Dwayne’s Photo: The Story of Silver through the Medium of Film
Recently film maker Sarah George brought her kickstarter campaign to my attention. Sarah wants to make a film about film, on film. I think this is a worth campaign and definitely worth supporting. Please have a read and check out the campaign.
DWAYNE’S PHOTO: The Story of Silver through the Medium of Film
March 31, 2013, location: Parsons, KS and the world wide web
Last week, Fujifilm struck the latest note in a somber dirge marking the demise of film as a widely available medium of art and expression. On Friday, despite thousands of feet of existing stock, the company quietly discontinued the sale of Fuji Motion Picture Film. The remaining inventory will be scrapped: salvaged for silver and other components that make up the film.
Against this backdrop, filmmaker Sarah George is making DWAYNE’S PHOTO, a short documentary about Dwayne Steinle and his family run photo lab in Parsons, Kansas, that became the last place on earth to process Kodachrome. Sarah sees the film as an elegy: she believes it will be her last chance to shoot on film, to plumb the depths of pure black, embrace analog ambiance, and enjoy the poetry of subtle imperfections.
Dwayne’s story is part of 94 ELEMENTS (http://www.94elements.com), a global cross-media storytelling project about the 94 naturally occurring elements in the periodic table. Dwayne gives us a human story behind the element of Silver.
94 ELEMENTS is partly a celebration of the art and diversity of documentary film, and partly an exploration of our relationships with our natural resources – we’re using a lot of them up at an astonishing rate. At current levels of consumption it’s estimated that there is only around 20 years supply of silver left in the ground. The idea behind the project is to focus attention on how we use the elements in our lives through a web of stories as diverse as the elements themselves.
Mike Paterson, creator of 94 ELEMENTS, says, “Sarah has found such a great way to tell the story of Kodachrome and of the magical element – silver – which made chemical photography possible: a human story which will stand on its own as a moving and personal film, but which also forms part of a larger narrative exploring how we live.”
Sarah explains that when she was first struck by the idea of telling the story of silver through the medium of film, she didn’t have Dwayne Steinle in mind. She was thinking about the transition from film to digital in motion pictures and feeling a sense of loss. It suddenly seemed remarkable to her that silver, specifically, makes our memories and stories tangible – in contrast to the impermanence of the flood of digital images known as the ‘photostream’.
Also, despite media coverage over the end of Kodachrome, Dwayne Steinle’s personal story has not been told. In DWAYNE’S PHOTO we use his own images and discover how he came to process those last treasured rolls of the iconic film. In many ways their stories are intertwined and together they became a small part of history.
Sarah is currently running a Kickstarter campaign, and there are just five days left to fund DWAYNE’S PHOTO! Here’s the link: http://kck.st/Zv0kDz. If you believe in film, and want to see this short documentary, please consider backing it and helping to spread the word.
The project needs your support and they are very close to their goal, so click the link and see if you can help.
Thanks
Japancamerahunter
