Seaweed Developer

I've just watched an item on BBC Countryfile in which a black and white movie film was developed using Vitamin C and seaweed.

The movie:

I watched the same film but without sound. I observed the seaweed tea (steeping of seaweed via bowling water) method that extracted the developing agent. I presume that chemically it will prove to be similar, if not the same as caffeine extraction in coffee preparation). It is known that caffeine will do this trick. What disturbs me is that the BBC exposed black & white movie film, developed it in this weird blend and followed using conventional stop and fix. The results were a positive image projected using a movie projector.

 

Now I don’t question the fact that this brew develops film. I feel that additional steps must have been taken to gain a positive image suitable for projection. Until I learn more, I remain doubtful. Could be, they got a negative image and then interceded chemically or digitally to produce the positive film they projected.

When they first started to project the film, 04:38, the birds on the wires were negative then after a few seconds,04:42, they started to show as positive. What was that all about?

To be honest, I only caught the end of the item, but the film was projected as a negative. They said it would take much longer to get a positive from it.

The 'filming' of the process was obviously done with a video camera, and the scratchy and under-cranked effects faked up by adding digital effects.

 

The start of the actual film is shown being projected as a negative, and again I suspect that digital help was used to invert it to a positive.

 

It would be interesting to know what the active ingredient in that kelp was. But judging by the huge amounts of washing soda and vitamin C powder needed, there isn't very much of it in a litre of seaweed.

(The amount of soda used looked close to the amount that would float the emulsion clean off a film!)

 

The active ingredient in 'Caffenol' is caffeic acid BTW, and not caffeine. You can even use decaffeinated coffee to make Caffenol.

 

Anyone recognise what the small 16mm movie camera was? Looked like a Nizo to me, which I don't think has a sound recording facility IIRC.

 

So quite a lot of trickery going on behind the scenes there.

Edited August 10, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1

Hi, I also watched Countryfile episode last night, it was a mash up of features from past episodes over many years (due to current filming being effected by Covid). What I remembered from yesterday was that she was using a Bolex camera, so I just re-watched the relevant bit on BBCiplayer (see attached screen grab). The resulting film shown was indeed a soundless negative and showed the BBC crew in negative, some later editing has been added.

This whole thing is sounding very fake like to me.So they filmed in video and made that look like poorly processed film? Only the birds were on the original negative film? What did they wash the seaweed in, D-76 before using.? I would watch absolutely nothing else made by these phonies.

I am not particularly surprised that seaweed extract contains a developing agent. There are many such compounds in nature. The trick is to find one that precipitates silver based on an ability to differentiate exposed vs. unexposed salts of silver. This is not an easy task. Most such agents are depravities of benzene (coal oil).

 

 

Seaweed is a major player in the history of photography. The light sensitive goodies are the metal silver combined with a halogen (Swedish for salt maker). The three halogens used are iodine, chlorine, and bromine. All three have roots in seawater or substances found in seawater. Iodine was separated from seaweed brews by Antonine Blard in 1811. He was trying to advance the manufacture of saltpeter, a chief ingredient of gunpowder.

 

 

On that note, It was folklore around Kodak Park that engineers succeeded in developing film using the polluted water from the Genesee River that flows adjacent to Kodak Park. I don’t know what that pollutant was. I do know that one of the most common developing agents is hydroquinone. This compound is found in plant extracts and is a defensive agent produced by beetles.

What I remembered from yesterday was that she was using a Bolex camera

I'd have recognised an H16 from half a mile away. That's not the same cine camera as shown in the linked video.

That little thing doesn't even look like a 16mm camera to me, yet the projector and editing block shown were definitely 16mm format.

 

Something smells fishy... and it's not just the seaweed!

 

Leaving all that aside. Why would you even bother shooting a movie that effectively just showed 5 still scenes with jump-cuts in between?

Most such agents are depravities of benzene (coal oil).

 

LOL

This whole thing is sounding very fake like to me.So they filmed in video and made that look like poorly processed film? Only the birds were on the original negative film? What did they wash the seaweed in, D-76 before using.? I would watch absolutely nothing else made by these phonies.

 

They birds and everything after are 16 mm. It could that it was all shot on 16mm, just using a 2nd camera. Remember though what you're looking at is digital, - it was scanned and inverted.

 

It's a long story but up until a few years ago I had completely dropped film in favor digital just like most everybody else. My first foray back into film was not 35mm or 120, but Super 8 movies.

 

My time with Super 8 didn't last very long because it's outrageously expensive. It had always been my plan though to reduce the cost by processing it on my own, - which I learned (or relearned) to do with still film. What held my back with super 8 was the lack of a good processing tank. The only ones readily available are old and from the Soviet Bloc. You can find them for inflated prices on eBay. In fact they show one in the video.

 

Kodak no longer makes sound film for Super 8 and probably not 16mm either. If you want sound now it's got to be captured using some other means and then synced with the film. What she did is capture some background sounds and then add that to the digitally captured movie. You can see how badly out of sync the voice is at the end of the film.

 

Anyway I don't think it's a fake, - not all of anyway. :)

I'd have recognised an H16 from half a mile away. That's not the same cine camera as shown in the linked video.

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That little thing doesn't even look like a 16mm camera to me, yet the projector and editing block shown were definitely 16mm format.

 

Something smells fishy... and it's not just the seaweed!

 

Leaving all that aside. Why would you even bother shooting a movie that effectively just showed 5 still scenes with jump-cuts in between?

 

Not sure what that is but I've seen similar looking 16mm cameras:

 

 

 

By Okorok - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, File:Kinokamera Krasnogorsk-2.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

 

(my apologies to the moderators for posting a picture that's not my own, - hopefully the attribution is sufficient)

 

Smallish 16mm cameras aren't that unusual. It was THE amateur format before 8mm was available. That developing tank can only hold about 50 ft of film so a camera with a larger magazine wouldn't have any value.

 

And the old 8mm cameras (which weren't that big) shot 16mm film, the spool was just flipped over after it ran out, then the film was spilt during processing.

Edited August 10, 2020 by tomspielman

Developing agents have an affinity for oxygen and are able to liberate metals from their salts. Benzene with added side chains are the basis for most developing agents --- no joke -- just facts.

Alan, I think you meant "derivatives" rather than "depravities". Depravities are rather different, and something I'm confident that you aren't susceptible to.

Some other organic options: yumyumsoups

@John Seaman -- Sometimes I have substandard phonetic ability -- sorry for that -- shortcomings of an 82 year old.

The fakery is on the part of the makers of that 'documentary'. It tries to mislead us into believing that we're seeing the result of that al-fresco shooting and developing session at the end of the video. When we're definitely not.

 

As a student project, it's a perfectly valid exercise. As 'art', which it's now being sold as, it's total trash.

 

As for using 8mm or Super8 - just use your phone camera and get better quality! Making the process more difficult, obscure or 'cool' doesn't make the end result any better or more worthy of viewing. Not by a jot.

I once had a Cine Kodak Special II 16mm movie camera.

 

 

 

It was the one used by 1950s Disney photographers for the true life adventure films, The Living Desert, The Vanishing Prairie, etc. The results were extremely professional and sharp looking. Each frame was indicated on the camera so one could go back and make double exposures or fade from one scene into another. One could have a lot of fun with it like early movie makers did at the start of the 20th century, have a magician appear in the puff of smoke etc. One could also take one shot at a time. That would be like a half frame 35mm film camera.

 

It was a bit of a nuisance with having to send film out to be developed and setting up the large 16mm projector and viewing screen. I got rid of it when I moved from the house I was in at the time.

 

I went by a thrift shop at one time and saw a 16mm editing machine in the window. It had a viewing screen so one could watch the film on that screen instead of having to set up the large projector. I didn't have much money on me so I came back later and found it had been sold. I figured it must have sold for over $100 and was surprised when they told me that they didn't know what it was and sold it for $10. Rats, I could have bought it for that much when I first saw it. If I had, I would have kept the camera and got rid of the projector and screen.

The fakery is on the part of the makers of that 'documentary'. It tries to mislead us into believing that we're seeing the result of that al-fresco shooting and developing session at the end of the video. When we're definitely not.

 

What makes you say that? You might be right, but I'm curious.

 

 

As for using 8mm or Super8 - just use your phone camera and get better quality! Making the process more difficult, obscure or 'cool' doesn't make the end result any better or more worthy of viewing. Not by a jot.

 

I wasn't into super 8 for the quality of the end results. It started as just a fun idea.

 

There's an old home movie of my brother and I as toddlers doing somersaults in the front yard, or rather, attempting to do them. My brother still owns the place and I thought it would be entertaining to film my brother and I doing somersaults in the same spot 50 years later. Yes, we could have done it with a phone. Would it have been as "cool"? Not by a long shot. I could have also post processed a digital movie to look like it was shot in Super 8. But I had way more fun doing it the way I did it.

 

And I kept playing with Super 8 for awhile after that because I enjoyed it. The same reason I shoot 35mm and medium format films. I don't find pushing a button and having the camera or phone do all the work as fulfilling.

 

Whether someone else finds the results worthy of viewing isn't really the main point. But if all I care about at the moment is getting a good picture, I'm more than happy to use a digital camera.

What makes you say that? You might be right, but I'm curious.

1. How can a film possibly contain footage of itself being processed and hanging out to dry?

2. Why would you send a heavy video camera, tripod and 3 person crew onto a beach; only to not use them?

3. That developing tank holds only 50ft of film at most - maybe only 25ft. 50ft of 16mm sound film runs for 1' 20" and the film lasts for nearly 7 minutes. The beach scenes alone would need about 150ft of film, and at least 3 reloads of the developing tank.

....I thought it would be entertaining to film my brother and I doing somersaults in the same spot 50 years later.

Yes. That's fine for your own entertainment, but that's not the same as broadcasting it on public television.

 

Would it not have been more honest, as a documentary, to drop the B&W and scratchy FX for those parts that were shot on video? So that it kept the film-shot footage obviously separate from what was not shot on film.

Edited August 13, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1

P.S.

Why would anyone spend a minimum of £35 on a roll of 16mm B&W film, only to balk at spending another 2 quid on developer? It's not as if using seaweed makes the whole process any less ecologically damaging.

1. How can a film possibly contain footage of itself being processed and hanging out to dry?

2. Why would you send a heavy video camera, tripod and 3 person crew onto a beach; only to not use them?

3. That developing tank holds only 50ft of film at most - maybe only 25ft. 50ft of 16mm sound film runs for 1' 20" and the film lasts for nearly 7 minutes. The beach scenes alone would need about 150ft of film, and at least 3 reloads of the developing tank.

 

Yes. That's fine for your own entertainment, but that's not the same as broadcasting it on public television.

 

Would it not have been more honest, as a documentary, to drop the B&W and scratchy FX for those parts that were shot on video? So that it kept the film-shot footage obviously separate from what was not shot on film.

1. Take roll A out of the camera and put roll B in. Process roll A and dry it. Film those steps with B. Process Roll B. Splice sections of rolls A and B onto the same reel. There could have also been multiple cameras used.
   
2. The video equipment was used by the BBC crew that was interviewing her about the process. You're seeing the results of her work, - not the BBC Countryfile episode, which I'm guessing would have been longer than 7 minutes.
   
3. Yes, they would have had to process the film 50 ft at a time. I doubt the spring powered camera shown in one shot could even hold a standard 100 ft can of film. But the length of 16mm films aren't limited to what can be shot on a single magazine.
   

Was any of it shot of on video or is that just speculation? Again it might have been, but to my untrained eye it all looks the same, Scratched film produced by a bad developer. And if you look at the film blowing in the breeze it's not hard to figure out where it might have gotten scratched.

 

I don't think it's sound film. She captured the sound separately and added it to the final product, - which was digital. It does bring in another opportunity for fakery. Were those bird sounds from the same birds that were filmed?

 

As to why do it? There's a little more background here.

 

There are lots of reasons why people do things that aren't driven by cost savings or ecological impact.

Edited August 13, 2020 by tomspielman

I doubt that the project would have received any attention (or funding!) whatsoever if the film had been processed in D-76 using a modicum of care to dry and handle it.

 

The visual content is mundane, boring and generally unworthy of public acclaim.

 

An amateurish film was sloppily developed in a homebrew developer containing seaweed - which may or may not have added an unknown reducing agent - so what!?

There are lots of reasons why people do things that aren't driven by cost savings or ecological impact.

Such as self-promotion on the back of almost no talent, and to milk public funding?

 

Now a proper research project isolating and identifying the active chemicals in the seaweed might have been more interesting, and worthy of public money. Or it might have turned up that the coastal seawater is so polluted that the seaweed itself has little to do with it.

Edited August 15, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1

I doubt that the project would have received any attention (or funding!) whatsoever if the film had been processed in D-76 using a modicum of care to dry and handle it.

 

The visual content is mundane, boring and generally unworthy of public acclaim.

 

An amateurish film was sloppily developed in a homebrew developer containing seaweed - which may or may not have added an unknown reducing agent - so what!?

 

Such as self-promotion on the back of almost no talent, and to milk public funding?

 

Now a proper research project isolating and identifying the active chemicals in the seaweed might have been more interesting, and worthy of public money. Or it might have turned up that the coastal seawater is so polluted that the seaweed itself has little to do with it.

 

I don't think the intent was to produce the greatest bird movie ever or to run an proper research project:

 

Barrow's Salty Yarns

 

A pilot project collecting sea myths & legends from Rampside, Roa & Piel Island.

 

A series of story collecting workshops and creative activities

for all the family & community

 

Based on the pictures from her site, it looks like people from the community were involved in the processing of the movie. Whether her participation in the project turned out to be valuable or not, - you'd have to ask the people who are responsible for the project.

 

Personally I think it's interesting that you can produce a developer from seaweed, and it was an interesting enough concept that the BBC chose to air a segment on it.