The final nail in the Kodachrome coffin came at the end of 2010 when the last lab that processed the film, Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas, ceased its support. In Kodachrome’s final years, every roll sent to Kodak for processing from around the world was sent to Dwayne’s. This mini-documentary created by Xander Robin offers an interesting glimpse into Kodakchrome processing at Dwayne’s Photo before it came to an end.

New York-based design consultancy Mélangerie helps customers make custom View-Master wedding invitations that display photos in full-color Kodachrome. All they need are 7 high-res photos and a short snippet of text for each one. They’re pretty pricey though: 100 invites will set you back $3450.

Melangerie on Etsy (via OhGizmo! via Laughing Squid)

DreamWorks won’t be making a movie about the death of Kodachrome film after all — Fox will. Turns out the director of the movie, Shawn Levy, had a first look deal with Fox that gives the film studio first dibs on Levy’s projects.

It was the result of an honest error [...] producers initially brought the pitch to Fox 2000, which passed. Believing that represented due diligence under Levy’s Fox pact, producers next went to DreamWorks, which went for it (though sources say no money changed hands).

But 20th Century Fox caught wind of the deal, decided it ultimately liked the project and, citing its deal with Levy, yanked it back onto its development slate, where it stands today. [#]

The film is rumored to be about a father and son who take a road trip to process their final Kodachrome rolls before development ends.

(via Variety)

Kodachrome may be gone, but it’s far from forgotten — DreamWorks is planning to make a movie centered around the closing of the final Kodachrome lab in Kansas. Author Jonathan Tropper got the idea for the movie after reading an article about the film’s demise in the New York Times, and pitched the idea to the studio. His script involves a father-son road trip in which they attempt to reach the lab and process their Kodachrome rolls before their memories are lost forever. Shawn Levy is being named as the potential director for the movie.

(via SilberStudios)

Image credit: KODAK Kodachrome 64 25 slide film cartridges by Whiskeygonebad

Kodachrome film officially died at the end of last year when the last developer — Dwayne’s Photo Service — stopped accepting the film. Before that final nail in the coffin was pounded in, 53-year-old Jim DeNike drove from Arkansas to Dwayne’s in Kansas to have 1,580 rolls developed. The total cost for the 50,000 slides? $15,798. All of the photographs were of trains.

For Kodachrome Fans, Road Ends at Photo Lab in Kansas (via PCMag)

Image credit: Kodachrome by John!!!

Yesterday the last certified Kodachrome processing facility — Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas — finally stopped supporting the legendary film. They decided to create a t-shirt for mourning photo-geeks that sports the classic Kodachrome colors. If you’d like this tiny slice of Kodachrome history, you can get it for $13 over at Dwayne’s Photo.

After Kodak announced the end of Kodachrome’s production in June of 2009, the number of photo labs that developed the film began to dwindle until finally only Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas remained as the lone certified Kodachrome processing facility in the world. Today, they will be processing their last roll of Kodachrome, bringing the film’s storied career in the photo industry to an end. CBS News Sunday Morning did a neat feature looking back on the popular film.

Here’s an interesting clip of a color film test done by Kodak in 1922, years before color movies started appearing. This is 13 years before the first full-length color film appeared, and 7 years before the first Oscar was awarded. You can read more about this clip on the Kodak blog.
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It’s the end of an era. Photojournalist Steve McCurry has developed the last roll of Kodachrome film produced by Kodak.

National Geographic has been following the final journey of the last Kodachrome roll ever since Kodak’s announcement last year that it would retire Kodachrome. Kodak has been manufacturing Kodachrome since 1935.

McCurry developed 36 slides on Monday at Dwayne’s Photo Service in Parsons, Kansas, which is the last labs to process the film type. The final images were shot in New York City, but the last three frames were taken in Parsons.

If you’ve got undeveloped canisters of Kodachrome of your own, Dwayne’s will develop them only through December of this year.

(via Associated Press)

At the beginning of the month we featured a creative lamp shade made using slide film. Here’s a new idea: curtains. Jacki Vance-Kuss over at Yarn Zombie took Kodachrome slide film and aluminum chainmail rings and created a unique curtain for her front door.

Here’s the finished curtains I made out of Kodachrome slides! The slides date from the 50s and early 60s, and are all from a lot of slides I got in Kansas City last fall. The majority of slides on the right panel are of horses. Go figure. Travis drilled 8 holes in the slides using a Dremel tool in a Dremel drill press thingy, and I connected them all using aluminum chainmail rings.

The curtains open and close just like you would expect:

In response to the whole “Won’t it fade?” question, I’m pretty sure that yes, in time, the slides (especially the ones in direct sunlight) will fade. I don’t know how long they’ll last. If it happens in the next week or so, I’ll let you know. :) Hopefully, they’ll last a year or so. I have a ton of old slides, so as they fade, I can just replace them with others. That won’t be any big deal. I think if this was on a north-facing window, the slides will fade a lot slower. Also, I scanned in the most interesting slides, so in case the slides to fade to nothingness, the image is still preserved.

If you have old Kodachrome slide film that you’d like to recycle, this could be a fun project for you.

(via Lifehacker)

Image credits: Photographs by yarnzombie and used with permission.