CNN is reporting Eastman Kodak may cease operations

[Aapo Lettinen]

Yes probably the end of good quality color MP stocks. But NOT b/w in any way.

Usable quality b/w is relatively affordable and it WILL be available because stills shooters need their stocks. And the developers are super easy to make out of scratch if needed. I have made all my home developing stuff out of scratch for years, mainly because the raw powder chemical like metol etc last much longer than powder mixtures and readily sold solutions so it is couple of times cheaper and produces much less waste too so better for environment. I could make a b/w continuous processor out of scratch, automation temperature control and everything. There was a Finnish guy here years ago, Alhonen, who made b/w and colour processing machines out of scratch with good enough results. Not an issue if having extra money and time. Small scale lab running generates financial losses which is why it is not done often when there is cheaper large labs existing. 

Butt hell I could make a continous mp b/w film processor out of scratch in post apo world no problem. So could dozens other forum members. So b/w will stay forever, this is only about color negative stock like the last time. 

I have already planned to move on shooting exclusively b/w on 35mm and only shoot 16mm color neg as long as it is possible financially. Selling couple of cameras to shoot more stock. It is not the end of the film, it is a new beginning. Maybe will see more of the killer b/w drama films in the future

[Jon O'Brien]

Looking forward to those killer B/W 35mm film dramas to hit the cinemas. Will be there at the box office like a shot. The return of true Film Noir and all the rest of that genre.

[Tyler Purcell]

12 minutes ago, Aapo Lettinen said:

Usable quality b/w is relatively affordable and it WILL be available because stills shooters need their stocks

Black and white is a very small market, probably half a percent of Kodak's business. 

Still film is way easier to coat, Fuji has already released new color stocks for still, so I don't see that going anywhere anytime soon. Figuring out how to process C41 without Kodak chemicals, may shut down some labs, but it won't stop some from experimenting and keeping color still film alive. I personally don't see color still film dying. 

Motion picture is far more complicated. Without Kodak, we can all kiss it good bye. 

[Tyler Purcell]

2 minutes ago, Jon O'Brien said:

Looking forward to those killer B/W 35mm film dramas to hit the cinemas. Will be there at the box office like a shot. The return of true Film Noir and all the rest of that genre.

1) Nobody on the planet makes motion picture film in the qualities required for a 35mm feature film besides Kodak. That will not change if they go out of business. The demand just isn't there for specialty products. 

2) Nobody is investing in print stock manufacturing, that is a whole other business, with an entirely different formula. So good bye prints of any kind. 

3) There won't be any motion picture labs left either, they rely entirely on color film. No color = no labs. 

But yea, I don't think Kodak is going to go out of business anyway, not with such high demand for their product. 
 

 

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Simply start a crowdfunding for the missing 500 millions. 🤪

[Jon O'Brien]

Go back to digital. Oh wait. Tyler says that's finished too.

[Jon O'Brien]

4 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Hilarious. 

Never in a million years. 

You didn't read carefully what I wrote. I said someone will make the stuff. Which you then went on to say yourself. When I wrote those words I was specifically thinking of a company or some other arrangement that originated from the Kodak company, either sold to someone else or a new business model and really who cares as long as they still make it and we can buy it if it's not too expensive.

Someone will still make the stuff. And if they don't, well, too bad. If it couldn't survive then obviously its day had come.

[Albion Hockney]

I think the film business needs to find a way to support smaller companies. Everyone has gone the way of bigger business and companies merging from equipment manufactures to rental houses to post production. ....but the profits aren't there for that world. we need smaller boutique solutions. 

There is a 150million dollar film market —surely someone can build a business on that 

 

 

[Simon Wyss]

5 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

35mm film dramas to hit the cinemas. Will be there at the box office like a shot

You pound the nail on its head. Cinema has only melodrama to offer, kitsch. Dramas for adults are not in production, fourth-graders and degraded ones rule.

Kodak has made the following mistakes during the past ten years:

• mass products not kept cheap for widespread sale, that concerns small-gauge movie formats as well as point-and-shoot photography. Too expensive films. No push of goods (back) to photo dealers. A Kodak movie camera tripod would have been eye-catching, something of the size of the Miller Junior;
• easily made side products not served, from large format sheet film to primitive silver halogenide products such as microfilms or sound recording stocks or high-contrast title films. Those are perfect for the experimenting beginner, say a next generation of clients. Zero active or proactive marketing of intermediate and print stocks. Pulling labs tighter up to themselves instead of the more sane approach of offering, helping, supporting. Remember the Kodachrome processing monopoly broken in court after 19 years?
• No heart for projection. Kodak has had a new Super-8 scamera made but not a new Super-8 projector. Kodak has not fought for movie prints in theatres. Quentin Tarantino had to bring most of the energy when he made a new large-format movie. Kodak wouldn’t boast about of it much. No advertising for 16-mm. film projection. The backbone of photochemical cinema just given up, Jeffrey Clarke was about the worst choice in that matter. I mean, when you’re realising that digital technology is the deadly threat to your business why embrace the enemy? Kodak is a chemistry enterprise but where are the smart chemists? We haven’t heard or read anything about what’s behind Ektachrome, not even a made-up fairy tale. What bores they are.

[Heikki Repo]

I find it funny how many people online find the issue with Kodak to be something they have made short term regarding film. Look at the Q10 document, Kodak's film business seems to be doing quite fine as Steve said.

The issue is the nearly $500 million debt they have to pay back. If I have understood correctly, that won't be a problem though if Kodak is allowed to go through with the pension reversal and claim the surplus assets (see https://www.plansponsor.com/kodak-terminated-its-retirement-income-pension-in-favor-of-a-cash-balance-plan/ )

It's the printing business that has taken a hit since 2024.

[Tyler Purcell]

4 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

Someone will still make the stuff. And if they don't, well, too bad. If it couldn't survive then obviously its day had come.

I said people already make still film, Kodak has no monopoly on that. ZERO. 

Nobody is making a new factory for motion picture film, my point is that people who have tried, have all failed. 

[Tyler Purcell]

2 hours ago, Simon Wyss said:

You pound the nail on its head. Cinema has only melodrama to offer, kitsch. Dramas for adults are not in production, fourth-graders and degraded ones rule.

This is because people who visit the cinema, generally want to be cheered up, not watch some downer dramatization. So "thinking" dramas, the stuff you'd probably like to watch, are brushed aside based on decades of statistics on how they'd do. They exist, but they generally are very low budget and only play at repertory theaters like "The Brutalist". 

2 hours ago, Simon Wyss said:

Kodak has made the following mistakes during the past ten years:

• mass products not kept cheap for widespread sale, that concerns small-gauge movie formats as well as point-and-shoot photography. Too expensive films. No push of goods (back) to photo dealers. A Kodak movie camera tripod would have been eye-catching, something of the size of the Miller Junior;

The home movie business is very small. They had a push in 2015/2016 for super 8 right as the prototype of their Super 8 camera was debuted, but a legal battle prevented the camera from being released on time and in the price range that worked for consumers. What was released, has no market. 

Kodak brought back Ektachrome, but there were so many problems with the super 8 cartridges jamming along with lab issues and high costs, it just didn't seem worth it in the end. I can't imagine if they brought back Kodachrome, it would be priced out for nearly everyone. The reason why Ektachrome is so expensive is because the demand just isn't there. They run very small batches and run out multiple times per year, which is disconcerting. 

I do agree, Kodak could forget their internal rules about 6 month old stock being thrown away and simply do a huge run of Ektachrome super 8 carts, maybe if the quantities were high enough, they'd be able to lower the price a bit. I also think the price of admission for super 8 is too much for most people, the "cool" factor of the format will not drive it any further. 

2 hours ago, Simon Wyss said:

 

• easily made side products not served, from large format sheet film to primitive silver halogenide products such as microfilms or sound recording stocks or high-contrast title films. Those are perfect for the experimenting beginner, say a next generation of clients. Zero active or proactive marketing of intermediate and print stocks. Pulling labs tighter up to themselves instead of the more sane approach of offering, helping, supporting. Remember the Kodachrome processing monopoly broken in court after 19 years?

Beginners need more flexible stocks, with higher ISO ranges and more dynamic range, so when they make mistakes, it's easier to correct. Inflexible low-ISO stocks like high-con intermediate stocks, are horrible for beginners. Many companies have tried to sell/market these stocks, but with dozens of YouTube videos out there showing the results, I think many people just buy real camera film. 

There are some cool new stocks on the horizon from 3rd party companies tho. I just think for Kodak to do all that development and make something outside of their wheelhouse, doesn't make much sense. They already own the motion picture business. 

2 hours ago, Simon Wyss said:

• No heart for projection. Kodak has had a new Super-8 scamera made but not a new Super-8 projector. Kodak has not fought for movie prints in theatres. Quentin Tarantino had to bring most of the energy when he made a new large-format movie. Kodak wouldn’t boast about of it much. No advertising for 16-mm. film projection. The backbone of photochemical cinema just given up, Jeffrey Clarke was about the worst choice in that matter. I mean, when you’re realising that digital technology is the deadly threat to your business why embrace the enemy? Kodak is a chemistry enterprise but where are the smart chemists? We haven’t heard or read anything about what’s behind Ektachrome, not even a made-up fairy tale. What bores they are.

Kodak really has poor management, it wasn't until Interstellar in 2014 that they finally started advertising 70mm print screenings and built a little website, that hasn't been properly updated in a while. Why they can't hire a web designer and build a little calendar of film prints screening on a national and/or global scale, is beyond me. It requires people like the in70mm guys to do that work and they don't get paid! 

The company is such a vast cluster of subsidiaries and endless products, I've been told by many friends who worked there over the years, most people don't even know what the other parts of the company does. Every division works like its own little company. They have their own subset of products, they have their own management team, they for the most part don't even visit production or even understand how it works. Remember, film products are only 20% of their business and from my understanding, are the companies only consumer facing industry. Everything else is business to business and that's how they're use to dealing internally. Until the Kodak shop in Hollywood started complaining, every invoice had to be done on the factories business to business invoicing system. It was a nightmare to order film and now it's a cinch due to some great new leaders in Hollywood. So things ARE changing, there are finally some grass roots people on the ground doing good work, but it's also challenging times economically. 

I will say for the record, I don't think Kodak is going to be spending MORE money on consumer stuff. The super 8 camera was a total failure and rightly so, it's nothing special, it's just rich mans toy. The little home movie scanner thing is also horrible and makes the company look bad due to the poor results. They keep making poor decisions and consumers are turned off, this is film we're talking about, for consumers it's a hobby. Nobody is telling them they must shoot film. Kodak has always shot themselves in the foot and I don't expect that trend to ever change. 

If I were Kodak, I'd spin off the motion picture division like they did with Alaris, let some Hollywood people run it. Let the factory in Rochester simply be manufacturing and let people who really know the industry, run the marketing, consumer interfacing and of course, products. This new company needs four labs, two in the United States, one in the EU and one in Asia. Sales of Super 8 and 16mm Tri-X and Ektchrome, should come with pre-paid processing at their labs. No prep, no cleaning, just process and ship back. This would help consumers quite a bit and of course, those labs would process negative and C41 films as well. Branded labs like they've done in Atlanta, really do help the community. We need more of them, places for consumers to visit, sit down for coffee, take classes and talk to representatives from the company, not some low paid teenagers who think film is cool. 

Anyway, let's see what happens. 

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

Kodak's motion picture film business is a matter of global cultural heritage, it is important that it keeps producing film for years to come - I hope that people in a position to act help maintain that heritage.

I think many times we (as a society) forget the emotional connections we make with certain pieces of technology as they are a conduit of collective memory.

I will use an entirely different paradigm from the computer world and that is commodore and their 64 and Amiga line - there is no strictly, raw (business-related) rational justification for the sheer cultural following and enthusiasm and audience these old pieces of technology have ( I know I am one of them) - but they do. Just recently Commodore was bought by one such member 

(Happy) Story here:

Obviously the motion film business is a whole different ball game (and for me even more important) but culture shapes society and bridges past and present.

 

 

[Robin Phillips]

I think the problem there is that there isnt a huge amount of cultural appreciation of film, kodak or otherwise. most filmmakers these days dont even consider shooting film for its perceived risks. and thats not entirely unjustified given how folks who got in after digital became the norm work and expect to see instant results. 

the biggest issue with someone buying out kodak's film business is that you need that giant fab in rochester. theres no moving that thing. if it had to separate from the mothership, one would hope it would just be spun off as tyler suggests and they'd be allowed to stay on property. the worst case scenario is kodak has to liquidate the real estate in rochester, though I suspect thats unlikely given... well... its a giant chemical complex. probably hard to clean that up enough to turn it into condos

[Edith blazek]

23 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

But it's no surprise that Kodak is in trouble. They're not making good films much or at all just at the moment. The better productions tend to shoot film (E.g. Star Wars, James Bond). Lots of little people shooting film but that is probably chicken feed to Kodak. We are in a filmmaking slump and it won't improve until Hollywood et al figures out what audiences want again. Here's a tip: make movies for a general audience that don't attack or target anyone in your audience. It's not rocket science. So, to take a hypothetical scenario, if half your audience are on one side of politics, don't make a movie that paints them as evil or intentionally seek to make a movie that will deliberately get up their noses. That's happened a lot over the years and it resulted in a lot of people walking away from what Hollywood churns out. Is it really so difficult to figure out? Don't divide the community or focus on divisions. Make films for a general audience. Are you in politics or in entertainment? Decide.

Political correctness, but make it whatever this users politics falls into... Look, I'm not a fan of "90 minute snl sketch" type shit as much as anyone else is but that's me, you're going to have to define what actually counts as antagonistic politics because the discourse goes from understandable to, let's just say, special VERY quick. Like, given we prescribe politics to literally anything. Literally anything will be argued as being a message for or against something to the point of borderline schizophrenia, real "I like pancakes" "so you hate waffles" type of stuff, no matter how milquetoast the "politics" actually is, depiction is endorsement and thus, an attack to a lot of people, as stupid as that is. 

Also, unless you're going to wholeheartedly argue that non-american audiences care more about American culture wars than Americans, the fact that Superman, a very pointedly political movie with ideals leaning one way doing well in the one (1) market where it would've been hurt the most for that sort of thing (domestically), proves that this line argument doesn't matter nearly as much some wish it did and there are other, arguably more important factors at hand for why someone may not want to go to a theater (to quote a certain hack, it's the economy, stupid)

Edited August 14, 2025 by Edith blazek

[Aapo Lettinen]

It is not possible to be 'non-political'. Politics follows you everywhere in everyday life until you assimilate or fight back. It does not leave you alone just because you don't want to get involved.

Wanting to be 'non-political' means one leaves the decisions and critique to others leaving more playroom for political extremists so it is not neutral at all and quickly leads to horrible societies. We Europeans know painfully well how that kind of stuff ends up every single time, we are still investigating the mass graves here after all these years 

[Jon O'Brien]

I'm heartened to read that Kodak made a statement a few hours ago saying that, and I paraphrase: listen everyone, it's okay, we're not going bust, we just have to reconfigure a few financial realities related to our pension fund, and then we'll not only be fine financially, but we will also be in a much better postion than we've been in for years.

Your politics is fine. Just accept some people already know your position, all your arguments, and have reached their own decisions, from the evidence. Just as you have. And if you find that confusing, well that's politics.

[Brian Drysdale]

What tends to happen (at least in the UK) is that if further funding can't be found, the assets are sold off when the company goes into liquidation. This can involve breaking up the divisions of the company. An example is British Leyland (the British car manufacturer) this has gone through several stages, but various product lines still continue. Examples are MIni (owned by BMW) Jaguar Land Rover (now owned by Tata) Unipart had a management buyout, other parts were taken by other companies. 

It was pretty complex. 

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

7 hours ago, Robin Phillips said:

I think the problem there is that there isnt a huge amount of cultural appreciation of film, kodak or otherwise. most filmmakers these days dont even consider shooting film for its perceived risks. and thats not entirely unjustified given how folks who got in after digital became the norm work and expect to see instant results. 

I beg to differ on that point, motion picture film and photographic film is immensely important to alot of people across many different age groups.

As for the lack of risk-taking and dare I say pathos, yes that's prevalent across alot of of the work we see today and not only in movies - liked this recent example of this strictly commercial work, they shot in the spring, in Britain, on film, for a major company, for commercial work...can't get riskier than that.

 

Edited August 14, 2025 by Aristeidis Tyropolis

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

Clarifying statement is up:

https://www.kodak.com/en/company/blog-post/statement-regarding-misleading-media-reports/

[Tyler Purcell]

Yea, thanks for that update, I was watching a movie last night and didn't post it. 

All is well, tho it's always fascinating to discuss the issues with the very company that keeps my part of the industry alive. I basically wouldn't have a business without them. I think it's important to be vocal about what we see as people in the industry and simply consumers. The people Kodak has working for them in Hollywood, really have a good understanding of what needs to happen and they pressure corporate quite a bit to get what they're after, including this whole AHU issue AND keeping the price of negative the same for years now.

[Robin Phillips]

6 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea, thanks for that update, I was watching a movie last night and didn't post it. 

All is well, tho it's always fascinating to discuss the issues with the very company that keeps my part of the industry alive. I basically wouldn't have a business without them. I think it's important to be vocal about what we see as people in the industry and simply consumers. The people Kodak has working for them in Hollywood, really have a good understanding of what needs to happen and they pressure corporate quite a bit to get what they're after, including this whole AHU issue AND keeping the price of negative the same for years now.

honestly Im still surprised the film prices havent gone up more with inflation. even though its expensive, I think its worth keeping in mind that if prices are not going up in an inflationary period we're actually getting something of a discount

[Tyler Purcell]

8 minutes ago, Robin Phillips said:

honestly Im still surprised the film prices havent gone up more with inflation. even though its expensive, I think its worth keeping in mind that if prices are not going up in an inflationary period we're actually getting something of a discount

Yeah, Veronica and the team at the Kodak House have been able to convince corporate that if the prices go up, then they may lose a lot of people shooting on film. It's so great to have people going to bat for us filmmakers. 

They did raise the pricing of black and white stocks to match color stocks, this was the deal they made. 

Hopefully they can keep this price for a while longer, but it's contingent on the price of raw materials. 

[Jon O'Brien]

12 hours ago, Aristeidis Tyropolis said:

Clarifying statement is up:

https://www.kodak.com/en/company/blog-post/statement-regarding-misleading-media-reports/

Clear as crystal, and totally professional. Good management. All is fine people.

[Karim D. Ghantous]

Kodak (or anyone) could create a premium b&w stock with extra layers for even more latitude. I'm truly surprised that nobody makes a b&w negative stock with 20 stops of latitude. There is plenty of room for extra layers.