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Niagara Custom Lab
Welcome to Niagara Custom
Lab thank you for visiting our site, here you should find everything you
need to know about the services we provide and how best to make them work
for you.
We are a full service
motion picture film processing facility, providing 8mm, super 8, 16mm and
35mm film processing and printing to film schools, film co ops,
collectives, leagues, arts orgs, museums, archives, independent and
processional productions, and everyone from first time film newbie to grand
old masters from all over the world.
We started this lab with
the intention of providing a few simple services, which were discontinued
by some of the bigger labs at the time, and now run more varied services
under one roof then any lab in the country. We are the only lab in Canada
running the new super 8 negative stocks Kodak has come out with the 200T
7217 the 500T 7218 and the new vision 3 super stocks as well as any pro 8
Fuji or Agfa negatives, it makes no difference to us who makes the stuff we
can process it. We can also cross process all the other super 8 stocks, the
black & whites look fantastic in the transfer if we run them as a
negative and the new E6 colour reversals do crazy things when we cross
process them as a colour neg. This can also be applied to 16mm or 35mm; we
can cross process any of them. Check out www.Framediscreet.com for
examples of how wicked a lot of these stocks can look after they bring them
over to the dark side of the digital world, we always suggest you check
them out their negative scanning it rules! Although Kodak does not endorse
the cross processing or bleach by-passing of any stocks or the forced
development in either direction of more then two stops of any film they
have tested. When we play by their rules and they back us 100%, when you
ask us to break the rules that’s when the fun starts!
If you have some reversal
stocks that you want processed straight up we leave those special runs to
our buddies at Exclusive Film and Video (www.exclusivefilmnet.net)
if you mix up your shipment we can even drop it off over there for you, we
are all thankful they are holding down the reversal fort. It also seems of
late that we are the only ones providing colour work prints or final prints
in 16mm besides Technicolor's outpost in Vancouver. Yes we are still running our
trademark black and white negative and print 16 or 35mm, our infamous black
& white hi con baths, and our unbeatable student and film co op member
rates on a process and print colour or black & white16mm negative. Our
close relationship with Transit Audio allows you to a one stop
shopping option if your working on a final print with sound you can ship us
your sound track on CD or Magstock and we can drop it off with them for
your optical track, contact them directly for the details on your optical
specs.
Niagara Custom Lab is
more then just a film processing facility we have extended our services to
include the very particular and demanding needs of the new media artist.
Garnering a 'print anything' reputation we have often been challenged by
some of the more daring film artists who show up with some fairly fragile
materials but with extra care most anything is possible. This also holds
true for many of the archive work we have been involved in there are limits
to how much shrinkage our printer can handle but we often find creative
ways around any problem.
Statement
Craftsmanship
Dedication Hard Work
Here at Niagara we are following the age-old
tradition of craftsmanship in film processing and printing initiated over
one hundred years ago by our forefathers of photo finishing, the inventors
of light sensitive emulsions and the engineers of lengthy film transport
systems. Developing, Fixing and Stop Baths, Chelating agents, pre soakers,
scrubbers, polishers and formaldehyde hardeners all contribute to creating
a reflection of light on a flexible
surface we call film that you can watch thru the intermittent movement of a
light projector. There are several
hundred rollers in each processing machine that carry the precious
celluloid thru its adventures in chemical land, circulation pumps heaters
and dryers PH balancing, surface flattening, forced air squeegees, turbines
and relays and drying cabinets. The
goal of those who run Niagara Custom Lab is to keep all these moving parts
in some kind of harmony, to preserve and maintain motion picture film as an
active medium as vibrant alive mysterious and powerful as it was the day it
was discovered. This is a challenging occupation especially in this time of
quickly advancing technology where the goal seems to be to make life easier
quicker and more pre-programmed, when a bearing breaks or breaker blows mid
run there is no hard drive back up no tech support, the show must go on
fractions of a degree or seconds added to your processing time and your
picture starts to change. Almost as if chasing an impossible dream film
seems to be almost not tangible always in fleeting motion we are proud of
our fleet of machines we have managed to maintain over the years and the
countless fantastic projects they have contributed to.
'There
is no business without the show and no show without the business'
Please email us with any
questions you might have about ncl or how we can help you to realize your
dreams ...
Sebastjan
September 2009
Rates
Due to increased expenses
from our suppliers over the past few years we can no longer simply absorb these
losses and have had to raise our prices this year. Still offering the
lowest base rates and student rates in the country please refer to the
updated price list on this website for our current processing rates.
thank you for your
understanding.
-Sebastjan
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