Summary

Colour motion film - Kodak Australasia Pty Ltd, Building 20 Redevelopment Project, Coburg, 1978.

Kodak manufactured and distributed a wide range of photographic products to Australasia, such as film, paper, chemicals, cameras and miscellaneous equipment. Its client base included amateur and professional photographers, as well as specialist medical and graphic art professionals who used photography, x-ray and other imaging techniques.

This film is part of the Kodak collection of products, promotional materials, photographs and working life artefacts collected from Kodak Australasia in 2005, when the Melbourne manufacturing plant at Coburg closed down.

Description of Content

Building 20 redevelopment project.

Physical Description

16MM cellulose acetate motion picture film; Colour; Magnetic Sound; 1978

More Information

  • Collection Names

    Kodak Heritage Collection

  • Collecting Areas

    Images & Image Making, Working Life & Trades

  • Acquisition Information

    Donation from Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd, Ms. Kate Metcalf - Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd, 2005

  • Acknowledgement

    Courtesy of Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd.

  • Organisation Depicted

    Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd, Coburg, Greater Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 1978

  • Recording Details

    Commissioned production, 500 feet, Poor, 16MM cellulose acetate motion picture film; Colour; Magnetic Sound; 1978 The soundtrack on this film was magnetic and the Steenbeck did not pick it up properly.

  • Content Summary

    1, 00:00:13 HH:MM:SS, Entrance to public pick-up area of Building 20. Customers could collect prints from this outlet. There are promotional posters out the front featuring women in bikinis.,2, 00:00:18 HH:MM:SS, Female worker in blue uniform receiving reprint orders. Camera zooms in on sorted envelopes.,3, 00:00:27 HH:MM:SS, Yellow Kodak delivery van backing into a delivery dock at north east end of building.,4, 00:00:35 HH:MM:SS, Man unloading bags into wheeled pallet cage.,5, 00:00:55 HH:MM:SS, Man in dark blue overalls pushes wheeled pallet cage into goods lift.,6, 00:01:04 HH:MM:SS, Receipt area on ground floor. Features central sorting bay with different bins for different film types, and workstations along wall.,7, 00:01:07 HH:MM:SS, Man in white overalls unloads pallet cage and takes totes and boxes of orders to begin sorting them.,8, 00:01:27 HH:MM:SS, Woman in blue inform sorting envelopes into a bin.,9, 00:01:29 HH:MM:SS, Camera follows balding man in white overalls through the receipt area. He is carrying a tote. At 1:31 Don Smirl, an Industrial Engineer who worked for Kodak in Time and Motion studies, walks out the door. He was on the team that helped develop the payment system and incentive scheme for workers.,10, 00:01:42 HH:MM:SS, Female worker in blue uniform seated at workstation. Man in overalls from previous shot unloads and replaces a black tote on the workstation behind her.,11, 00:01:49 HH:MM:SS, Woman date stamping and numbering Kodacolor processing envelopes with date of receipt and unique number so that film and envelope can be reunited for despatch at end of processing.,12, 00:01:58 HH:MM:SS, Man in lab coat at 'Take off' end of a 110 processing machine.The film would have been loaded into the machine in a dark room and fed through the enclosed system.,13, 00:02:04 HH:MM:SS, Man walks canned film across the floor and deposits it through a window into the printer room.,14, 00:02:27 HH:MM:SS, Printer room, where colour prints were producted from colour slides. Pans across room filled with different work stations in low light.,15, 00:02:32 HH:MM:SS, Woman takes magazine of undeveloped photographic paper from side of printer into the paper processing dark room where there are shelves and the end of the processing machine with paper coming through it. A male worker in lab coat reviews the prints. Another man in overalls is followed as he walks through the space.,16, 00:02:57 HH:MM:SS, Woman performing quality control test on reel of photographic prints.,17, 00:03:00 HH:MM:SS, Paper cutting area, where prints are cut and sorted into envelopes,18, 00:03:53 HH:MM:SS, Woman scanning envelopes.,19, 00:04:02 HH:MM:SS, Woman wheeling trolley of poster prints to despatch area.,20, 00:04:16 HH:MM:SS, Workers in despatch area manually sorting envelopes of processed prints into pigeon holes for local and interstate delivery. Thousands of pigeon holes which are organised according to location of each dealer, therefore aligning to the order of the local delivery run. Interstate orders were generally bundled together and sorted at interstate distribution centres. This was all replaced with an automated system in the redevelopment.,21, 00:05:13 HH:MM:SS, Driver carrying tote of deliveries down hallway.,22, 00:05:26 HH:MM:SS, Row of Kodak delivery cars parked along driveway, drivers coming and going.,23, 00:05:39 HH:MM:SS, Receipt area sorting films into film type. Man with trolley pushes in through and unloads it.,24, 00:06:10 HH:MM:SS, Woman takes tote of Super 8 films to her workstation and divides them into smaller batches of approximately 40 reels for processing batches. These were loaded onto a carousel for the numbering room (woman lifts carousel onto desk).,25, 00:06:36 HH:MM:SS, Man takes trolley of smaller batched totes into the darkroom and unloads them.,26, 00:07:08 HH:MM:SS, Female worker in blue uniform takes box of film for splicing.,27, 00:07:13, Cuts to black to symbolise processing time.,28, 00:07:15 HH:MM:SS, Films in the drying and winding machines are checked through a microscope. Male worker in white overalls writes a note on a batch and walks it to a workstation where a female worker in blue overalls is re-winding some reels. Man unloads a batch of film and envelopes onto racking.,29, 00:07:40 HH:MM:SS, Woman takes batch of film and envelopes from racking to her workstation where she splices the film back into its original envelopes, matching it to the prints, stamping each envelope and placing them on a conveyor belt.,30, 00:08:06 HH:MM:SS, Male worker in white overcoat stamping batch card.,31, 00:08:22 HH:MM:SS, Women aligning slides in cardboard mounts, packing slides into boxes.,32, 00:08:31 HH:MM:SS, Camera tracks slide film boxes on conveyor belt as they are taped shut. Ends with man checking film tag through transparent base of film box and sorting into batches. Normally this process was automated, indicating machinery may have been down?,33, 00:09:11 HH:MM:SS, Man takes trolley of film to despatch area. At 00:09:24 he passes Ray Veich, the Supervisor of Black and White Processing.,34, 00:09:50 HH:MM:SS, Delivery van approaching and backing into loading dock.,35, 00:10:23, Loading of delivery van. Man in striped shirt in delivery area is Norm Alexander, not normally in the delivery area.,36, 00:11:03 HH:MM:SS, Worker in full protective facemask, overalls and apron moving bag of chemicals in chemical mixing area. Unloads it into machine.,37, 00:11:19 HH:MM:SS, Len Smead, known as the 'Mix Man' of building 20. Worked for the company for 30 years. Seen here in safety goggles with tank of chemical solution, posisbly replenisher.,38, 00:11:25 HH:MM:SS, Replenisher tanks,39, 00:11:30 HH:MM:SS, Pumps and pipes in recirculation system,40, 00:11:30, Flow raters or flow meters with worker checking readings.,41, 00:11:43 HH:MM:SS, Control laboratory,42, 00:11:53 HH:MM:SS, Workers, possibly including Industrial engineers, making scale model of the layout for the redevelopment of Building 20,43, 00:12:07 HH:MM:SS, END

  • Format

    Motion Film

  • Inscriptions

    Printed on a label that is attached to the original film container; 'MOVIE FILM OF BUILDING 20 / FOR S.E.R. RE-BUILDING PROJECT'

  • Brand Names

    Kodak ()

  • Classification

    Manufacturing & industry, Photographic products, Promotional materials

  • Category

    History & Technology

  • Discipline

    Technology

  • Type of item

    Audiovisual

  • Keywords

    Factories, Manufacturing, Photography, Building & Construction