Goodbye Kodachrome

So all the major news outlets have picked up on Kodak discontinuing Kodachrome, their namesake. They're obviously doing this so they can pull out that Paul Simon concert footage that's been burning a hole in their pocket and slap it on the news. That's great, because I like Paul Simon. They can also make this thing into some kind of rallying cry for the death of film, but it's just another stock, right? Perhaps it's a little more than that. It's ridiculous if you ask my opinion - it's kind of like if McDonalds stopped selling burgers. It fits together with where Kodak needs to go, I guess.

The product effectively died in 2005 when Kodak dismantled their main processing lab in Lausanne Switzerland because processing wasn't environtmentally free or the lab property was really valuable, whatever, something like that. Right now the only place to develop the film is Dwaynes Photo in Lawrence, Kansas. That's where Stan Brakhage developed some of his film (according to the imdb at least) and it's also where I developed all the footage that shot for my first film Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare. Perhaps the news of it's impending doom at that point forced my hand into starting the film.

One odd little tidbit is that any Walmart that utilizes Fuji for it's film processing was able to process Kodachrome Super-8. You simply dropped the film in a photo envelope with the direction to process as K-14 and they would send it directly to Dwaynes with a relatively short turnaround. This was how I processed every single bit of Frankensteins... footage, through Walmart. I never lost one reel and I even had a tracking # from Fuji from the mailer so I could check on the status of the processing.

So what can I tell you from the balance of a feature film with the stuff? Well, Kodachrome was a pain to shoot, really. It has limited latitude and it require a significant amount of light to expose properly, then it turns very muddy if you underexposed.

Still, properly exposed on a beautiful sunny day? The green, blues and reds are just mind-blowing, and the skintones just look fabulous as well, It's just got the timeless sheen of technicolor. It's a reversal stock, but those colorations are still very present when the film's telecined, even though I wish I'd had the money to transfer to some uncompressed HD format because I really thought the DV compression really crunched those colors down. Still, I'm happy with final results even though when they made the Unearthed Films DVD they messed up on the gamma, washing out those colors slightly, but that's another nightmare unto itself.

As I pull myself out from the stacks of tapes, photos and USB hard drives...

...I say hello! I'm still alive, and I'm still working on the Massacre project. Hopefully I should have a little more to report about this very soon.

Up Next: Massacre Mafia Style on DVD

Well I'm not sure if it's any big secret, but the project that I'm working on right now (actually what I've been working on for some time now) is the production of a limited edition DVD release of Duke Mitchell's grindhouse epic Massacre Mafia Style. The preliminary cover art is pictured above. By the way, I mention "grindhouse" but I should note that Grindhouse Releasing never had the rights to the film and doesn't have anything to do with this DVD release, though they do have the rights and film elements for Duke's unfinished follow-up film Gone With The Pope.

I'm working on this project with Duke Mitchell's son, Jeffrey Mitchell, and beyond being the first official DVD release it's essentially the first North American home video release that's fully authorized by Mitchell's family (hence the "Family Edition" title) because after Duke passed away this film became a cinematic orphan, and the guy who bought a limited amount of foreign rights took the whole thing over, re-titled it The Executioner and made a quick buck off the video rights. It's quite sad actually. All I can say is that the story of Duke Mitchell is just as interesting, if not even moreso, than what the film Massacre... would suggest. Some of the special features that we're working on are pretty mind-blowing.

As more information becomes available it will be posted to massacremafiastyle.com.

U.A.R. and C.O.G. definitely R.O.C.K.

I had a great time this weekend at the local Consortium of Genius show, which also featured fellow technician User Assumes Risk on the bill. The electronic paranoia of UAR as usual was excellently disturbing, and if you ever have a chance to check out Consortium of Genius, or COG, I would definitely go for it; where else are you going to see a Mad Scientist rock band with a holographic drummer, all powered by an Amiga 3000? It's a rare event. Everyone put on one hell of a show. I also managed to shoot some nice HD video of UAR's set.

User Assumes Risk - 4/17/09 from john Hand on Vimeo.

Convention Fun

Wow, March just seemed to drag on and on. February was slightly strange because I had my birthday, I turned 30, and then it just suddenly seemed to flip into this "March" thing. In any case, the month finished off nice because I had a neato time at Imagicon last weekend where I got to hang with George Bonilla from ZP International, TCM 2's Bill Johnson and TCM 1's John Dugan. Everyone was happy and everyone seemed to respond well to the House Where People Die trailer when I showed it to them. Also, we ran into Paul F. Tompkins and he proved to be a very nice fellow.

I want to thank Amy for taking this nice photo of Mr. Dugan and me rapping about stuff.

DVD Now Available

The official limited-edition DVD release of Scars of Youth is now available for the low, low price of $15, shipping in the US included! This is for a real pressed DVD by the way, no recordable DVDR that might not play in your grandmother's old Zenith Divx DVD Player from 1944.

You can check out more information on the DVD or place your order at JRHFilms.com.

Another Small Update

So just to keep everyone in the loop, I've been working on getting this Scars of Youth into some festivals along with getting ready for my neato self-released DVD, which FYI will be a very nice release from a geeky technical point of view, I.E.16:9 progessive encoding, 448 kbps 5.1 Dolby Digital audio, dual-layer with all the trimmings. Very soon, if I feel like it, it'll go up for sale on the jrhfilms.com website.

The big project I've been working on for the past couple months is the newly-rebooted Nightmare Theatre creature feature show which is broadcast on the last saturday of the month on the local cable station WUWF from 10:00 PM to midnight CST. It's basically the same old public domain movies but we're definitely trying to infuse the show with a very edgy, psychotronic "Night Flight" vibe. It's a show full of music videos, strange short subjects and tons of old drive-in and intermission promo material wrapped around movies like Horror Express or Bloody Pit of Horror. It's a lot of work coming up with a two-hour show every month but I think it's worth the effot. I encourage everyone to check out the streaming video version on the WUWF website and if there any horror-themed bands with music videos you want shown please send me an email.

Also, in March I'm going to be a guest at a convention down in the inaugural Imagicon which be an interesting experience. I think it's a little up in the air whether or not I'm showing Scars of Youth at the con. I remember the first time I showed Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare was at this sci-fi convention where everyone left 20 minutes to their Magic cardgame or whatever and I spent the night watching the film myself. At least I managed to get really trashed and make Billy West do his "red" voice.