Frugal Film Project Take Two: September Edition

My first attempt at the Frugal Film Project made it through four months before it crashed and burned and died a painful death. May through August 2025, all success. September 2025… epic fail.

My second attempt at the Frugal Film Project has now officially survived through the first five months. We’re alive and kicking, kids! May through September 2026, all wins. Kick ass.

Take a cheap film camera like my Lomo Lubitel 166 Universal and a cheapish film like say Kentmere 100 or Kodak Gold 200 and shoot one roll each month for a year. Or you can be a friggin’ idiot like me and shoot two rolls a month in an attempt to punish yourself for screwing up your first attempt at this silly thing last year.

We start with a roll of black and white Kentmere 100 shot on Weir Hill in North Andover, MA at Lake Cochichewick on September 24, 2026 after a dentist appointment.

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I had such high hopes for this one… but…
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And there we have it. One roll of film down and one to go. The second roll started at Salisbury Beach at sunrise and then moved over to the Parker River Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island. They were taken on September 7, 2026.

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And that’s a wrap on the Kodak Gold 200 roll. Success. 12 shots on both rolls and everything came out. Amazing. 120 film. Medium format. Just dig that crazy resolution.

Now that its October I have to figure out what I want to do for month six. I want to do some fall foliage but the lens on this camera is slow and the two films I picked are also slow and I don’t think I will have much luck in the woods. Unless I bring a tripod. I could do that. Maybe. If I don’t I’ll just go back to Boston or something. We’ll see.

New California Film Day

I got the scans of my three rolls of film that I shot in California today! Happy new film day! Here are a few highlights to celebrate!

First, Pacific Beach…

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Next, Mission Beach… at this rate you’re all going to think we’re beach people when we are not… but when in San Diego, you go visit the Pacific Ocean.

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Up next is the Mission at San Juan Capistrano…

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And finally a few random spots on the road. There’s a scenic view spot on route 5 and a rest stop in the mountains overlooking Palm Desert, which we thought was Palm Springs but apparently we were wrong, and outside the visitors center in Joshua Tree.

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I still have a ton of digital photos to post and I’ll get to them eventually. For now though, the only question remaining is… when do we go back?

Lanterns

I had a million and one things on my to-do list for today and I didn’t Get to basically any of them. Now it’s 9:32pm and the only thing left is to watch the season finale of Lanterns. Let’s see if I can at least get that right. What do you say?

Kites

I took a shit load of photos in San Diego but I haven’t posted hardly any of them. What am I waiting for? Am I waiting for the film? Could be. I shipped four rolls of film to the lab in Los Angeles the other day and three of them were from the trip. I got the notification that the package had arrived yesterday. Now I just have to patiently wait for them to do their thing and develop my stuff.

For now though, while we wait for still more bad photos, here are some pics of kites on Mission Beach.

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The last one is my favorite.

So Depressed

The Cornell rape case

Trump expressed support for the rapists because of course the rapist supports the rapists.

They fired a bunch of generals. How much you want to bet that the firings were based on some sort of loyalty test? Gotta get rid of those who might not support the next January 6th, right?

Now we find that they are launching a probe to try to clear Nixon? Fucking Nixon?

The US is no longer worth saving.

Leaf Peeping

They are saying that the fall foliage is going to look really great this year but it for some reason is reaching peak early. We usually try to go u pto the mountains the second weekend of October. We might have to go the first weekend this year. That’s this weekend. Tomorrow is Thursday October 1st. How the hell did that happen?

Last week I went for a walk through the woods on a hiking path in North Andover, MA. I had my little medium format camera with me. I wanted to shoot a roll and that seemed like a good place to do it. The lens is slow though and the film I had was slow too. It was a bright sunny afternoon but in the woods I would have needed a tripod. I thought it would be fun to go back to that place when the leaves changed color in Massachusetts but I would not have much photographic success with the setup I had that day.

So the internets just delivered a few rolls of 800 speed film. That plus my cheap-o tripod plus some fall color and I think I might get some good pictures in the woods. I’ll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime, I’m watching game two of the Red Sox wild card series against the fucking Yankees and the Sox have now gone 13 innings in the series without a run. I don’t know guys… maybe score some runs, m’kay?

2026 50/90 Challenge Days 88 and 89/90

And just like that…

Stick a fork in it, it is done.

Finished. Fin. Complete. Wrapped Up.

Done and done. The 50 songs in 90 days challenge for 2026 worked out to 61 songs in 89 days.

I started yesterday (day 88) with four songs left to mix. I finished two of them before work and then later, while watching the Red Sox lose game one of the Wild Card series to the Fucking Yankees, I started work on the other two. I did not finish them though. At least not until this morning (day 89) before work. I finished mixing those last two songs and got them all uploaded to alonetone and stuck ’em all on the 2026 50/90 playlist and officially declared this year’s project complete. There is a smidge more than 227 minutes worth of music that did not exist prior to July 4, 2026. Of the 61 songs I think maybe one of them is good. That tracks. That’s about normal for me. I never said I was good at any of this songwriting stuff. I just don’t let not being good stop me, you know?

Now that the project is done I am left with the same question I am always left with: Now what?

I haven’t a clue. I’m just happy I survived.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 87/90

I am so close to being finished with this whole thing that I can almost taste it. If I don’t have it all wrapped up on day 88 then I will definitely have it done on day 89. Did I just jinx myself? I really hope not.

That’s not what this post is supposed to be about though. This post looks back to yesterday (day 87) not forward to tomorrow (day 89). What did I do yesterday?

When the day began I had six songs left to finish and all of the tracking and writing of parts was complete and all that was left to do was a quick and dirty mix so I could upload the finished songs to alonetone.com/robertjames1971. That’s it.

In the hour or so before I started my work day I mixed one of those six songs. 56 songs down and five left to go. After dinner last night while I was sitting in front of the tube with the love of my life watching Dancing with the Stars on Hulu, I mixed another. 57 songs down and four to go.

That was it. I always considered two mixes to be a good day’s haul. I was happy with the progress. I might be able to do better today though. We’ll see.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 86/90

I mentioned yesterday that I hit a milestone in the project when I recorded the last vocal track. On day 86 I hit another milestone when I recorded the last note, period. I had five songs needing lead guitar parts and I recorded them all. That leaves me with just six unfinished songs, all of which are ready to mix.

Four days left, six songs need to be mixed. The revised end goal is 61 songs. I think I am going to make it. I think.