014. Michael Krebs & Hanna Pribitzer
Founders of Revolog
I found out about what you are up to a few years ago, and checked in again recently. I was happily surprised to see that you have thrived and it looks like your idea is even more in demand. Do you know why there is such a big demand for special effects on analogue film?
MK: First it was an idea that we had when we were studying photography together. It was our diploma project there, and the first idea was about how to age film, to make it look like a 60's-style film or something. So we teamed up for the diploma, then we developed all the different effects we had at the time, eight in all, I think. It turned out really well and everybody liked it, so we said “let’s try to do this”, start a small webshop and so on..
HP: We didn’t think it would turn out the way it did, we thought we would make maybe 300 Euros and then we shut the thing down. But we seem to hit a button at the right time, it was at the same time as Instagram went really big.
MK: We were always told: “Why should I buy this, I could do it on Instagram” (laughs).
HP: Basically there are two crowds we are talking about: the analogue and the digital crowd, with the latter who says anything can be achieved in Photoshop. Then there is us, and what we want to achieve is the effect of surprise, analogue film — whether there are special effects applied or not — there is always an amount of surprise in it. You don’t see the picture immediately, you don’t know if the camera is fawlty, or if the light is going to mess up. Until the moment you get the film from the lab, there is a “tingle of surprise”, and that’s what people like.
Also, many of our customers are amateurs. Maybe they know a little bit about photoshop, the skills to achieve some special effect.. but the point is that you can have the effects we give in any camera. Many people shoot with toy cameras; they want to have the vignette-effect, or different colours and stuff, but what we have heard from many people is that they are disappointed of the quality from the cameras. With our films, you can put it in expensive analogue cameras and they will create a certain look.
MK: We also have professionals shooting with our films, for fashion, portrait and also artists — exactly because you can use the films in high-quality cameras also, and achieve good results. We have two types of effects: the color effects, like the 600nm and the 460nm. And then we have the texture effects, like the Lazer or the Rasp. And here, the Tesla effect, for example, if you’re lucky it adds like an additional “story” layer to the photos.
HP: Let me show you a good example: this is the building where Ghostbusters was filmed. And after looking it up on the internet, there are literally sparks flying around in the building from the film scenes.
I like that you have taken a seemingly simple idea and brought it to new levels. It seems so simple, so I thought, maybe I could do it at home also? Or is it more to the process?
HP: You could, if you knew how to. We are not working with chemicals, we wanted to make sure that it can be developed in any lab without destroying the chemistry, which would be really bad.
MK: Of course you could do it at home, but for us it took over a year to find out how to produce the effects. And the right amount, not too much, not too less.
It is a secret formula, of sorts?
HP: Of sorts, yes (laughs). Secret mechanisms..
When did you start out with all this?
We started out in 2009, as part of the diploma project, but the company was founded in 2010, seven years ago.
I thought that analogue photography, when it gained hype a while back ago, that it was a kind of hype that would eventually die out. But this didn’t happen at all, it just grows.
MK: Yeah, yeah, just look at what happens at Kodak now! Or Ferrania.
HP: It seems like, for example with vinyl and the record industry, there is a niche for this that is getting stronger now. Many people who start out with analogue photography are actually born in the digital age. 15-year-olds that have never experienced analogue films before. They get interested in the look and feel for it. And there is a huge difference in the look & feel of the medium. Even if the quality is grainy, it’s something completely different than how it feels with pixelated images.
MK: Something you can touch and feel, in comparison to digital.
I love analogue too, but I’m too greedy to buy and develop. But maybe it’s getting cheaper now, when popularity is rising?
HP: It’s not getting cheaper. Maybe to develop, but the films are actually getting a lot more expensive. People tell me this, but I can speak from my own point of view too.. that when I shoot film it makes me focus. If you have a digital camera or your phone or whatever, you have the ability to take hundreds of pictures in a very short time. Basically you then get fifty pictures that look the same. With film you have a maximum of maybe 36 pictures… you have to focus on what you really want to shoot, how you compose the picture. And it costs something. You value the picture differently. It’s more about the value, actually, of taking pictures. That’s something I think many people like.
MK: Most of the people scan the films, but many also develop. You get a physical picture in front of you, not just on the screen. That’s a big part of it, that you can hold it in your hand.
HP: I also think people like the boundaries that it gives them. If you use a black and white film, the film is going to be black and white. There is no way around it. But with digital, there are so many possibilities, you are sitting in front of your computer trying to choose between all effects. Hours and hours of doing that. And when you look back at them a few years later, at least for me, I look at the style I applied on the pictures and change them. It’s great that you can do that, but on the other hand…
MK: It’s just a different approach on how to work with photography. We don’t say that digital is bad (laughs), but…
HP: We are both working as photographers as well, we know the industry is fast-paced and so, so you need to have possibilities, especially if you shoot in low-light conditions or so.
Do you develop your films here too?
(Both:) No.
HP: Where we are now, this is our shop and workshop. Back there (points to a closed door) we make the special effects.
How do you get the word out on what you do? On your website you have distributors located in every corner of the world. Did you find them or them you?
HP: Actually, most of them found us. We had the luck of being in the right place at the right time. When we started out, Facebook was having different algorithms for everything you posted and it reached out to the people you wanted to reach out to. When we started, we had maybe 3–400 Facebook fans, around the world, which was kind of absurd. Now we have maybe 3,800 or so.
MK: We don’t buy our likes (laughs).
HP: A couple of years ago, Facebook changed the algorithms, so if you don’t pay for your post now, it won’t reach anybody, it gets buried underneath something else. Back then, it was working out quite good. We were able to accumulate quite a following. We have a tumblr blog. And we were fortunate to be able to work together with Rachel Rebibo from I Still Shoot Film, a big blog out there back in 2010. She was trying out different films and were posting about us.
MK: That gave us a big boost.
HP: Yes, an extremely big boost. Most of our exposition comes from word of mouth, friends telling and showing each other about how cool our effects look like. And now, mostly through Instagram. Tumblr and Facebook is kind of dead… but we still use them, of course.
Facebook is dead?
HP: In a way. Because if you don’t pay for it, you don’t have the reach. If you look at the pages you have liked, and you click back to see on the pages you have liked, you realize the news from their feed is not showing up in my feed. Facebook filters that out, trying to understand what you want to see. So as a Page on Facebook, you will have difficulties interacting with your customers. If you don’t have people regularly checking in your page, or liking your pictures or your posts, they will not see what you do.
MK: It doesn’t work without paying.
HP: Also if you look at the younger people, in a couple of years from now, no one else will be there anymore. I look at the coming generation, like my sister and my brother, they ask “what would I do on Facebook?”. They’re on Snapchat and Instagram, all kinds of new media, so it’s changing a lot. Facebook is going to be an old dinosaur with old people in it. My parents are on Facebook, my siblings not, that’s showing something.
And if you’re like us, we have a quite young customer base, actually, and they will get younger. Probably in the future, we’ll have to find other ways on connecting with them.
Are you on Snapchat, then?
HP: No, I wouldn’t know what to do, I’m a dinosaur too (laughs).
Talking about your customers, who is your typical customer?
HP: 60–70% are females, ages 20–30. I guess 70% are amateurs. Not so many Austrians, but a huge part coming from Germany. Otherwise the US, the UK, Brazil.
MK: Different countries in Asia, as well. For example, South Korea is a big market.
Brazil seems to be the odd member, or?
HP: Yeah, good question. They have a huge analogue community. But the reasons behind it, we don’t know, it surprises us too.
You said before it could be seen as being a too expensive hobby, I can see why you think that, but if you compare the quality to that of a digital camera you would need at least a thousand Euros to invest in the camera body alone. You need a full-frame sensor to achieve the depth of field. For 20 Euros, you can get a very good single-reflex camera, with a good lens. So it might sound expensive when you first look at it, but you always have to invest in something for the digital part.
And then on the digital side, you need to process your photos, you have to get a good software for that, let’s say Adobe Photoshop CC, I think that’s 14 Euro per month — that’s a roll of film plus development!
So you have a lot of great people using your great films, do you get to meet the users also? You seem to have some kind of community thing going on, like on your blog, where you publish interviews.
HP: Yes, sometimes we meet them. But most communications are via email or social media.. But I have a friend now in the US, the contact started out as a customer. First we were in contact via mail for text and pictures to the blog, then she was nice enough to invite me to her home, and now we are actually really close friends. I would not have expected that. And in Berlin, we met people at the analogue NOW festival, a great analogue festival, they invited us to come and we developed a nice friendship with them. So yes, there is a certain community feeling about it, due to the fact that the “movement” is so international.
Do you see possibilities to do something more with the community-building? Be it business, inpiration, ideas, etc.
MK: We have been thinking about that, about giving the community some kind of platform. Like with on other sites, where you have forums. It’s on our list, to make the exchange happen between the customers. That’s definitely a plan.
And with your product, the film rolls, are you keeping on with inventing new type of effects, new type of formats?
MK: Yes, we are absolutely going for more effects. With formats, too, but it’s more difficult. Right now we just have the 35 mm format, which is quite easy to handle. We once tested on 120 mm, but it’s very hard to handle. The film turned out well, but we have to ensure that there are no light leaks and stuff like that. If you try to scale, it’s very difficult to ensure good quality. It’s also on our list.
HP: On the top of our list, actually. We have to find the right people to do it with. You need a production company for it. We have a few ideas on how we are going to do this.
So people are asking for it?
HP: Yes!
MK: A lot of people.
HP: There are a lot of users with Holga cameras, for example. Also people with good-quality, medium-format cameras are requesting it a lot.
MK: We are planning on new effects too. It’s always quite the process, to find the right one, to test it, all the stuff around it. It takes a lot of time.
I’m curious about that process. Are you actually applying effects to each and every film roll individually, that you sell?
(Both): Yes.
It sounds like an enormous effort?
MK: Sometimes, yeah (laughs). Especially since the raw material that we buy is packed, we have to unpack it, to label it, everything by hand, each roll has a hand-applied number written on them. The design as well, we have basic graphic design skills. When we started out, we worked with two graphic designers and they did a great, great job for us. They even did the CI (Corporate Identity) for us, which we continue to use. But the hardest part in creating a new roll is finding a name for it!
(Both laughs)
HP: It’s crazy as hell. In the beginning, we had a competition on Facebook, now we are just sitting down and trying to find out…
MK: Googling (laughs).
HP: With the name streak, it was kind of funny, we were thinking on so many names and eventually it came down to Streak. Later we found out, it’s actually a technical term for a scratched negative. We didn’t know that!
MK: And with Volvox, which was one of our first films, that we did it over Facebook…
HP: … a friend of mine who was a microbiologist at the time, asked me: “do you know about the volvox algae?”… and it looks exactly like this! Most of the other names are no funny accidents, though.
They all have a connection to the effect, even it it’s not obvious first. The 600nm and 460nm (nanometers) names are referring to the wavelength of certain colours.
You invent effects for still photography, are you also interested in experimenting with motion photography?
HP: You could apply the effects to 8mm or 16mm film, 16mm would be the easier of them, but…
MK: … there is no market.
HP: Maybe if a customer asks for it as a special request, we can do it.
MK: Not many people film with 16 or 35 mm cameras. Only few people can afford it.
HP: Lomo has this Lomokino camera, a few people actually shot with our films on it. That’s kind of nice. Then there is this special vintage camera (Stereo camera) that takes 3D-pictures, and if you scan them later and put them together, you get a really cool effect.
MK: We actually would like to see our effects in motion. I mean, a lot of people have super-8 cameras, but it doesn’t work with that film.
Users with vintage technology seem to come up with really creative solutions as to how express themselves.
HP: We both really enjoy seeing what people are doing with our films. It’s fascinating, because there are so many different approaches to photography. With us both, we also have very different approaches, personally. And then to see how other people work is really inspiring. Like, I am not a portrait photographer, but I love what people are doing with portrait photography, with our films. It’s amazing.
Interview by Anders Khan-Bolin
