Podcast: Never Say Die – Film Rescue and Re-Spool

Do you need film stock for your 1947 Brownie Target Six-20 camera? Film for Classics has it. Found an undeveloped roll of film while cleaning out your grandfather’s junk drawer? Send it to the Rescued Film Project. 

On today’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we examine two aspects of the film photography world that are alive and well. First, we speak with Levi Bettwieser of the Rescued Film Project about his self-assigned mission to collect, process, and preserve as many orphaned rolls of film as he can. He tells us about how his project got started, how he sustains it, his motivation, goals, and the future potential for such an impressive, yet motley archive. Bettwieser inspires us with his zeal, and speaks of the thrill (and the responsibility) he feels knowing that he is the first person to ever see the images contained on these rolls, some shot more than 70 years ago. For the Rescued Film Project’s wish-list, click here.

After a pause, we speak with Dick Havilland, who is a film re-spooler and operates his business out of an old paper mill near Rochester, New York. Havilland cuts and packages sheet film into sizes that fit formats long ago abandoned by the majority of manufacturers and photographers. He tells us how this passion project became a business, how he acquires his raw material and creates these rolls, and about a few of his clients, including the artist and photographer William Christenberry. 

Guests: Levi Bettwieser, Dick Havilland

Host: Allan Weitz
Senior Creative Producer: John Harris
Producer: Jason Tables
Executive Producer: Lawrence Neves