Sebastemulsion: A New Revolution in 35mm Film

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Are you bored with standard color negative films? Check out these new kinds of film!

Ever since becoming hooked on shooting with 35mm film in 2011, I have been doing crazy experiments to alter the way a photo comes out – baking my film under the hot Australian sun, putting my film in pints of beer, doing film swaps, multiple exposures… I even tried microwaving one, until the canister started sparking.

I work at a shop in Melbourne called FilmNeverDie, where we stock the largest range of analogue film and cameras in Australia. When we heard about the discontinuation of the Fujifilm FP-100C, we started discussing about making our own instant film. As I only specialize in 35mm film, I wondered how cool it would be to make my own emulsions from scratch. But, unless I have a bajillion dollars to open a factory, that idea is gone.

But I thought of the days when I would shoot nothing but redscale film for months at a time. I realized that no one else was making dedicated redscale film, except of course for Lomography.

Talking among my friends and colleagues, I started to brainstorm an idea in my head that just kept growing until I knew I had to achieve it somehow!

That idea is the new range of customized rolls of film known as Sebastemulsion (Sebastian + emulsion). I started writing down loads of ideas on what kinds of film I could create. Crazy colors, chemically-altered film soups, multiple exposures – you name it!

I picked out four ideas that I could create easily. I selected a reputable film stock to use, one that was cheap and reliable. Once I chose my film, I started the experimentation process!

From there came my films:

Radscale 25-200

Quercus 400

Bokashi 400

Surfactant 200

(The numbers being the ISO)

I began by rolling my film stock into the reloadable canisters commonly used for bulk loaders. After doing a handful of rolls, I realized that they weren’t designed for hand-rolled 36-exposure film. So it would wind in so tight, my film wouldn’t actually pull through properly in my camera. This resulted in a few rolls with overlapped photos, or just completely ruined rolls. I had one Radscale snap in half in a camera and became unusable once I tried to reload it in semi-darkness.

So it was back to the drawing board with my canisters. My friend then said, “Just go to a lab and ask for all their old canisters!” Bloody hell, I’m an idiot! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner!

We have an independent developing lab just down the road in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick! I wandered down and asked if I could take some of their old canisters, and came back home with a big bag full of them! And the best part? All of them still had the tag hanging out where it had been cut for developing! So now all I have to do is tape my film stock securely to the old canisters and wind it in! Presto! Easy, free, and environmentally friendly!

Now all my film winds in and out easily. Overlapped film IS cool, but not when you want a quality product!

I then contacted my friend who works in graphic design to help me with some professional looking labels that stood out to people. I tried to explain the idea in my head to her in person, and we both ended up quite confused towards the end.

I had to go review my old math books from high school to calculate the dimensions for the labels. Ah, yes! Ye old 2πr certainly came in handy… sort of! I mucked up the radius and diameter and subsequently had film labels that were short and squat!

WTF is this, I thought, good one ya berk!

So what did my friend do to solve the problem? Cut out a piece of paper to wind around the film canister perfectly, and then work out the dimensions! Apparently I need to start thinking laterally and not literally.
But hey, in the end, once the designs were finalized I had some kick ass labels!

Remember that film Quercus 400 I mentioned? It was definitely not smooth sailing beta testing this roll! It must have taken me four to five tries get it perfect and still failed! I originally called it the Quercus Cumulus, meaning it would have a blend of oak branches and cumulus clouds to shoot photos over the top of. But after looking at the crappy Melbourne weather and seeing how long I would have to wait for the perfect day, I decided to only have oak branches instead and simply call it Quercus 400.

I started off by exposing my film with photos of leafless oak branches, and then taking photos over the top to try get an eerie, surreal look to the final images. It wasn’t until I got three failed rolls in that I realized, yet again, that I screwed my math majorly! Using 400 ISO stock to create my films, I figured I must shoot the branches at 400 ISO, then the other images over the top also at 400 ISO.

Well, anyone who shoots multiple exposures (especially me, who should have known better) knows that you have to underexpose by one stop for two layers of photos so that it will be correctly exposed. Any wonder my photos kept coming out overexposed, with no branches showing through at all!

Okay then, back to the drawing board!

I then shot the branches at 800 ISO and then the next layer of test photos at 800 ISO as well. Technically, this should mean all my photos should have oak branches over my photo subjects!

Well it did… kind of. I only had a handful of frames that had the desired effect, instead of every single frame! So after spending maybe 1 1/2 months testing roll after roll, only to be disappointed every time, I just decided to scrap the whole film. So there were only the three options left! I still had one roll of Quercus left and said that the first person to buy more than three rolls from the available choices will receive it for free!

During the whole process of creation and beta testing each roll, I dropped hints on my personal Instagram account and on Facebook to make people start asking what was going on. I started having people asking questions like, “What’s this ‘Sebastemulsion’ you keep banging on about?” Ah! In due time all will be revealed!

Once I had everything prepared to start selling, I made a grand announcement across every social media platform I had at my fingertips! Within a week my Facebook page had more than 100 likes – definitely not the response I was expecting for such a small project! I soon announced a date the film would start to go on sale.

I also made a video to explain the films and project a bit better, and being the Aussie wanker I am, tried to put in as many jokes as possible! Hope you get a good laugh out of it!

I originally started off with only 12 rolls (four for each type), and thought, With the response I’m getting before even selling, I don’t think I’m gonna have enough! So I grabbed more film and beavered away over a week to create a grand total of 30 rolls! (10 for each type). I finally had heaps of film for the initial sale in our shop’s website! I had the listings looking as perfect as possible and kept them hidden until my special day!

When I was preparing the Bokashi film, I got confused by one roll with a Q on it, implying it must have been a Quercus roll. I thought this was odd, considering it wasn’t meant to be in my bag of Bokashi rolls. So I just figured I must have reused a canister and then shot city lights over it. When I got to the shop to finalize the quantities of each film, this mystery roll meant the Bokashi rolls had one extra! So I thought, maybe it has both Quercus and Bokashi effects on it!

So it became known as the WTF roll!

One of my lucky customers received this roll for free and got some pretty whack effects on it!

So the date came along, August 28, Thursday, and at 5:30 p.m. I clicked “Active” on the listings and watched the sales roll in! I couldn’t believe how many people were interested in it! And now, just over a month later, everything had been sold! Hello, profit (which partly ended up paying my rent, anyway)!

So I have begun the process of creating some new rolls of film! Imagine light leaks all over your photos, swirly lights through your party snaps, or even more crazy colors on your holiday photos! I’ll be introducing color negative, slide, and black and white options further down the line!