Snatched from the streets of San Diego in late March 2016 by a group of masked assailants, Diz has been spending some time at EMULSIVE HQ (voluntarily) working on a guest post covering his process for developing motion picture film at home.

If you’ve ever thought about shooting and developing your own motion picture stock (such as the wonderful Kodak Vision3 250D), this is your chance to not only learn how but to see how simple the process is.

Busting myths and soon to be busting out of EMULSIVE HQ, it’s over to Diz for his how-to.

Here we go!

 

 

Developing motion picture film in your own darkroom

Kodak 50D (5203) – C41 cross process bleach bypass – Red Red Red
Kodak 50D (5203) – C41 cross process bleach bypass – Red Red Red

Spurred on by the “encouragement” of EMULSIVE, I have finally written up my version of how to develop movie film stock at home. It isn’t very different from developing other color films at home except for the removal of a layer of material on the film.

Most color motion picture stocks have a protective layer called remjet. This remjet layer exists primarily for two reasons I am aware of — combating anti-static discharge as the film passes through the cinema camera at speed, and preventing halation effects. It is dealing with this layer in development that puts off most people from developing motion picture film stock at home, but really, it isn’t that bad.

NOTE: You have to realize, that if I can do this, then pretty much anyone else can do it — probably even better.

Other than that, be warned: there isn’t a large amount of new information to be had here, but you will hopefully get an insight into my thought process as I walk you through my steps.

Here are a few examples to when your appetite before we jump in:

Kodak 500T (5219) – C41 cross process – Can’t Wait in the Waiting Room
Kodak 500T (5219) – C41 cross process – Can’t Wait in the Waiting Room
Kodak 50D (5203) – C41 cross process – Yellow and Green
Kodak 50D (5203) – C41 cross process – Yellow and Green

Have I got your attention?

Let’s get stuck in.

 

 

Prerequisites

Kodak 50D (5203) – ECN2 homebrew developer – Mr. Easy Going
Kodak 50D (5203) – ECN2 homebrew developer – Mr. Easy Going

First and foremost, I am already assuming the following:

  1. That you already know how to develop color film at home with home kits and how to mix them.
  2. That you already know how to bulk roll 35mm film. NOTE: If you want to be a big boy, see EMULSIVE’s latest article on how to bulk roll 120/220 film here!!! Once you wrap your head around that, the following steps are the same.

All set?

 

Let’s go.

 

 

Preparing the film

Kodak 50D (5203) – ECN2 homebrew developer – A Leaf
Kodak 50D (5203) – ECN2 homebrew developer – A Leaf

You can buy bulk loaded movie file in 35mm format from various dark corners of the Internet. If you’re like me and want to roll your own, the first thing will be for you to order yourself up a massive roll of movie film stock in whatever format size you want.

You can find offerings out there from 100ft, 400ft, to up to 1000ft reels. For 35mm film, most bulk loaders have a maximum capacity of 100ft, so you’ll have to find a way to break up the larger reels into workable lengths.

I do this in a light tight room that offers a large workspace, though it is possible to do this in a dark bag. How do you know when you’ve reached 100ft? One hint is to find a take up reel that fits into your bulk loader. At least that will get you in the right neighborhood without over shooting the maximum length and finding out later that it won’t fit into your loader.

Yes, you can get carried away as your mind zones out during this portion. I have rigged up a platform with two Lazy Susans to help with my productivity for this step.

Got your film ready? Great. Now go ahead and re-spool them into cartridges and go out into the wild and shoot a roll, or two, or however many will satisfy your hunger.

I’ll wait.

 

 

Development steps

Kodak 250D (5207) – C41 cross process – Crawling Palm Tree
Kodak 250D (5207) – C41 cross process – Crawling Palm Tree

Back already? Got the film loaded into your portable developing tank?

Ok, now the fun begins, but before we start, I will mention this: I have tried several methods that others have recommended on how and when to remove the remjet layer during the developing process. All of them work, but here is what I have found to work out best for me.

I’ll be going through the following five main steps belowe:

  • Pre-soak
  • Alkaline pre-bath
  • Development
  • Remjet removal
  • Stabilizing

 

Here we go:

 

Preparation – Pre-soak and alkaline pre-bath

  • Bring a large, half-filled pot of water to the boil and then turn off your stove. I’ll come back to this in later steps.
  • Pre-soak the film in ~100F water for as long as it takes you to mix up the alkaline pre-bath as follows:
    • Take 500mL of water and heat up to about 140F. I do this in a microwave. It takes 1min and 20 secs for mine.
    • Mix in four heaped teaspoons of washing soda and two teaspoons of baking soda in that specific order and stir until fully dissolved. If you have these steps reversed, the baking soda will clump and become harder to dissolve. I deduced this recipe from what I read on Kodak’s published ECN-2 document (easily found on the web).
  • Pour out the pre-soak bath from the tank and pour in the alkaline pre-bath. I pass it through a fine wire mesh medical strainer, but a coffee filter should work fine. This is to prevent unwanted solids entering the bath and embedding themselves into the emulsion side of the film.
  • Set a timer and let this soak for 7 minutes. (Well, I use 7 minutes)
  • Take the bottles of your developer, bleach, fix, stopper, etc. and place them into that once boiled pot I told you to prepare at the top of the previous section. Don’t forget to partially open the lids to prevent pressure build up.
  • Drop a thermometer in the developer bottle so that you can monitor it’s progress up to 102F (for C41 chemistry) or 106F (for ECN2 chemistry).
  • At the 7 minute mark (from above), the chemistry temps should still be climbing. This is where you start shaking and rinsing the film in the tank for the next 3 minutes or so. I usually vigorously shake for 20 seconds or so, dump the water, then refill from running warm tap water (~100F). Repeat until the water you are dumping out is clear — no discoloration or suds whatsoever.
  • If, by this time, the chemistry still hasn’t reached the proper temps, keep the film soaked in warm water. This is important as you don’t want any possible floating particles to embed itself on the emulsion side. Don’t ever leave the tank dry for too long!

 

Development

  • Once the chemistry has reached the appropriate temps, go ahead and dive right into developing but — this is important — STOP SHORT OF THE STABILIZING / WETTING AGENT STEP!NOTE: I continue to use the strainer when pouring chemicals in and out of their bottles, just in case new particles work themselves loose.
  • Ok, are you there yet? Good. This is where I open up the tank to take the negative strip off the reel, and hang it up on clips. It will just be a bit “dingy” as the remjet is still on the film. Take care not to touch the emulsion side when you hang the negs.
  • After hanging, take a microfiber cloth soaked in luke warm water, and holding the negative taught, wipe of the remjet using single passes along the full length of the remjet side. Don’t ever touch the emulsion side. Repeat this process with a clean portion of the cloth until you see no more remjet residue being transferred to the cloth. For good measure, I will hang the negative strip from the other end to get rid of the remjet portion that is covered by the clips. This takes no more than one minute once you find your rhythm.
  • Now, take a clean dry reel and reload the negative strip, then place into the tank.
  • Proceed with your normal stabilizer or wetting agent steps and hang to dry as you’ve always done.
  • If reloading onto the reel is too much effort, you could hold both ends of the negative and bathe it in a big enough container tray for the time needed.

 

That’s it! That’s how I do it. Really simple for me after tweaking my workflow to what I have described above.

Tips

Fuji’s remjet comes off much more readily than Kodak’s. It usually doesn’t take me more than one wipe with hardly anything coming off onto the cloth. It also leaves your reels very clean.

For those of us who love Kodak’s movie film, their remjet is a bit more stubborn. You will have to clean off your reels. For this, I use dishwashing liquid and a toothbrush in warm water.

You really don’t need an alkaline bath to remove the remjet, but just be aware that there is more of a mess to clean off the reels, and more wiping necessary with the microfiber cloth. I recommend an alkaline bath to make your life easier.

I’ve tried the remjet removal process after the bleach and fix steps. This works, too, but I prefer to just get it out of the way in the beginning where I can just focus on the rest of the process.

There are many different alkaline bath recipes out there. Some folks just use borax or baking soda. That works fine, too, but I have been getting better results with the mix I described in my steps. Your mileage may vary. Whatever you do, don’t take any shortcuts during the alkaline pre-bath and shake/rinse process. This is the most important phase in my view.

Did I already mention not to leave the tank dry for too long at any time during the entire process to prevent floating particles getting embedded onto the emulsion side? [EMULSIVE: Yes you did, Diz]

 

 

Final thoughts

Why go to the trouble when you can buy pre-rolled stock on eBay or Cinestill branded products? Well, my primary reason was to figure out a way to save money when I first started shooting film.

It really is very cost effective if you do this all in-house. Costs have come down to about $1.75 – $2.50 per roll for me.

Plus, I’m not such a big fan of the halation effects if you buy this film with the remjet already removed prior to shooting. Sure, it’s good for some projects, but not for everything.

 

 

Credits, shout outs and messages of love

Last, but not least, I have to give credit to the crew at the Film Photography Project, Dominic Remane (@Wakingmist on Twitter), Larry (inetjoker on Flickr), and the rest of the forum participants in the I Shoot Kodak Vision Films and I Shoot Movie Films forums on Flickr for all the help during my journey in getting this all figured out.

A wealth of information there folks. I’m sure there are a few more I have forgotten to mention.

Maybe next time I’ll talk about developing this film stock in BW chemistry or talk about my journey in mixing up ECN2 chemistry at home. Speaking of which…

 

More samples

Kodak 250D (5207) - EC2N homebrew developer - Ankle Slapper Tides
Kodak 250D (5207) – EC2N homebrew developer – Ankle Slapper Tides
Kodak 50D - EC2N homebrew developer - (5203) - 13th Chair
Kodak 50D – EC2N homebrew developer – (5203) – 13th Chair
Kodak 250D (5207) - BW chemistry - Two Hearts
Kodak 250D (5207) – BW chemistry – Two Hearts
Kodak 50D (5203) – ECN2 homebrew developer – Missing Stones
Kodak 50D (5203) – ECN2 homebrew developer – Missing Stones
Fuji Reala 500D (8692) - BW chemistry - Foxtails
Fuji Reala 500D (8692) – BW chemistry – Foxtails

 

~ Diz

 


 

…and with that, his bond has been released and Diz has once again been released into his natural habitat. Hopefully it won’t take another kidnapping to read his thoughts on black and white development of color motion picture film stocks, or homebrew ECN2 chemistry…but you never know.

Please grab some time with Diz via Twitter or his website, or if you want to learn a bit more about the man himself first, why not check out his 2015 EMULSIVE interview?

 

Share your knowledge, story or project

The transfer of knowledge across the film photography community is the heart of EMULSIVE. You can add your support by contributing your thoughts, work, experiences and ideas to inspire the hundreds of thousands of people who read these pages each month. Check out the submission guide here.

If you like what you’re reading you can also help this passion project by heading over to the EMULSIVE Patreon page and contributing as little as a dollar a month. There’s also print and apparel over at Society 6, currently showcasing over two dozen t-shirt designs and over a dozen unique photographs available for purchase.

 

Similar stuff on EMULSIVE

33 responses to “Developing motion picture film in your own darkroom”

  1. @dizd Beautiful, beautiful shots! But my pro tip: Forget the bulk loader! Lock yourself in the bathro… https://t.co/x8BtEBNZ9d

  2. @dizd Beautiful, beautiful shots! But my pro tip: Forget the bulk loader! Lock yourself in the bathro… https://t.co/x8BtEBNZ9d

  3. Hi! really nice article and pics! thanks a lot! just one question, steps are the same to get B&W pictures? I mean, first the pre-treatment and then the normal processing? and after that the removal of the remjet and so on? I´d shot some Fuji Eterna 500T and I´d like to try one of them as B&W.

  4. Hi! really nice article and pics! thanks a lot! just one question, steps are the same to get B&W pictures? I mean, first the pre-treatment and then the normal processing? and after that the removal of the remjet and so on? I´d shot some Fuji Eterna 500T and I´d like to try one of them as B&W.

  5. About your homebrew ECN-2… Do you get the raw elements and compounds to actually recreate the ECN-2 chemistry as per Kodak’s listed recommendations? Do you adapt C-41 by adding any chemistry into it? If do you just use C-41 at a different temperature?

    Your photos seem to come out exceptionally well with very little, if any, color distortion which is amazing considering that ECN-2 uses CD-3 instead of CD-2 and different compounds and elements in the chemistry than in C-41. Most examples I’ve seen, even of the Daylight films, come out heavily distorted when cross processed?

    Also if a person used a flexicolor not (C-41 that can be used at alternate temperatures and not just 102-103°F) you you think, or have you tried, developing at alternative time/temp options. My Rollei Digibase out that I had seemed to yield better and more consistent results at 77F than at 102-103 with less temperature drop/shift during process.

    1. I think you mean C-41 uses CD-4.

    2. Hi, sorry for the late reply. Further down in the comments, I added some info. Hope you find it useful!

  6. Gorgeous photos Diz!

  7. Gorgeous photos Diz!

    1. Late reply from me, but thank you so much, Monika!

  8. that was great, thanks EM and @dizd

  9. I tried this three times using Unicolot’s C-41 Press kit and every time I get to the Stabilizer and open the canister, my film is blank, except for some very slight remjet streaks. Guess I’ll do the Alkaline portion after the Blix.

    1. Interesting. Never happened to me. Can you tell me more? Have you dev’d other films with that same batch of developer? How many rolls have been developed with that batch? Have you tried another camera? Looking forward to see if your results applying the alkaline bath after blix will be different.

      I’ve soaked in alkaline bath up to 10min before and never had blank negs as a result.

      1. I thought it was my C-41 chemicals, having made the batch 6 months earlier. So with a fresh batch, tried it again and same result, after pre-wash, Alkali, developer and blix, i pullled out the reels and they were clean and clear. I then loaded a test strip of color film in a tank and using the same, just used, chemicals in their respective beakers successfully developed the test strip. The test strip was shot in the same camera as the Vision film. I used the ingredients listed in the post and mixed in the same quantities and temp. Weird. Great article, btw.

  10. Nice article, thanks!
    Love the photos posted too…very nice.

  11. Nice article, thanks!
    Love the photos posted too…very nice.

  12. Hi Ricardo, here’s a link to the Kodak PDF document that has the formulas. https://www.kodak.com/uploadedfiles/motion/h2407.pdf.

    You don’t need every single ingredient. I obtained them from Photographer’s Formulary and Artcraft in the USA. Anything else I could not get, I just didn’t use. Good luck! It really is worth it. You can also Google up ECN2 chemicals in the APUG forums and you will find more information there as well!

    1. do you still have the pdf from kodak? unfortunately this link don’t work 🙁

  13. Ricardo Blanche Flores Avatar
    Ricardo Blanche Flores

    nice post, i have tried myself developing 250D and 500T with mixed results, i think it’s a matter of experimentation. you mention a home brewed ECN2 developer, would you be kind to pass the formula?

    1. Hi Ricardo, in case you didn’t see my reply, look above your post. 🙂

  14. By the way, splendid photography from the good Diz here! 🙂

    1. Thanks, Jonas! I get lucky once in awhile. 🙂

  15. Another tip for when you’re in a sticky situation…. (oh, I crack myself up!)

    Yeah, well if your reels and or film aren’t bone dry you’ll sooner rather than later embark on troubled waters.
    What I’ve done in those situations is restarting the loading in a tub of water. That way everything is equally wet and it won’t stick! You could say that you’d have a fluid loading experience and eh… smooth sailing and all that. Haha I think I’m out of relevant witty phrases for now 😉

    But yeah, if you can -go under water. Much faster than trying to dry up everything 🙂

    1. A great tip here! I will have to try this one. 🙂

  16. Another tip for when you’re in a sticky situation…. (oh, I crack myself up!)

    Yeah, well if your reels and or film aren’t bone dry you’ll sooner rather than later embark on troubled waters.
    What I’ve done in those situations is restarting the loading in a tub of water. That way everything is equally wet and it won’t stick! You could say that you’d have a fluid loading experience and eh… smooth sailing and all that. Haha I think I’m out of relevant witty phrases for now 😉

    But yeah, if you can -go under water. Much faster than trying to dry up everything 🙂

    1. A great tip here! I will have to try this one. 🙂

 

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from EMULSIVE

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Discover more from EMULSIVE

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading