Another Reason to Dislike "Cinema" 35mm Film

[das]

Well, I just shot a project for a magazine and thanks to some dummy who told my lab that his unmarked film canister was "regular C41" color, that roll turned out to have some kind of remjet emlusion that not only ruined the chemistry in the lab's machine and but also ruined the 120 film I took. I am not blaming the lab for taking someone's word for it, but gosh darn. Hey, Kodak, please start selling Gold 200, Aerocolor IV, Portra, Ultramax, or whatever in 100 foot rolls like the old days so people stop shooting stocks that were not meant for film camera photography and cannot be used in regular lab machines. 🙂.

 

[splitimageview]

The cinema market drives this, so can’t really blame Kodak for meeting the demand. Blame the dummy! 😀

 

[Freakscene]

I am beyond words. Cleaning all the remjet fragments out of the processor is going to a a long, hard, unpleasant process.

 

[Evergreen States]

That's deeply unfortunate

 

[das]

The cinema market drives this, so can’t really blame Kodak for meeting the demand. Blame the dummy! 😀

I disagree. It's a combination of Kodak's fault plus companies like Cinestill. Before Kodak Alaris was taken over by the UK Pension Board or whatever it is called, it had long decided that 35mm film for still cameras was going to be dead. The elimination of multiple professional and consumer film stocks, the raising of film prices, and the discontinuing of 100 foot rolls of C41 film failed to anticipate a significant current and future market for all of it. Alaris further stifled things by artificially raising prices to pay off its UK retirees. Kodak cinema film is controlled by an entirely different division not subject to Alaris. Cinema film is simply not a substitute for regular C41 still film. It's actually pretty terrible with bad color balance, halation, the necessity to remove a layer that can muck up regular chemistry, people not being able to correct it adequately in LR/PS, etc.. Maybe it's cool for certain folks who want to try something different, but not to the masses who generally do not know what they are doing. Not only is there no commercial infrastructure to process remjet film out outside of specific labs in the movie industry and now a few C41 labs scattered around the country, one errant roll can ruin 100s of dollars of chemicals for a local lab and other people's film. Before relatively recently, virtually no one shot this remjet stuff in still film cameras. It's entirely a product of companies trying to fill a void created by Kodak's poor and/or shortsighted business decisions. Now that Alaris is changing management, hopefully we will see some improvement.

 

[lukx]

Very unfortunate, I'd be very mad. I'm actually amazed this doesn't happen more often in labs.

I think @das' point is valid, it's partly driven by the current market and high prices for (color) film). A second aspect in my opinion: it's somewhat of a fad. People who get into film these days do not want accurate color reproduction, they want a distinct character/'vibe' in their photos, a cinematic look. I understand that to some degree, you see so many clinically sharp (or distastefully over processed) digital photos every day...

Online research then quickly sends you down rabbit holes, you end up on expert blogs or YouTube channels where ECN-2 films are hyped up (by people who know how to use them). Without understanding the differences in developing, they opt for whatever is trending, because that must be the best. Same reason why so many beginners go for top shelf cameras as their first ever film cameras.

It may sound like gatekeeping, but it's not. I was one of those people 7 years ago, bought a Leica M2 and a 50 Summicron as my first film camera, and 5 rolls of Porta 400 as my first film...

(Though, in my defense: my entry into film photography was a loaned Leica M6 with a 35 Summicron, plus 50 and 75(!) Summiluxes... took me a moment to figure out what the value of those was, I then gave them back quickly out of fear to break anything. But once exposed to such quality, the Leica bug had bitten me.)

 

[wlewisiii]

I think I'll just go buy a 100 foot roll of Ilford HP5+ instead.

 

[sojournerphoto]

I’ve started clear of c41 film stock. Does xx 5222 have remjet - I’ve assumed not?

Mike

 

[Freakscene]

I’ve started clear of c41 film stock. Does xx 5222 have remjet - I’ve assumed not?

Mike

5222 has no remjet. The back side coating of 5222 is different to still film, it is designed to decrease friction and static electricity build up in movie cameras, but it does not have remjet, fortunately.

 

[sojournerphoto]

5222 has no remjet. The back side coating of 5222 is different to still film, it is designed to decrease friction and static electricity build up in movie cameras, but it does not have remjet, fortunately.

Thanks. Bit of a relief as it’s good value in bulk.

 

[Costo Kim]

well, remjet is so much differs from regular c41 - I wonder how one could not notice when loading a camera

 

[splitimageview]

I guess the question is, how many millions of feet of 35mm color film is manufactured for Hollywood vs the volume manufactured for stills?

My guess is the demand for Vision3 is much higher than that for still c41.

One can buy 400 feet of ECN2 for about $325 (~$80 for 100 feet) and it's also easy to find short ends (leftovers) from various suppliers near Hollywood. So this situation is just a matter of economics, for those who want to shoot color neg but don't want to pay today's rather extravagant single roll price...

It seems to me that if the demand for bulk c41 existed (within a reasonable range of the demand for Vision3) they'd be filling that demand...looking at B&H the only available 100 foot rolls are B&W, no C41.

 

[das]

Again, the problem has been that Kodak's cinema film business and 35mm still film business have been different companies run by different people for different purposes. It's not like the UK Directors of Alaris were like, oh, demand for Vision3 is up for still photographers for some reason, maybe we should start making / distributing C41 100 foot rolls again or competitively price single rolls with it. I think that Alaris' plan was simply to pump the 35mm film business for as much money as it could get to pay off the UK retirees and maybe fold / sell what was left of the business after that. If 100 foot rolls of Gold 200 or Portra 400 existed, and the price per roll could be 20-30% less than single roll prices, the demand for Vision3 and Cinestill's remjet-removed versions would plummet. Heck, bulk C41 has always been doable as Kodak recently sold significant bulk rolls of C41 Aerocolor IV to FlicFilm in Canada and Santacolor in Finland to repackage it. Heck, even if Kodak would produce Aerocolor IV in bulk, that would be great start as that is a fantastic, largely unknown film stock.

 

[philosli]

I think we should all thank cinema film stocks, otherwise we probably would have no Kodak film to use by now.

Around 2015 when Kodak went bankrupt, part of the bankrupt agreement is that Kodak will continue to make movie films for Hollywood studios. Kodak owed them money (rebates). Since the still and cinema films are made in the same plant, and Kodak's film manufacturing requires scale to to be economic viable, one can argue the cinema films keep Kodak's still film alive.

 

[wlewisiii]

That's rather like thanking a bank robber for the deposit insurance company 🤣

I stopped buying Kodak when PlusX was cancelled. I'll stick to Ilford B&W and, when I can find it, made in Japan Fuji C41.

 

[das]

That's rather like thanking a bank robber for the deposit insurance company 🤣

I stopped buying Kodak when PlusX was cancelled. I'll stick to Ilford B&W and, when I can find it, made in Japan Fuji C41.

Although I dearly miss Kodak T400CN, Ilford XP2 is probably the equal or better and an absolutely amazing everyday b&w film. Also very much agree that Japan-made Fuji Superia X-Tra 400 was another fantastic affordable film stock. Hopefully that comes back some day.

 

[das]

I think we should all thank cinema film stocks, otherwise we probably would have no Kodak film to use by now.

Around 2015 when Kodak went bankrupt, part of the bankrupt agreement is that Kodak will continue to make movie films for Hollywood studios. Kodak owed them money (rebates). Since the still and cinema films are made in the same plant, and Kodak's film manufacturing requires scale to to be economic viable, one can argue the cinema films keep Kodak's still film alive.

That may be true. I would like the see Kodak's numbers for the percentage of cinema film produced for movie makers versus what was sold in bulk to Cinestill (and others) and bought directly by still film photographers. I bet it's like 98% to 2%.

 

[splitimageview]

I don't know anything about Alaris' intentions or retirees, but yes, if bulk C41 existed, fewer people would be using movie film for stills, but the total number of people bulk loading ECN2 is likely vanishingly small.

My guess is that the demand just isn't there for bulk C41.

 

[Coldkennels]

I don't know anything about Alaris' intentions or retirees, but yes, if bulk C41 existed, fewer people would be using movie film for stills, but the total number of people bulk loading ECN2 is likely vanishingly small.

My guess is that the demand just isn't there for bulk C41.

I can only speak with regards to my own experience, but I've been almost exclusively bulk-loading B&W films since 2010.

The reasoning for this is:
1) it's cheaper on a per-roll basis
2) I can roll and develop whatever length I need at the time
3) I can use dedicated cassettes for the cameras I use - some of which don't play nice with modern cassettes - or the fancy Shirley-Wellard.

The only way I'd start doing this for C41 was if I was developing C41 at home, too. Commercial development prices are too high to consider giving them a 12exp roll - and even a 24exp roll would feel somewhat wasteful - and I don't have a lab nearby that I feel I could trust with a FILCA, a Zeiss cassette, or a Shirley-Wellard, so I'd have to source pre-used commercial cassettes that I wouldn't mind never getting back (which might potentially add scratches to the film - you don't know how well they were treated before you got them).

I can't imagine I'm alone with this train of thought. But then, flipping it around the other way.... would I look into home developing C41 if I could get 100ft rolls? Maybe. But at that point, I'd much rather have 100ft of Provia and some E6 chems...

 

[yanchep_mike]

We can talk this up or down or blame anyone, but the result is shocking for the photographer and the processing company getting the sh.t out of the machines. I am sorry. 😢