My bf and I host monthly game nights and our invitations have gotten a little more crafty each time. (This time we gave out chocolate bars with golden tickets in them). Our guests seem to love this for some reason. So next month I’ve got an idea not just for an invitation but for a game as well.
So this full frame transparency thing has me curious. Will only a transparency work? If so, where do I go to do one or can i make one at home with an inkjet printer?
And for clarity’s sake, I’ll be buying the viewers but assembling them at home…not making the plastic boxes from scratch.
(Bonus: is there a better place to buy them? I’ve got Amazon prime)
I don’t think regular printer paper would work, as it’s opaque. But could you maybe print the design onto an overhead transparency and cut it to size? This eHow article may be of service. I’m not a photography type, but a google search for “35mm transparency” pulls up a particular kind of camera film. That seems excessive for a project of this scale, though.
Yes you can print on to inkjet ohp film, but the results will be poor unless the hyper-grainy look is what you are after. The viewer will be magnifying a small area of just 24 by 36 mm - about 0.95 by 1.4 inches and you will be able to see the individual ink droplets, plus the ohp film often has a fine texture of it’s own. You would need to mount them in 2 by 2 inch frames which will fit the viewer. Adorama sell these but you could make your own from stiff card.
The intended material is slide film such as this which needs an old style film camera (remember those?) and has to be sent off for processing. It will come back with each frame already mounted. You only get one copy of each picture and duplicates can be expensive.
When having slides processed, you can tell them to not mount them.
Do you want the image to be something specific? Some processing places will be able to produce slides from digital files with good results.
I used to do that when I worked in medical research, for lectures in the days before digital projectors were everywhere. I’d make the slides in PowerPoint and then the prof would spend an absolute fortune for them to be converted to slides which he could take to the conference.
It was ridiculously expensive, and that was only about 13-14 years ago.
What prompted this idea was this Kickstarter project by Looney Labs and their “Are You A Werewolf? Deluxe Version”. My thought was to have the outside of the viewer have the party invitation on them, and then inside picture would be one of three different images. I’ve had a prototype of a game which is similar to werewolf but is without the player elimination so the invite would also be the player’s pawn for the evening too.
Sounds like this would be something I’d want to take t a local pro shop and see if they can do.