The spark of this series started with a trip to Toronto sometime around 2012 where I (Ivan) was personally introduced to the process of shooting on motion picture film. I had previously shot Super 8 during the films "Valo5" and "Shred 'Til You'redead II" starting in 2007, but I had never experienced the full process of 16mm film. Brandon Smith's Oxblood section in NYC in 2013 was the first shorter project I had shot in the format.
From then on I knew I had to make something more.
So that sparked this film here, entirely shot on Kodak film with a BolexH16 camera is accompanied by a book which was also entirely shot on different formats of film, primarily 35mm and 120, with some scans of the 16mm film as well.
Proudly printed back on to a master 16mm print with an optical soundtrack at Niagara Custom Lab In Toronto, ON.
The Final images in the book were selected from a catalog of photographs by Brandon Smith and Ivan Narez throughout the weeks spent in Mexico. All scanned digitally from negatives, or in the case above, from an RA4 Color print in a Darkroom as well as black and white prints.
The titles of the project were all drawn by hand by Pablo Partida. They were then photographed onto black and white hi-contrast print film and digitally scanned for the book as well as superimposed onto the film.
Sylvain Chaussée, fellow blader and master technician at Niagara Custom Lab, is one of the biggest reasons why any of this project even happened.
Thank you Sylvain. We all owe you.