Work Order 0630SQ

Rodrigo Photography and Digital Restoration

I don’t want to do this order.

It gives me a vague feeling of anxiety I can’t pinpoint.

A work order.

Two frames of 16 mm film. ISO 500, graded for Tungsten light, with high latitude and dynamic range.

The order is asking for a full restoration, but they have no specs from the original processing lab, no notes on the chemicals used for processing.

Not that it matters. If they sent it to me it’s because they know I can backtrace those aspects of the original processing job from the scan. And it’s a handwritten order. And I found out from a follow up call that this is for a book project. A book about about a time in the past of this city. The book is being funded through a combination of private money, a media department from a local college, and a University Press originating in the same college.

Its nice to get handwritten, mailed-in job orders. Besides that, in a place like Flattown, items like these can work as a grounding tool. Something physical that won’t disappear into whatever places things go into here.

It’s part of why I want to turn down this job.

I’m afraid of what this little window into this town’s past can open.

Even though it’s just a couple of frames of film, you never know what aged cellulose can start in motion in the fabric of time.

And this job can lead to more work. Actual photography work. Restoration work is just about everything I get these days. I can also do this restoration job just from memory.

I remember this show.

I’m one of the few—maybe the only—person who saw this back when it aired on Sci-Fi Channel when it was getting off the ground.It’s a show of haven’t thought of in forever, till I opened that padded 4 x 6 manila envelope, and after a few seconds of squinting, I recognized those characters in those faded and scratched frames of film.

I’d stopped talking about this show because it was frustrating and disturbing how nobody seemed to know about it. I remember the same feeling whenever I brought up the movie Patrick. Growing up, none of the kids I talked to about horror movies seemed to know about that movie. It was a situation that after a while made me question if I’d imagined the movie the one time I saw it with my dad at that grindhouse theater.

But eventually Patrick became known. It was covered in a documentary, and then had a Blu-Ray release that brought the movie awareness to fans of horror and Australian genre filmmaking.

But this show remains unknown to the world at large. Not the most die hard of internet detectives knows about it. A Google search will turn up nothing. Neither will a deeper search on other platforms that don’t store your search history.

So these frames showing up on my mailbox feel like an artifact that’s come from alternate universe where this show is well known and loved by fans of sci-fi and action.

And this is why I’m reluctant to do this job.

In Flattown, for an item like this to appear, is an invitation to open doorways that either bring things from someplace else, or take people from here to someplace else.

Remind me to tell you about Billy Chen some time.

Either way, strange things happen here that can’t be explained.

Things that most people don’t notice, so it doesn’t even fit the category of unexplained phenomena.

Like, someone you grew up with could just disappear one day without notice, and the people who knew him, it’s like a reset took place in their brains, where they simply forgot about this person having been a part of their lives.

Except someone like me. Not because I’m a photographer. Or rather used to do photography, and switched to photo restoration once film was buried by digital.

It’s not because I’m an artist.

Or self employed.

I just remember. Before and after whatever happens, I remember. While everyone else forgets.

But that’s still too simplistic to define what makes Flattown strange. It’s not just missing people who vanish from the minds of the people who knew them.

It’s tiny moments of strangeness. You can’t really tell till it’s over, because it’s a change that barely registers in the minds of people.

The address of a pizza place that you were positive was number 167, but suddenly it’s 176.

A place that was always called TINA’S NAILS AND HAIR for as long you remember, that one day you’re driving past, and now it’s called DIANA’S HAIR AND NAILS.

That kind of strange. And this work order showing up now makes me think there’s going to be another of these shifts soon.

But maybe this shift will bring Night Vision to the world at large. Maybe a reboot of the series, or a feature film. a lot of things could get started with this film frame. Maybe it will give people a sense of what Flattown is about.

So let me get to work on this order.