One of the ironies of the time is that while real pornographers will have little difficulty either financing or producing their work, artists who deal with sex or sexual imagery with any frankness are likely to find the going difficult indeed. In the U.S.A. it seems more acceptable to make money off sex than actually to enjoy it. Unfazed, two of the Bay Area's younger filmmakers decided to take matters into their own hands.-Ed.

by Bill Daniel and Greta Shred

Add the creeping chill of lab censorship to the diminished services and long turn-around times for out-of town processing that are making life more difficult for black and white filmmakers. So when we decided to make sex movies, it seemed like the perfect time to experiment with home-processing.

We chose B/W reversal, mainly because you can get a positive image without having to get it printed. Though reversal processing is more complex than B/W negative, it is still much easier than color processing. One way you can do the processing is spaghetti-style, bunching up the film in buckets of chemicals. This produces the traditional mottled look associated with hand-processed film. However, with reversal processing, which involvees 13 steps and over an hour of developing, this can be impractical. Especially in terms of fumes and maneuvering about in total darkness. In addition, your film will always be mottled and patchy, which may be what you want, but there are other possibilities if you can get more physical control of the film during processing. We discovered the Arkay Company's

About the Film

Punks do have sex, contrary to popular belief. Representations of punk sexulity seem to be either the snarling, leather S/M pervert thing, or else the other extreme of teen-age East Beay celibate vegetarians. This includes punk sex film productions, too. As usual, though, the truth falls somewhere in between. Many of us have lamented the absence of believable sex-images, in which the punk is not the token freak, and in which the diversity of our culture is reflected. Thus, in the spirit of punk "do-it-yourself," we did.

The democratization of moving images is usually the realm of videotape and camcorders. But, as found-footage work already illustrates, there is still an abundance of poverty-cinema remaining to be explored. So, carrying on in that tradition, we gave each of our housemates 100 feet of film and a crash course in 16mm production and left them to their own devices. We then processed the footage in our darkroom, and ended up with a seven-part film of three-minute vignettes, each one as different as the person who made it. The films range from explicit, spontaneous romps to more deliberately choreographed and symbolic images. Each person stars in his or her own film, as well. The visual flukes of hand-processing work well with the individual nature of the films. The result is a joyous anarchistic experiment in film and sensuality with nothing at stake but our own revelatory fun.

G-3 Daylight Developing Tank at Pan-Pacific Photo in Hollywood. It is essentially a plastic, light-tight tank, with a stopper drain in the bottom, 		and spools inside big enough to hold 100 feet of film, any guage. After winding your film onto the interior reel in total darkness, you can replace the lid and do all the processing with the lights on.

The chemicals poured into a hole on the top of the tank, and the film is wound back and forth continually as the processing takes place. This means you don't have to submerge your hands in ten different carcinogens, either.

Developing times are slightly longer in this tank, because of the proportion of the time that the film is wound up and not free-floating in the solutions. Because the film is neatly spooled, you can mix and use far smaller amounts of chemicals; as little as 16 ounces will cover a 100 foot roll. Reversal processing kits are available at most photo stores for under $30.

The chances are great that your film will be uniform throughout each roll. Of course, even slight variations in temperature, timing, and winding speed will make each seperate roll unique. This can be used to your advantage, but you still keep the cool, unpredictable aspect of hand-processing. For example, warmer first developer will yield a browner-toned film. Shorter clearing time will make it greener. Altering the ratio between development time and re-development time affects the amount of solarization and the contrast. The possibilities are endless! Good luck.