Total noob with a couple questions

I'm looking to jump a bit down this rabbit hole and start some dark room work for a little bit of fun. My first project is I want to do some creative rolling with some film. Had a couple of questions about it, though.

1. Every time I see instructions for rolling new film ,they say "total darkness" or use a dark bag. I understand that and I understand the reasons. My question, though, is when I see older TV shows or movies showing activity in a darkroom, it is always done under a red light. Is that just to light the set for TV purposes, or is there some type of illumination (usually I see red) I can have in a room and safely remove and reroll unexposed film?

2. Is there some type of tool I can get that will punch a hole approximating a single sprocket of 35mm film into unsprocketed film?

Thanks. Not entirely sure my efforts will be worthwhile, but I am trying to be creative with tools and cameras.

Redlight doesn't work for film, total darkness only. The only exception is orthochromatic films but they aren't common.

If your film is orthochromatic (blue sensitive), you can expose it for brief periods under a red safelight, but most all emulsions are now panchromatic (sensitive to all wavelengths), so it would entirely fog or ruin the film. Photo paper is largely orthochromatic, so you can use an orange/red light.

The convention of showing a red safelight in darkrooms is simply a visual metaphor that has become embedded in our culture, standing for any form of photographic darkroom environment. Like many conventions, it is only partially correct...

You could cut down strips of photo paper and make a paper negative that can be handled in a red/orange safelight environment, but the backing paper is the deciding factor there; if there is a pattern, it will print through.

35mm perforators are rare and expensive. I have had made a single perf punch for 35mm KS perforations to repair motion picture film perforations in mylar tape, but it cost in the neighborhood of $350 USD and is rather tedious to use.

The machine on the start of this video is a classic, B&H peforator set up for KS perf film. Dead Link Removed

You could spend many hundreds of dollars attempting to make a perfing machine, but should probably just spend that money on pre-perforated film stock. I think you'll be much happier...

If you are truly determined to perforate the stock, you might have a look on Ebay for a Gulllotine 35mm tape splicer for motion picture work. The splicer is intended to make mylar tape splices on polyester film, and has a die-punch matrix that punches clear the tape on 4 to 8 perfs on each side of the film (depending on splicer configuration). You could attempt to build a hand perforator by modifying one of these splicers, but you run a real risk of scratching the emulsion with so much handling and the dies won't last long, as they were not intended to cut film base; just mylar tape.

Film is panchromatic, i.e. sensitive to all colors (unless it's orthochromatic as stated above), so a red light won't work.

However, when you print your negatives, printing paper is not sensitive to red light, so you can use a red, or more commonly amber, safelight.

eharriett said:

My question, though, is when I see older TV shows or movies showing activity in a darkroom, it is always done under a red light. Is that just to light the set for TV purposes, or is there some type of illumination (usually I see red) I can have in a room and safely remove and reroll unexposed film?

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Yes, I have to laugh when I see them in a darkroom, working under a red safelight, and they pull a color photo out of the tray! B&W makes sense but a color print would be fogged. So would normal film.

Red light is for film. How else do you film in the darkroom?

RPC: That reminds me of a meeting many years ago with the Star Trek special effects producer. He was explaining why the Enterprise banked when it turned. In short: people expected it and "its TV not reality". Even reality TV isn't reality!

Thank you for the fast responses. I am glad I asked about the red light.

As for a perforation, I might just see if I can get a very small hole punch or something like it to mimic a sprocket hole for the time being.

eharriett said:

As for a perforation, I might just see if I can get a very small hole punch or something like it to mimic a sprocket hole for the time being.

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I'm not sure what you want to perforate unperforated film for but I bought a single hole punch years ago for something, so such a thing does exist as the ebay link shows.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=single+hole+paper+punch&_sop=15

What are you planning to run the film through? I imagine most machines depend on even sprocket-hole spacing to correctly advance the film. For an art project though you might get some cool results.

BrianShaw said:

RPC: That reminds me of a meeting many years ago with the Star Trek special effects producer. He was explaining why the Enterprise banked when it turned. In short: people expected it and "its TV not reality". Even reality TV isn't reality!

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Banking would probably be a good idea even with artificial gravity. Consider that a good airline pilot can through banking execute a virtually undetectable turn...

What unperforated 35mm material is even available? are you going to perforate 120 film? what for?

eharriett said:

Not entirely sure my efforts will be worthwhile, but I am trying to be creative with tools and cameras.

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See the George Eastman Museum list of workshops at: https://eastman.org/events/Workshops

They will be offering two 35MM MOTION PICTURE FILM MAKING workshops in May