Movie film - going, going... Still here, maybe
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zauhar
Veteran
Excellent! But I can't read the whole thing without subscription ...
Randy
Randy
marcr1230
Well-known
Sorry about the link
The basic theme is that movie film sakes are epically down in the past few years
Kodak thinking of shutting line and Hollywood
Trying to round up funds in one way or another to
Guarantee film is around when needed
The basic theme is that movie film sakes are epically down in the past few years
Kodak thinking of shutting line and Hollywood
Trying to round up funds in one way or another to
Guarantee film is around when needed
shadowfox
Darkroom printing lives
This is what most people don't get:
"Film and digital video both "are valid choices, but it would be a tragedy if suddenly directors didn't have the opportunity to shoot on film," said Mr. Apatow. director of comedies including "Knocked Up" and "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," speaking from the New York set of his coming movie "Trainwreck," which he is shooting on film."
This news is but a short reprieve. In the long run, *if* the number of people who appreciate film don't increase (younger generation is the key -- Kudos! to director J.J Abrams for choosing film for the next Star Wars movie), Kodak would still face the hard decision to close down their film manufacturing eventually.
For the sake of us who love film as a medium, I hope the new CEO Jeff Clarke starts to either plan to re-tool the manufacturing equipments to produce smaller quantities to serve a much smaller (but still can be profitable) niche, or sell it to someone who would do so.
"Film and digital video both "are valid choices, but it would be a tragedy if suddenly directors didn't have the opportunity to shoot on film," said Mr. Apatow. director of comedies including "Knocked Up" and "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," speaking from the New York set of his coming movie "Trainwreck," which he is shooting on film."
This news is but a short reprieve. In the long run, *if* the number of people who appreciate film don't increase (younger generation is the key -- Kudos! to director J.J Abrams for choosing film for the next Star Wars movie), Kodak would still face the hard decision to close down their film manufacturing eventually.
For the sake of us who love film as a medium, I hope the new CEO Jeff Clarke starts to either plan to re-tool the manufacturing equipments to produce smaller quantities to serve a much smaller (but still can be profitable) niche, or sell it to someone who would do so.
Aristophanes
Well-known
All roll or MP film can only be manufactured in industrial scale.
That means it must also be consumed at the same scale to be economical.
Kodak has a single plant now in Rochester. That plant is physically incapable of making product less than multiple kms in length. Re-tooling was looked at but not feasible. The entire Kodak process is designed for volume. It just does not scale. So Abrams, Apatow, and Tarantino are critical because MP film is the vast bulk of coated supply in the world underwriting much of the industry. Even if they go through a digital intermediary the capture on MP film is still a significant volume operation.
mani
Well-known
This is one of the things people often say as a sort of 'Internet fact' but I haven't ever seen any real evidence for it.
A little while ago I saw a guy who'd set up a film production machine in his garage as a proof of concept: the images of this tiny machine were on flickr somewhere, together with an example of some film he'd produced. It looked pretty basic and simple.
Naturally none of the quality control that's involved making Kodak film was part of this experiment - but it did show that all the talk about film needing to be made in million yard rolls is basically just b*llsh*t.
jsrockit
Moderator
Hard to compare a guy in a garage to what Kodak does...
mani
Well-known
Come on - read what I was actually talking about before jumping in.
People often say that film needs to be produced on an industrial scale - that there's no possible physical way to produce film in small amounts, and that therefore there's no future in small-scale, niche film producers. My post addressed THAT ONE SINGLE FACT.
I wasn't directly discussing Kodak's film production or any of the other points that can possibly be debated about their future. Just this one single 'fact' that gets thrown around without any hard evidence every time film production is discussed: that film HAS to be produced in millions of feet.
That guy's garage experiment directly negated that single 'internet fact'. He wasn't trying to make serious amounts of film iirc. He just wanted to show you could easily make a few yards of film at a time - if that's what you wanted to do. In other words, it wasn't a physical impossibility at all.
Phew - amazing that people can't seem to see a single point of discussion being made.
HHPhoto
Well-known
Well, these comments are either
- from former Kodak people; these people are prisoners of the American spirit "only big is beautiful": they just cannot think in terms of smaller scales
- from North Americans: they think the now de-industrialised American economy is representative for the whole world
- from the digital doom and gloom sayers
or
- they are just from "hot air talkers" who don't know anything about film production.
Can film be produced on smaller scales?
Yes.
Ilford has only about 205 employees. Nevertheless their production programme with 2400 catalog numbers is bigger than Kodaks.
Well, Ilford, Foma, Inoviscoat, Ferrania are all extremely tiny compared to Kodak.
Nevertheless they are producing film (Ferrania not yet, but they are working on it).
German company InovisCoat has about 35 employees, www.inoviscoat.de
All former Agfa Germany engineers. Their machinery is also from the former Agfa plant in Leverkusen, Germany.
They are producing the colour negative film base for the Impossible films, and the BW papers for Adox.
And probably also these tiny production runs of the Lomo Purple film (but that is not official).
Here you can see their production for Impossible (first part of the video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw4rttFGHiM.
Film photography will continue even without Kodak.
And the films will be produced mainly in Europe (Europeans like smaller, very efficient factories) and Japan.
Cheers, Jan
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Aristophanes
Well-known
It is for Kodak.
They only have the one plant left in Rochester. It closes, no more Kodak film product. Tri-X and Portra and Ektar are all the way they are precisely because of the QC and this single plant. Kodak bet the farm on that thing, which is a marvel of tech.
In the early days of celluloid and acetate film manufacture it was done in garages, but it could only be economically profitable and of acceptable quality once scaled up. That was in a growing market where demand could be created. That same dynamic does not exists today and suddenly everyone is realizing that preserving the necessary manufacturing equipment means preserving some floor of consumption.
marcr1230
Well-known
brbo
Well-known
Now that you've addressed that ONE SINGLE FACT, let me tell you a secret. When colour film is produced in a garage I and many many others will most definitely not be able to afford it.
Now somebody please tell Mr. Tarantino&Co. to go buy colour movie stock in Europe and Japan and stop this nonsense.
jsrockit
Moderator
Ok, fair enough... I guess I, by mistake, thought we were talking about Kodak making film on a smaller scale.
zauhar
Veteran
For what it's worth, my kid will be shooting a student film on actual film this Fall. Surprisingly, it is actually cheaper to rent a good film movie camera and use discount film from the university than to rent a high-end digital camera - or so her cinematographer says.
Not that it's going to keep Kodak in business - especially the 'discount' part.
I second the observations above about scale constraints - I do not believe for a moment that it is impossible to make any kind of film in smaller batches than Kodak does. As I asked elsewhere, is there no analogy to 3D printing mania in the world of producing 2D products? If specialized printers can lay down protein and nucleotide coatings for biological applications, why can't a 'printer' lay down a chemical emulsion with well-defined characteristics? Making batches of 1000's of feet instead of millions?
Randy
Not that it's going to keep Kodak in business - especially the 'discount' part.
I second the observations above about scale constraints - I do not believe for a moment that it is impossible to make any kind of film in smaller batches than Kodak does. As I asked elsewhere, is there no analogy to 3D printing mania in the world of producing 2D products? If specialized printers can lay down protein and nucleotide coatings for biological applications, why can't a 'printer' lay down a chemical emulsion with well-defined characteristics? Making batches of 1000's of feet instead of millions?
Randy
filmtwit
Desperate but not serious
shadowfox
Darkroom printing lives
If retooling that big plant is not feasible, then perhaps build a smaller capacity plant somewhere close by and start moving production into it and decommission the costly plant.
Nothing is impossible given a clear direction and a goal worth pursuing.
In the end, I think the problem here is not technical, but it involves business risk.
Does Kodak still see film manufacturing as a viable revenue generator in the near future or not? That's the question, and there is no easy answer.
tunalegs
Pretended Artist
You're missing the very basic point that companies smaller than Kodak produce smaller volumes of product profitably.
So that's that.
Can Kodak do that? Not with the production line they currently use apparently, but then again that was the whole point being made about tooling up (down?) for smaller production runs.
I didn't think the point was that hard to follow, even if it is implausible given Kodak's current situation.
Aristophanes
Well-known
All film manufacturers and processors rely on a certain infrastructure supplied at an industrial scale. There are chemicals and products (like the film base) which are only produced en masse specific only to film. They might be scalable, but only at substantially higher prices.
The problem is price. If the major consumption of MP film does not have customers then prices for all base products will rise substantially as the consecutive base shrinks.
People think the history of still image film production took off because Kodak popularized mass production. Early Eastman was touch and go, actually. It is extremely difficult to source a specific line product using unique chemicals, processes and substrates without a mass market. Personal photography made the leap from plate to roll film in part because of excess roll film production from the MP industry, especially Hollywood and the European nascent industry. It was cost-shifting and cross-underwriting that rally allowed widespread production capacity.
Boutique film manufacture on very old equipment will hit a supply price problem if MP film and Kodak are not even supplying their $450 million market then prices could rise substantially. If Kodak is not buying big then all other consumers of roll film may be forced to make up some slack. $16/roll sound reasonable?
Kodak's ability to limit runs also brings up the issue of staff and expertise retention. They need a minimum threshold of hot idle days to keep the line efficient much less profitable. Keep in mind that Ilford uses their machines to coat paper, and stock paper sales worldwide are way down as well. Ilford has been smart to make sure they get into processing as well because they can no longer count on an independent distribution network for development. But their prices are high and mass scanning has never been very cost-effective for the consumer (scanning is the weak link i the supply chain follow through to the consumer) so it remains to be seen if such tactics can arrest a declining market. The Rochester plant could easily supply the entire world's supply of celluloid film forever and not break a sweat. The market has massive oversupply capacity right now in productive machinery. But every production unit needs a consumption unit.
Some of this information was in Kodak's insolvency documentation.
Ranchu
Veteran
Well, whatever. No kodak, I'll shoot fuji, no fuji, I'll shoot ilford, no ilford, I'll shoot foma. Should be something from china too by then...
😎
😎
tunalegs
Pretended Artist
So apparently Ilford et. al. source their raw materials from all the same sources as Kodak, and without Kodak placing mammoth orders on raw materials from this common industrial pool, small companies won't be able to make a profit?
I'm not an expert but I'm a bit skeptical about this.
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