbon soluble, then we ran it thru a spay bath scrubber to wash it off. After that, it was kind of a high bred C-41 .The rounded sprocket holes are for the same reason, to prevent the film from getting stressed too much. It was like a car windshield. Once it is cracked/torn, it goes all the way. The green cast is due to most all films as they age, the magenta (green sensitive) layer deteriates first, thus shifting the negative to green and the positive to magenta. Considering the age, the emulsion should have fallen off in the processor, leaving your customer with a piece of semi- clear plastic, and the rollers in the processor full of gunk.

The details of the edge coding that he is referring to is pretty much gone from my memory banks. It probably says Kodak .... SFW stopped spooling motion pictures film in the mid-90's. Steven Spielberg fucked it all up when he wanted special effects to not have a little cyan/green lines around super imposed figures. Remember the first weather men tried to super impose themselves in front of the weather map? They had that little line around them. That was because the 3-RGB layers of film were sensitive to the same wave lengths at the end of each color spectrum, thus you could see the cross over. Anyway the film industry change their blend to stop this crossover and created film that was too specific to spool and give to any ol soccer mom to shot it any where.

Your customer should have developed the film about 15 years ago.

So, there is a bunch of pretty much useless technical data for you. A side note is that Hollywood still uses the film to some degree. Alpha-Cine is a MoPic lab that has been in Seattle for years and is still doing movie processing.
 
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