- I found a roll of undeveloped film from 1964
in my grandparent's attic.
54 years later I'm gonna try to develop it.
(film reel rolling sound)
(piano music)
So here's where my involvement
in the story starts.
In September of 2004 my grandmother passed away.
After she died, my family and I were tasked
with going through her belongings,
deciding what goes where.
At the bottom of one of the boxes I found
an old 8mm film camera.
- [Narrator] Nowadays more families than ever
before are saving their good times in movies.
- For those who are unfamiliar with 8mm cameras,
it was the camcorder before they were camcorders.
You'd shoot maybe two to eight minutes on a roll
of film, then get it developed
and play it back on a projector.
These weren't for Hollywood motion pictures.
They were for home movies.
The camera I found was a 1963 Kodak Fun Saver.
My grandpa told me my grandmother won the camera
at the 1964 World's Fair in Queens.
But he didn't recall ever seeing her use it.
He let me keep it and for the last 14 years,
it's just sat on my dresser collecting dust.
And I'm sure it would've continued collecting
dust, but a few months ago, something happened.
The door of the camera popped off.
And what I discovered inside
was a roll of undeveloped film.
I figured if 40 plus years in a hot attic
didn't ruin the film, me exposing it to the light
surely would've done it.
But still I was interested to see if there was
something that could've been done.
A quick Google search revealed
my options were incredibly limited.
There are very few places that develop 8mm film
and in my initial search I couldn't find anyone
that develops expired 8mm film.
The chemicals used today are different.
And film deteriorates over time especially
in hot conditions like an attic.
If I wanted to develop the film,
I was gonna have to do it myself.
- Well coffee has some of these characteristics
and molecules in them.
- I read about a group of students that
developed a development method
involving coffee grounds.
It's since been dubbed Caffenol.
And I thought, it might just work.
- But it was coffee and a little bit of Draino
and vitamin C.
- Dr. Scott Williams is an Inorganic Chemistry
Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology
and he and his students first came up
with Caffenol.
I've never developed film before in my life.
Do you think this process is easy enough
that I'll be able to do it?
- Oh yes simple enough.
- That's the scary part is I'm risking losing
this footage from the early 1960's
if I make a mistake.
I didn't wanna risk permanently destroying
this film so I decided to do a practice run.
They don't sell rolls of
film that fit in my grandma's
Kodak Fun Saver but a friend of mine owns an old
8mm camera that uses Kodak film
that's still sold in stores.
I borrowed his camera and I tried
to develop the film myself.
(oriental music)
I was just in the dark and I unspooled
that 8mm film and put it into this
which is a photo canister.
It's meant for photo developing.
There are essentially three steps to developing.
The first step is a prewash which essentially
just cleans off the film removes any sort of
backing, the second one is a developer which
develops the image, and the third step is a fixer
which stops the development process.
The first step is gonna be just hot water
and Borax and that will clean off and remove
the backing of the film.
This should pour out and be like really black
and I have to keep on rinsing it
until it runs clear.
The second step is a mixture of vitamin C,
instant coffee, and Super Washing Soda.
Oooph oh man that smells. That stinks.
It says to do this for nine minutes.
Ooh it smells so bad.
Last step we are gonna pour in the fixer
and it's gonna sit in there for
about five minutes.
Should be clear.
Moment of truth.
(classical music)
- Oh there's definitely images.
What is it though.
Holy (bleep) that worked.
- To my surprise it worked, kind of.
However the results were far from perfect.
(film reel rolling)
- If I couldn't develop a new roll of film
perfectly, what would be the result
of 54 year old film.
That's when I learned about
Film Rescue International.
Film Rescue International is a small operation
run out of Saskatchewan, Canada.
I jumped on a call with Greg, the founder of
Film Rescue International and he said
he'd try to develop it.
But he told me not to hold my breath.
"An attic is a terrible place to keep film.
I'd be shocked if we'll be able
to get an image to expose."
And with that I sent the
film off to Saskatchewan.
- Here's the film that Christian sent us.
Gonna take this film and I'm gonna take it
outta here and I'm gonna bring it into
the vault here which is a dark room now.
And then once I load it into a magazine,
and then put it in this ancient machine here.
The Jameson Movie Film Processor.
It'll go in this end, go through
a number of bouts, and then it'll come out
this end, hopefully with lovely results
but most likely not with lovely results
because this film is very old and was found
in a hot attic so we're gonna do our best
with this, don't know what's gonna happen
for sure, my guess is we're not gonna
get anything off of it.
- A few weeks later I received a call from Greg.
"We got an image."
Greg warned me.
The image was far from perfect.
Due to the age of the film and the chemicals
he was using, he was only able to develop
a black and white image.
And because of the damage done from exposure
and the heat in the attic very little was visible
but still he got an image.
After 54 years this reel of film
was finally developed, and here it is.
(film reel rolling)
- The start of the film reel has the most damage
so we don't really see much here, but as we get
further into the roll images begin to appear.
(children playing)
The sound effects are added by me by the way.
Most 8mm film is silent.
This is the 1964 World's Fair.
My grandpa was right.
I assume he's the one filming cause the woman
you see in the shot is my grandma.
The kids around her are my mother,
my aunt, and my uncle.
And there they are in front of the Unisphere
which is still there, just a few minutes
from where I live now.
I showed the footage to my grandpa,
mom, aunt, and the rest of the family shortly
after receiving the footage back from Greg.
- That's me with pigtails there I am.
That's Guy, there you are right there.
- Oh yeah
- I'm so glad you actually caught this.
I would never ever think that I'd ever see
that again and I did and -
- It's over 50 years old.
- Honestly to see my mother that young
- Oh yeah.
- And that beautiful, it just makes me feel
like I just miss her so much more but just
to have that, that's a blessing.
- I can't help but be thankful the door to
the camera popped off when it did.
If it happened years later,
perhaps the film would've been unsalvageable.
There might not have been a place around
to develop it and I wouldn't be able to show it
to the people that lived it.
(film reel rolling)
(children playing)
(soft music)