Film Processing

Today was the day that we finally got the chance to process our film that we took quite a few weeks ago on the Barbican. I have never produced film before so the whole process was new to me and I was quite excited to learn what to do in the future. We were shown what to do in our groups that we were in for the shoot. We first learnt the names of all the tools we needed in order to do the process properly. The tools I needed to rent out were:

- Dev tank

- Thermometer

- Scissors

The first thing I needed to do in order to get a good result was to place all of the components from inside the dev tank onto the work bench in the darkroom. Once all the eqiupment was laid out I took the film out of the canister and got someone to pull some of the wasted film out so that I could cut that bit so that I could thread it through the spiral. I went into the darkroom and tried to feed the film into the spiral but I couldn't do it in the pitch black so I popped the film into the tank and made sure that it was covered from the light and asked someone else to come in and help me. After we had all tried we still couldn't do it so we had to get one of our tutors to do it! In the end I found out that I hadn't cut the wasted bit of film correctly so I had to re-cut it. Eventually it was sorted and I could put the whole tank back together to make it light tight which then meant that the rest of the processing could be done in the light.

To finish the processing I had to measure out 150ml of water into a measuring cylinder that had to be exactly 20 degrees, this is a process called pre-wetting and will make the film swell up and accept the developer solution. This then meant that the developer could be added so I had to add 150ml of developer to the measuring cylinder and then add to the dev tank, I then had to keep moving the tank every minute, this is a process called agitation which ensures that fresh chemicals are touching the film. The developer had to be in the tank for 13 minutes so that meant that I had to agitate the soloutiion and the film together every minute for the remaining 12 minutes. If I was to over agitate the film it could mean that my film could have ended up giving negative results and can increase the contrast too much. Once the developer had been in the tank for the whole time it needed to be chucked down the plughole as it cannot be reused.

The next step in the process was to add a chemical called stop. I had to add 300ml of stop into the tank and agitate for 30 seconds. The 30 seconds was the full time for the stop but unlike the developer, stop can be reused so I had to pour it back into the container I got it from.

The last chemical that needed to be used was fix. Just like the stop I needed 300ml of the fix which I agitated for 5 minutes. It can also be reused so I poured that back into the continer too.

I then took the spiral out of the tank and placed it in running water for 20 minutes. This meant that the film got a through wash to make sure that as much of the chemicals came off as possible. After I had completed the wash process I placed my film in the dryer and left it to dry for about 40 minutes.

I enjoyed learning how to process film and have learnt a lot as well. I have learnt that the film is so sensitive to light so I must make sure it is light tight before thinking about exposing it too light and then once the film strips are done they are still so delicate because if you touch them I can get finger prints on them which will be shown when I develop them further and I colud also scratch the surface if I don't hold the film on it's side. It's sounds a lot easier when it was spoken through to us than it when when actually doing the process.