[jtkratzer]

Found a roll from who knows when, likely came in the bottle of a bag from an eBay purchase. Never heard of it and didn't bother looking it up. Turns out it has a specific processing - SFX-XL. What will happen running it through C41? I've read this stuff didn't have a long shelf life. No idea how it was stored and the fact Seattle FilmWorks changed names around 1999, little to no optimism about how this roll turns out, but would like to see. There are a few places that still do SFW-XL, just wondering if it's even worth the money or if a local C-41 spot would give me something weird in an unusual cross processing. Any thoughts or ideas?

[Tony Belding]

Wow, it's been a long time since I heard of Seattle FilmWorks. My understanding is that they took 35mm cinema film and re-spooled it into 135 format cartridges. I tried shooting the stuff one time, and the results were pretty dire to my eyes: muddy and brown. And that was when it was fresh.

I don't mean to discourage you, though. You might get a very grindy look out of it, and then process the scans with LR and turn it into something interesting. I tried it back in the film days and had no options for adjusting the prints I received then.

[MikeW]

Wow, it's been a long time since I heard of Seattle FilmWorks. My understanding is that they took 35mm cinema film and re-spooled it into 135 format cartridges. I tried shooting the stuff one time, and the results were pretty dire to my eyes: muddy and brown. And that was when it was fresh.

I don't mean to discourage you, though. You might get a very grindy look out of it, and then process the scans with LR and turn it into something interesting. I tried it back in the film days and had no options for adjusting the prints I received then.

Yes, that is my recollection of it as well. It was said to have a black(?) backing on it so that it wouldn't scratch in cinema cameras. A special treatment was needed to remove that when it was processed. Go for it, though. What do you have to lose other than the cost of processing?

[Swift1]

Found a roll from who knows when, likely came in the bottle of a bag from an eBay purchase. Never heard of it and didn't bother looking it up. Turns out it has a specific processing - SFX-XL. What will happen running it through C41? I've read this stuff didn't have a long shelf life. No idea how it was stored and the fact Seattle FilmWorks changed names around 1999, little to no optimism about how this roll turns out, but would like to see. There are a few places that still do SFW-XL, just wondering if it's even worth the money or if a local C-41 spot would give me something weird in an unusual cross processing. Any thoughts or ideas?

I don't think you can develop that film. IIRC it has a remjet backing and running it through C41 will ruin the chemistry.

[mechmike10]

I used it a few times. The big selling point was you could get slides and prints form the same roll without going through a conversion process. According to Wikipedia, it has been out of business for some time.(Seattle FilmWorks - Wikipedia). According to Wikipedia, later film SFW film was C-41 compatible. Read the wiki.

[jtkratzer]

I don't think you can develop that film. IIRC it has a remjet backing and running it through C41 will ruin the chemistry.

If this place is still in business, they say they process it on their site: Seattle Filmworks Processing at The Camera Shop

[E-man]

Yeah, I remember seeing ads for the stuff. I seem to remember they had some sort of gimmick offer where they were practically giving the film away but you had to send it back to them for special processing, which turned out to be frightfully expensive, even if you did end up with both slides and prints.

[Not a Number]

I used to buy film from them in the early 80s until a couple local labs started to process the same film.

They used Kodak 5247 with the carbon black backing. The selling point was you can get prints and slides without the contrast build up of either using reversal print paper or inter-negatives. The results I found were acceptable. The problem was the stability of the slides - the cyan layer fades out rapidly as did Eastman Color film prints. Most likely the were using the materials.

The remjet backing is used for antihalation purposes to keep light from reflecting off the film backing back into the emulsion and reducing sharpness.

The negatives hold up though.

You could process them at home but because of the carbon backing it isn't advisable to reuse the chemicals. The carbon backing you scrubbed off with your thumb, a sponge or a squeegee during the rinse. I would run my used chemicals through filter paper. The carbon stays put until you physically scrub it.

[BigDave]

Seattle Film works took short rolls of Cinema films and respooled them for 35mm still photography. When shooting motion pictures, if you got down to 50 feet or less, you really did not want to start shooting a scene. The last thing you want to do is run out of film in the middle of it. So, the short roll was taken out of the camera magazine and a new roll (also known as a pancake,as the roll of film was quite large) would be loaded into the magazine and then they would shoot the scene. So what do you do with 50 feet or less of film? Sell it to Seattle Film works for a pittance and then they convert it and sell it/use it for still photography. As the film crew was shooting negative film, the film we shot in our 35mm cameras was always negative film.

However, motion picture color negative film was not like your typical Portriga or Kodacolor film. Cinema negative films are designed to be used to make positive prints to show in the theaters, so they had the special emulsions and treatments (like the black backing layer) which would mess up a normal C-41 film processing machine (the later films pretty much used C-41 chemistry). That's why you had to send the film back to Seattle Film works to be processed. A cinema film processing lab could have processed it, but they were not set up to do short (6 foot/36 exposure) rolls of film.

When the movie negative was ready, after all the editing, etc., the negative would be printed onto another reversal film to become a positive, the film shown in the movie houses. Multiple prints could be made from the negative. That reversal film would be a special emulsion to give a true positive image (clear areas for white, Red areas for Red, etc.). Likewise, there would be short rolls of the Print Film which SFW would also take in and use to give you the "slides". Truthfully, I do not think the movie Print was designed to last too long, which explains the short life of the "slides" from SFW. The movie house would just get another print. Think of it, how long did the movie run, maybe a month? And if it ran longer, they would get more than one Print of the film.

But as Hollywood used less and less film, and so did we, the need for SFW was less and less. I am not surprised it no longer exists. Another door closes!

Regards,

[jtkratzer]

Seattle Film works took short rolls of Cinema films and respooled them for 35mm still photography. When shooting motion pictures, if you got down to 50 feet or less, you really did not want to start shooting a scene. The last thing you want to do is run out of film in the middle of it. So, the short roll was taken out of the camera magazine and a new roll (also known as a pancake,as the roll of film was quite large) would be loaded into the magazine and then they would shoot the scene. So what do you do with 50 feet or less of film? Sell it to Seattle Film works for a pittance and then they convert it and sell it/use it for still photography. As the film crew was shooting negative film, the film we shot in our 35mm cameras was always negative film.

However, motion picture color negative film was not like your typical Portriga or Kodacolor film. Cinema negative films are designed to be used to make positive prints to show in the theaters, so they had the special emulsions and treatments (like the black backing layer) which would mess up a normal C-41 film processing machine (the later films pretty much used C-41 chemistry). That's why you had to send the film back to Seattle Film works to be processed. A cinema film processing lab could have processed it, but they were not set up to do short (6 foot/36 exposure) rolls of film.

When the movie negative was ready, after all the editing, etc., the negative would be printed onto another reversal film to become a positive, the film shown in the movie houses. Multiple prints could be made from the negative. That reversal film would be a special emulsion to give a true positive image (clear areas for white, Red areas for Red, etc.). Likewise, there would be short rolls of the Print Film which SFW would also take in and use to give you the "slides". Truthfully, I do not think the movie Print was designed to last too long, which explains the short life of the "slides" from SFW. The movie house would just get another print. Think of it, how long did the movie run, maybe a month? And if it ran longer, they would get more than one Print of the film.

But as Hollywood used less and less film, and so did we, the need for SFW was less and less. I am not surprised it no longer exists. Another door closes!

Regards,

Much appreciated. They closed their doors right before I got my first camera. Interesting history. Thanks for taking the time to share that.

[Not a Number]

Truthfully, I do not think the movie Print was designed to last too long, which explains the short life of the "slides" from SFW

The Eastman Color process is notorious for it's fading of the cyan layer. Other cine film color processes are much more stable especially the Technicolor dye transfer prints. I've seen 50-60 year old prints that were almost as vibrant as the day they came out of the lab. The biggest threat to these old prints is the "vinegar syndrome" where the acetate substrate starts to break down giving off the distinctive smell of acetic acid (vinegar). During a 3D Film festival here in Hollywood a few years back it was announce after a screening of one gorgeous print that that was the last screening ever of the print as some of it started to turn to vinegar in the projector. Fortunately the negative had been preserved.

[goatsNdonkey]

In their last years Seattle Filmworks film was c-41 process and it said that on the new light blue film canisters, but they were still processing their earlier film, too. They would send you free film, every time you had film processed. I eventually had about a shoebox full of the stuff. That's one reason there is still a lot of it out there. You could buy the film from them, but if you sent in two rolls for processing, you usually got two unexposed rolls back, though not always the same film speeds or lengths that you sent in. They did a good job processing the earlier cinema stock film varieties. As mentioned, you could get slides and prints, or the positive developed film rolled up in a container instead of mounted. I think you could order negatives made from the positive originals, too, at one point, but I never did that. I think there are still a couple of places that will develop their earlier non-C-41 film.

[jtkratzer]

I sent the roll off to The Camera Shop in St Cloud, MN and received the scans and negatives back today. Brutal grain, likely needed to set the 400 speed film to 100 or even 50. A lot of underexposed images. Doesn't look like the best scan quality either, but it is what it is.

[cooltouch]

I have an unused roll of this stuff that's been in my freezer for who knows how long. Over 20 years, at least. Didn't realize it could still be processed. Now I guess I need to ask if it's worth the hassle.

jtktratzer, that first shot of yours gave me a start. It looks like a disembodied dog's head on a carpet. I guess its body is hiding behind its head, eh? I sure hope so. I like the other two shots, though. Good sharpness with both, it looks like.

[ChrisPlatt]

I remember you could mail away for a free roll of Triple Print brand film.
The catch was only they could process it, and it was not cheap.

Chris