“For When It Hurts To Breathe”
I wrote & directed this short film in November of 2023. “For When it Hurts to Breathe” is about my relationship with anxiety, and how it influences my day-to-day life. If you’re interested in watching it, you can click the image below — I’d really appreciate it if you did.
The film itself is the focal point here, but now, a few months removed, I thought it would be fun to host the film on my website, and add a little snippet of director’s commentary to it. The following is a short journal entry I wrote right after completing production for the film.
Thank you for reading it, and thank you for being here.
“The film is just about done, and today I will do a quick interview talking about my intentions with the film. I think I’ve finally landed on the title — “For When It Hurts to Breathe.” I can’t tell if it’s too melodramatic, but even if it is, I don’t think I care. This is the first title that feels good, and honest, and resonates with me. So, I think that makes it the title.
As per the title, the first theme of this short film is anxiety. The long, slow opening is meant to bring the viewer in to what I often feel like at work, which is why we staged a production for that scene. There have been many exact instances like that on a number of different sets for me, so it felt like an appropriate way to open the film.
Taking the director’s chair is the first subtle hint of both leadership and doubt. That’s the second theme of the film — imposter syndrome. I wanted to explore this as well, however subtly, because my anxiety is intrinsically intertwined with my confidence.
My hesitant suggestion of “doing something different” is the introduction to the third and main theme of this short film. I don’t have a neat and succinct name for it, but essentially, I wanted to explore the idea of creation as salvation. “Artist” has been my identity for the better part of the last 15 years, and I’ve always used art (whatever medium it might be) to express the exact feelings that I’m feeling. It often helps me process them, but it doesn’t quite bring me comfort. And that’s where the peaceful second act of the film comes in.
Anxiety is not something to be solved once and shelved forever. It’s an ongoing struggle; one that has great days and also terrible days. And I’ve come to peace with that.”
Nice Film Club
This “Netflix” of film labs has the best price and best quality I’ve ever seen.
Over the last three years, I’ve shot hundreds and hundreds — maybe close to 1,000? — rolls of film. In that time, I’ve experimented with dozens of different combinations of techniques to get a final digital image. Developing and scanning in-house, using pro scanners, flatbeds, and camera scanning setups, outsourcing just the development to a few different labs, outsourcing just scanning to a few labs, sending EVERYTHING to labs; I’ve tinkered with the process quite a bit.
I say all of that to emphasize this: after three years of experimentation, I’ve finally found a solution that suits my workflow best — Nice Film Club.
All of the images in this article were developed and scanned by Nice Film Club, and edited further by me in Lightroom.
I’ve been working with Nice for the last 9 months, and have absolutely loved the results I’ve gotten from them. The video above was sponsored by them (unlike this article that I’m writing), and I had free rein to say and do whatever I wanted. If you want to sign up for a membership with Nice, you can use my code “STEVEN20” at checkout to take $20 off of whatever plan you’d like. The code is limited to 20 uses, and I don’t know how many times it’s already been used, but you’re welcome to try it and save yourself a bit of cash. I don’t get any kickback when you use this code — it’s truly just for you.
Leica M6 + 28mm Elmarit ASPH & Kodak Portra 400
Leica M6 + 28mm Elmarit ASPH & Kodak Portra 800
Leica M6 + 28mm Elmarit ASPH & Kodak Portra 800
Quality
Seems like a pretty good place to start, yeah? Nice uses a Noritsu HS-1800 to create up to 16-Bit TIFF scans. These scans range from 150-180mb each, typically measure around 6,700 pixels on the long edge, and provide tons of editing flexibility in post. The scans themselves are pretty flat right out of the box, which I think a lot of photographers (myself included) will enjoy, as it gives you precise control over the final image. And because of all that 16-Bit color, there’s plenty of headroom to edit without deteriorating the image.
Of course, JPEGs are also provided, so if you would prefer to have a smaller file, they are available alongside the TIFFs.
Scan directly from Nice
Scan directly from Nice
Scan directly from Nice
Scan w/ my edits
Scan w/ my edits
Scan w/ my edits
The other enormous benefit of sending film off to get high-res scans from a lab is that I don’t have to be the one scanning anymore. Like I mentioned in the intro, I used to scan all of my film, either with a flatbed scanner or camera scanning setup. I always loved the quality, especially with the camera scanning setup, but as I began to shoot larger quantities of film, it became less realistic for me to carve out a few hours to scan everything. And on top of that, I still have to convert everything to a positive image.
Confidently sending everything to Nice allows me to reinvest all of that scanning & developing time back into my business, in a brand new way. And for my current stage of life, that’s hugely valuable to me.
Access
Okay, so I think it’s safe to say that the quality of the scans is… Nice.
Get it?
Terrible jokes aside, let’s talk about the thing that I think truly sets Nice Film Club apart — scan delivery & storage.
Rolleiflex 2.8E & Kodak Portra 800
Rolleiflex 2.8E & Portra 800
Leica M6 + 28mm Elmarit ASPH & Kodak Portra 800
Full stop, Nice blows every other film lab out of the water with the way they deliver and store your scans. This section specifically benefits from watching the video I made, just so you can watch how I interact with the whole UI that Nice has built out for its members. But I’ll leave this screenshot below so you can get a sense of what I’m talking about here.
Nice Dashboard
This is your user dashboard when you log into your account. Each roll is categorized by ID number, ISO, film stock, and date. It’s extremely easy to sort through all of your rolls and find specific images that you need. You can bulk download JPEGs or TIFFs, share links with friends, and generate contact sheets for sharing on socials.
Oh — and every Nice member gets unlimited cloud storage. So, all of the scans in your account? They’re always there. No more digging through your inbox to find old Dropbox or Google Drive links, only to find out that they’ve expired and you can’t re-download your images. You can access your files wherever you are, and you always have a backup of your scans stored in your account, in case a drive crashes or corrupts.
Leica M6 + 28mm Elmarit ASPH & Kodak Portra 400
Leica M6 + 28mm Elmarit ASPH & Kodak Portra 800
Pricing
You’ve probably noticed I’ve said “Nice member” a few times throughout this article. And you might have also been curious as to why I introduced Nice as the “Netflix of film labs,” too. Well, that’s because Nice is a membership-based film lab. You pay an annual fee to be a member, which gives you access to everything we’ve talked about so far. In a world of endless subscriptions and memberships, this might sound like a turn off to you; but let’s unpack the membership a little further.
Nice Membership Tiers
When you pay your membership fee, you get an allotment of dev & scan credits, which vary depending on the tier that you choose. For example, at the $200/year price point, you get 10 dev & scan credits, which are available for immediate use. That means if you purchase the “Nice” tier, you could send in 10 rolls of film that same day to get them developed. These days, $20/roll for full development and scanning is pretty common at most labs, so this feels like a pretty fair value.
But here’s the best part. After you’ve used all of your dev & scan credits, your membership grants you continued access to Nice’s film lab at only $9.99/roll. That’s basically unheard of. The process stays the same, too — it’s not like the scan quality is better when you use a credit vs. pay in cash. It’s the same Noritsu HS-1800, the same JPEGs, and the same 16-Bit TIFFs; and I know that because I’ve used both credits and cash to get my film developed at Nice.
Pentax 6x7 + 105mm 2.4 & Kodak Portra 800
Mamiya 645AFD + 80mm 2.8 & Kodak Portra 400
Final Thoughts
Here’s the bottom line — I love film. It has brought so much joy back into my photo work, and has opened my mind to so many different styles and formats of photography. But I can’t ignore the obvious elephant in the room; it’s expensive. Even as a professional photographer, I sometimes have a hard time justifying it. This has led me to be especially selective with how I treat my film. I want to get the absolute most out of it, for everything that I’m putting into it.
And I think Nice Film Club does that better than any lab that I’ve ever used. They provide an incredible value to their customers — the scans are beautiful, the storage is unbeatable, and if you shoot enough film to justify the initial membership price, it ends up saving you money in the long run. And that’s why I think this is the answer a lot of film photographers have been looking for.
Shitty First Drafts
A new start to an old habit.
To kick off 2024, I published a video essay (linked below) discussing the idea of adding old habits back into your life. The habit I used as an example was pocket journals, and how I used them every single day, for a number of purposes. I maintained this habit during all four years of college, and carried it into the first few years of post-graduation, too. After sharing this video on YouTube, it occurred to me that my writing in college didn’t stop at to-do lists and quick thoughts; it was actually a core part of who I used to be.
As a Communications student, I took a number of journalism and writing classes. One professor in particular required us to create a Medium account in order to aggregate all of our pieces. I distinctly remember thinking this small (at the time) blogging tool was so cool, and it was the beautiful ease of Medium that encouraged me to write more. I wrote dozens and dozens of different articles for those classes, and enjoyed it so much that I started using it for my own ruminations, too. I loved discovering my voice through written word, and often treated it as a sanctuary to understand my own feelings. I wonder if I can still get into my old account?
Now, with that exposition aside, you’re probably curious about the title of this article. It’s a direct quote from a chapter of the book “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott. The chapter itself is titled “Shitty First Drafts,” in which Anne puts forth the idea that all beginnings — all “first drafts” — are shitty, and that you should take comfort in that. You have to start somewhere, because starting is better than nothing. And it’s only in starting, and then refining, and then refining some more, that you can begin to grow as an artist.
It’s not about overcoming the “shitty first draft” and then being done with it for the rest of your career. It’s not a mountain you climb once, and then never have to worry about again. It will be a common denominator in most things you create. Rather, it’s about rejecting the paralysis of perfection, and embracing the comfort of creation. You’re not going to nail it on the first try, and that’s okay. Just start, then refine; the rest will follow.
I don’t have a good ending for this, and that’s okay. I’ll probably edit it later anyway.