Moviestuff is...out of business!

[Todd Ruel]

As of today, it looks like Roger Evans' line of Moviestuff film scanners is out of business!

He posted a long letter on the Moviestuff Facebook page today and then took it down.

It's too bad for all of the people who have ordered his Mark II scanner.  Looks like they are out of luck!

So that leaves Filmfabriek, Kinetta, Cintel, and Lasergraphics in the midrange of scanners.

RIP Moviestuff.

[Dan Baxter]

Called it.

28 minutes ago, Todd Ruel said:

So that leaves Filmfabriek, Kinetta, Cintel, and Lasergraphics in the midrange of scanners.

There's some more in the low-end market including Film-Digital and Ventura Images for example and don't forget DCS in the "midrange" either.

[Tim Gillett]

More information on reddit:

 

 

[Robert Hart]

It is rather a pity. With careful fine adjustment, the transport and frame triggering can be very stable. Like all scanners, it can become a troubled child when old and damaged film is scanned. Mechanical reliability related to the original electromechanical unidirectional clutches and the first in-house purely mechanical replacement clutch which also failed in service brought the enterprise low. 

One hopes that competing manufacturers do not harvest the proprietary IP from the bankruptcy administrator just for the anti-competitive purpose of burying it. If owner-users want to preserve some level of product support, then they may need to bite the bullet and club together to bid for the IP, proprietary registered circuit/hardware designs and CAD files. The basic system has good bones but some achilles heels as well.

Edited March 13 by Robert Hart
error

[Tyler Purcell]

I was always shocked how he was in business to begin with. 

Can I ask, how anyone can scan anything without a rigid gate for the film to ride on? Any film that was warped, shrunk or even slightly damaged, would never be able to be scanned. I think some of the home made 3D printed machines, have more "tech" in them and I bet that's why he just gave up. It's hard to sell "scanners" that don't have super basic features/functions. 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

55 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I was always shocked how he was in business to begin with. 

Can I ask, how anyone can scan anything without a rigid gate for the film to ride on? Any film that was warped, shrunk or even slightly damaged, would never be able to be scanned. I think some of the home made 3D printed machines, have more "tech" in them and I bet that's why he just gave up. It's hard to sell "scanners" that don't have super basic features/functions. 

Tyler...it is a matter of beggars can't be choosers. When I bought one, I sold an old Harley Sportster for a couple thousand $, borrowed a couple of thousand $ from a family member and charged the rest on my credit card. It was a good option to get your feet wet with learning about cine' film scanning or for someone with a pile of family movies and just wants some scans and won't go for a Wolverine scanner. 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

Any other scanner companies showing signs of $$ troubles?

[Perry Paolantonio]

3 hours ago, Robert Hart said:

One hopes that competing manufacturers do not harvest the proprietary IP from the bankruptcy administrator just for the anti-competitive purpose of burying it. If owner-users want to preserve some level of product support, then they may need to bite the bullet and club together to bid for the IP, proprietary registered circuit/hardware designs and CAD files. The basic system has good bones but some achilles heels as well.

I saw the parts list for a Universal build. Someone posted it on facebook. the machine consists mostly of screws and springs and off the shelf bits. Inexplicably, several copper roofing nails too.

The bankruptcy filing lists IP and patents as having a value of about $100. I don't think there's a single thing in this machine that's especially innovative or special, or patentable.

[Perry Paolantonio]

2 minutes ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

Any other scanner companies showing signs of $$ troubles?

I wouldn't take this as a sign the industry is in trouble. If you read the bankruptcy filing it sure as hell looks like he was running quite a scam. Over the past two years he paid himself $1.4M yet the company apparently has no assets. At all. over 200 people ordered stuff that wasn't delivered - parts and whole scanners apparently, and some of those orders go back to 2022 from what I've read on various forums. 

[Tyler Purcell]

1 hour ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

I wouldn't take this as a sign the industry is in trouble. If you read the bankruptcy filing it sure as hell looks like he was running quite a scam. Over the past two years he paid himself $1.4M yet the company apparently has no assets. At all. over 200 people ordered stuff that wasn't delivered - parts and whole scanners apparently, and some of those orders go back to 2022 from what I've read on various forums. 

I do think it was a scam. Many people have been waiting for machines, which of course he has not delivered. Looks like he wanted to get out and used this opportunity to walk away. 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

12 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

I saw the parts list for a Universal build. Someone posted it on facebook. the machine consists mostly of screws and springs and off the shelf bits. Inexplicably, several copper roofing nails too.

The bankruptcy filing lists IP and patents as having a value of about $100. I don't think there's a single thing in this machine that's especially innovative or special, or patentable.

 

Was Moviestuff the type of company that had lots of parts in stock to build machines or did they just get parts as needed to build orders?

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

12 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

I wouldn't take this as a sign the industry is in trouble. If you read the bankruptcy filing it sure as hell looks like he was running quite a scam. Over the past two years he paid himself $1.4M yet the company apparently has no assets. At all. over 200 people ordered stuff that wasn't delivered - parts and whole scanners apparently, and some of those orders go back to 2022 from what I've read on various forums. 

 

Wow! Had no idea.

Roger seemed on the up and up when I dealt with him. But that was way back. Maybe 2017, can't remember. 

[Perry Paolantonio]

10 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I do think it was a scam. Many people have been waiting for machines, which of course he has not delivered. Looks like he wanted to get out and used this opportunity to walk away. 

Did you read the bankruptcy filing? Because if you didn't, you should. 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

28 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Did you read the bankruptcy filing? Because if you didn't, you should. 

 

No, but have read the Reddit and some other forum posts about it. Some of the people have over $10k in losses.

MovieStuff (aka: Roger Evans) finally stops scamming people and declared bankruptcy - 8mm Forum (film-tech.com)

With all the people burned there looks like there is a decent market for affordable scanners. Do you think Lasergraphics will ever make their version of the Retroscan for $12-$15K Perry?

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

Roger's FB post via Kinograph Forums.

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

14 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I was always shocked how he was in business to begin with. 

Can I ask, how anyone can scan anything without a rigid gate for the film to ride on? Any film that was warped, shrunk or even slightly damaged, would never be able to be scanned. I think some of the home made 3D printed machines, have more "tech" in them and I bet that's why he just gave up. It's hard to sell "scanners" that don't have super basic features/functions. 

 

Oh, you can scan warped and shrunk film with it Tyler. The question is...will you get a great scan? No, you won't. But again, if you are broke / low budget...something is (usually) better than nothing.

 

 

This is a scan done with the Restroscan from the film on this core.

NSFW

The 3 Graces - Vintage Stag Film D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C. : D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Now, even with perfect film, you can only do so much with the Retroscan. But for the $, I always thought it was a decent value if you could not afford better. This is about as good as it gets with flat film on the Retroscan.

Retroscan Registration Example Scan 1939 NY World's Fair D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

I had tried one of their LightPin gates and it was terrible for warped film. I could not get it to work. So, I stuck with the standard gates. The LightPin gate was supposed to have better registration.

Doesn't your Filmfabriek scanner have a gate similar to the Retroscan where the film just rides over the metal? 

Edited March 14 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Perry Paolantonio]

59 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

11 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I do think it was a scam. Many people have been waiting for machines, which of course he has not delivered. Looks like he wanted to get out and used this opportunity to walk away. 

Did you read the bankruptcy filing? Because if you didn't, you should. 

Sorry - misread your original post and thought you said you don't think it was a scam. Not enough coffee in me. 

Edited March 14 by Perry Paolantonio

[Perry Paolantonio]

20 minutes ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

With all the people burned there looks like there is a decent market for affordable scanners. Do you think Lasergraphics will ever make their version of the Retroscan for $12-$15K Perry?

no.

[Tyler Purcell]

8 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Sorry - misread your original post and thought you said you don't think it was a scam. Not enough coffee in me. 

 I'm gonna be shocked if he walks way from this. The documents are so damning it's not even funny. The guy literally got loans and maxed out his credit cards, then decides to go bankrupt? I mean what was he doing with all that money if it wasn't living a lavish lifestyle? I'm not flabbergasted in this day and age, but holy crap, he's in trouble. 

[Dan Baxter]

Okay so I don't have to keep emailing MS customers I'm putting this here.

1. "I did my research on these before purchasing and couldn't find any criticism of MovieStuff."
   One of the recurring issues was that existing MS customers were too afraid to publicly speak out against Roger for fear of him withdrawing support or refusing to sell them parts etc. Better research would involve talking to multiple MS customers/RetroScan users first.
2. "These were definitely the go-to 'prosumer' models that were better than the old telecines yet still not the cost of a house like the ScanStation."
   Roger Evans on his Facebook group would refuse to ever acknowledge his real competitors, and whenever he spoke about competitors it was always the "$250,000 ScanStation". There have always been competitors for the hobbyist market/low-end archiving market, but MovieStuff did their best not to let their customers or potential customers know who their actual competitors were. The above is simply an example of someone quoting Roger's sales pitch without realising that what they're saying isn't accurate.

The Retroscan Universal MkII made no sense to me. It was at an unrealistic price-point that doomed it to market failure. With enough work, and expense, you can modify it to get it to work the way that a $10,000 scanner should work to begin with - or you could just buy something that works better to begin with.

On 3/14/2024 at 9:40 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

Can I ask, how anyone can scan anything without a rigid gate for the film to ride on? Any film that was warped, shrunk or even slightly damaged, would never be able to be scanned.

The film guides actually work fine. Gates would be better, but the film guides work and is the least of the problems that the scanner has.

To the point however, you've mentioned many times how collaborative and helpful FF have been with assisting with issues that you've had with your HDS+ - you don't hear people sharing the same experience with MS! It either works the way it came and people are satisfied with that, or if they're not satisfied with how their MS scanner works then they do their own modifications to it with no assistance from MS other than "encouragement" to do so. With the RUMkII it had subpar parts from the start, I have a felling the Universal MkI was better mechanically speaking.

[Robert Lee]

Here is the bankruptcy docs.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1s2XpFBPF1wmC_OSxAEwp5LsPbnOzwh0I?usp=drive_link

[Don Cunningham]

I'm going through the filing and see he listed his own painted artwork with values attached. Wonder if they would sell that much at auction.

The business was listed in Utopia previously but the address for the owner is now listed as Cedar Park. Seems to be quite a story in there.

[Robert Hart]

On 3/14/2024 at 7:41 AM, Perry Paolantonio said:

I saw the parts list for a Universal build. Someone posted it on facebook. the machine consists mostly of screws and springs and off the shelf bits. Inexplicably, several copper roofing nails too.

The bankruptcy filing lists IP and patents as having a value of about $100. I don't think there's a single thing in this machine that's especially innovative or special, or patentable.

It is not the parts themselves which may or may not be all store-bought but the sum of all the parts and the application they are directed to which form a registerable design. 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

3 hours ago, Don Cunningham said:

I'm going through the filing and see he listed his own painted artwork with values attached. Wonder if they would sell that much at auction.

The business was listed in Utopia previously but the address for the owner is now listed as Cedar Park. Seems to be quite a story in there.

Lots of stories, I guess. In this day and age...dunno, never know about prosecution, Tyler. Just depends on the DA and all. Really sad. People that buy Retroscans are not usually rich and can't afford to lose $. And I just lump all his machines as Retroscans. I never kept up with his later machines. They looked to have all the same issues as the Retroscan. So, when I think of MS, I think of Retroscan. My goal was to eventually get a FilmFabriek or cheap Lasergraphics. The Retroscan was an introduction to cine' film scanning for me, that was it. 

I'd see used Retroscans on eBay every once in a while. They seemed to be listed by another person and usually shipped from MS as 'refurbished.' I never could figure that out. Roger advertised he would take in used Restroscans to upgrade to a newer machine. But it never made sense why someone in CA selling a used machine on eBay would go through MS to ship it. I don't know if it was jsut a sales story or something.

[Tyler Purcell]

19 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

To the point however, you've mentioned many times how collaborative and helpful FF have been with assisting with issues that you've had with your HDS+ - you don't hear people sharing the same experience with MS! It either works the way it came and people are satisfied with that, or if they're not satisfied with how their MS scanner works then they do their own modifications to it with no assistance from MS other than "encouragement" to do so. With the RUMkII it had subpar parts from the start, I have a felling the Universal MkI was better mechanically speaking.

True, the team at FF have been wonderful. Leon is a great guy who truly wants to make a great product. Sure, we didn't like his gate design, we had to re-engineer it a bit and the scanner does need a bit of post work to achieve the qualify levels of other scanners, but the results speak for themselves. Sure, a scan station would be faster and probably deliver a slightly sharper image, but at a $200k price tag + yearly service support contract, I don't understand how that works unless you have guaranteed work for 5+ years.  The vast majority of people in this industry, do not have that work. We were damn lucky to even buy a scanner, we paid for it with two feature length negative projects. 

I talked to Roger once on the phone and he was a complete dickhead. I'm surprised he didn't hang up.