The Spark of Passion
My story with film processing began at the age of 15, which was in 1980, when I developed a passion for photography that went beyond just taking pictures. I taught myself film development, mixing chemicals and loading 100-foot bulk rolls into 36-exposure cassettes.
My bathroom became a darkroom where I printed and developed my own black-and-white photos. In the late 1980s, I took my first job at a photography company in Amsterdam, where I learned to process colour negatives using an in-house "dip-and-dunk" (rack-and-hanger) C41 line. Later followed by color photo printing and RA-4 processing.
Working in the dark, controlling temperatures, and handling irreplaceable originals became second nature.
Education and early Inspiration
1989 - Gerrit Rietveld Academy
Application accepted to study filmmaking in the audiovisual department in Amsterdam
1990 - First Super 8 Film
Shot and edited my first Super 8 film, marking the beginning of hands-on filmmaking experience
1991 - San Francisco Art Institute
Exchange program where I learned hand-processing techniques for 8 and 16mm colour and black and white reversal film
1992 - Operating a 16mm Film Processor
Accepted as paid operator of SFAI's compact 16mm black-and-white reversal processor, proving consistent results were possible
The Search for a Solution
The Challenge
By the mid-to-late 1990s, I tried to find my own compact machine. Industrial processors - even those given away for free - were several meters long, required 3-phase 380V power, and held hundreds of liters of chemistry. They were far too large for my needs.
The demand for Super 8 processing simply didn’t justify such industrial-scale capacity.
One day, a friend of mine let me use his computer with a dial-up 28k modem (we're talking 1996) to search the early internet.
There were no usable search engines yet, no eBay, and after spending hours online I found nothing.
"Since no compact film processor existed for Super 8, I decided to build one myself."
The Roller Challenge
The first real parts were the rollers: several hundred grey PVC wheels turned by retired technicians at Amsterdam-Noord's NDSM shipyard.
What I didn't realize at the time was that the rollers were not precision-machined. Their diameters varied slightly, between 39.95mm and 40.15mm. (0,2mm tolerance)
Problem Solving Process
For a full month I did nothing but re-arrange rollers, measuring each one with a caliper and carefully recording the results. To make even a small change - swapping the position of two rollers - I first had to remove all the rollers from the axle, re-order them, mount everything back into the processor, lace the film again, and run a new test.
Breakthrough Achieved
Bit by bit, though, the tension evened out until the film finally ran smoothly through the entire path. That breakthrough transformed the processor from an experiment into a fully operational production tool.
Building a Super 8 continuous Film Processor