Kodak is not selling film divisions

[K Borowski]

Let them sell who cares been f--cked around by Eastman Kodak for to many years let Fuji take its rightful position .

 

John, I have similar sentiment towards Kodak's "smoke and mirrors" policy of deceiving its customers, but they happen to make (IMHO) a superior line of film products, at least as far as photographing caucasian subjects goes.

 

Another thing I forgot to mention earlier that irks me is that Kodak continues to use different testing standards than all of the other companies when it comes to determing image longevity. This has more to do with prints in theatres and paper prints of C-41 negatives, but Kodak's accelerated fade testing is done with something like 1/2 of the light intensity and a UV filter over the tested material, which gives an inflated estimate of how well their materials stand up to light for fading.

 

From what I've seen of Kodak color negatives going back 50 years, Fuji certainly has better stability in both light and dark storage.

 

Kodak's color papers claim they will last 100 years stored in light, but when tested in the same conditions as Fuji's paper is Kodak paper will only last ~40 years before fading noticeably, whereas Fuji lasts around 80 (while they claim 100 too).

 

So Kodak, instead of addressing the problem of fading, which I'm sure they could solve were they to develop better dye couplers for their films and papers, has effectively rewritten their own fading standards to make it appear that they offer products with stability as good as Fuji's.

 

While this is a moot point for a print that will be projected for a few weeks and then melted down, it makes a huge difference for a print that is made for long-term projection (like the prints that float around the Cinematheque/college film society circuits).

 

I wouldn't have a problem with Kodak admitting their films & papers aren't yet as stable as Fujis and say they are working on the problem, but to instead turn to deception to "solve" the problem is just sly.

[Francesco Bonomo]

I think it is important that filmmakers express, in actual handwritten letters, how dissatisfied they are with CEO Perez's latest line of remarks, and indicate to him, as politely as possible, that remarks like "I think Hollywood will be all digital in 10 years" are NOT responsible remarks for the head of the world's largest manufacturer of photographic film to be making.

 

After reading every single post in this thread once again, I think I only have one thing left to say: I don't think I care about Kodak's decisions.

 

If they stop producing, say, TMAX 35mm film, I'll use other films.

If they stop producing motion picture film, then it'll mean that the market no longer requires it or that they don't think it is profitable to them as it used to be.

If they sell the film division to someone else, I doubt it'll be very different for us, the customers at the end of the chain.

If they have to change their company and to adapt to the necessities of a fast-changing market, then be it, I'd do the same thing.

 

I think people spend too much time worrying about the future, when we have a beautiful line of motion picture film available to us here and now, along with other tools to capture moving images. Technology will change, as it's always changed in the history of this medium, and people will adapt to it and make the best out of the tools available to them.

I read somewhere that all the nominees in the best picture and best cinematography categories at this year's Academy Awards were shot on kodak film, as all the best picture winners in all the 79 editions.

 

Sorry Karl, I don't share your concerns and I don't think writing letters will ever change decisions made my a huge company with a great history that spends a lot of money trying to figure out the nature and the directions of the market.

[Hal Smith]

If they sell the film division to someone else, I doubt it'll be very different for us, the customers at the end of the chain.

Depends on whether or not they actually sell the division, or the manufacturing rights. If they sell the division in toto with its personnel, labs, proprietary research archives, etc. then indeed Kodak films as we know them will continue to exist. But if they sell off the name, rights, and equipment but not the film division as we know it, then Kodak will be dead-dead-dead. Imagine the Cinematography profession's relation to a new company with no John Pytlak.

 

Varian sold off their Eimac Division's glass electronic power tube manufacturing to a new company about 12 years ago. That's a business not unlike film where there's one heck of a lot of art in making the product. The new company got the equipment and moved it from CA to the east coast. They had everything but Eimac's people. They never managed to make tubes that were worth a darn, they tried for about a couple of years and then quit. Eimac minus Eimac's people equalled zilch.

[Francesco Bonomo]

Varian sold off their Eimac Division's glass electronic power tube manufacturing to a new company about 12 years ago. That's a business not unlike film where there's one heck of a lot of art in making the product.

 

True, but was Eimac Division the biggest glass electronic power tube manufacturer in the world?

If Kodak sold its film divisions, whoever buys would necessarily have to make the transition as smooth as possible for the end customers, just like they did with the medical imagin division: it took them more than 6 months before handing things to the new owner, I doubt it'd be different for motion picture film, considering the size of the industry that relies on Kodak film.

[K Borowski]

Sorry Karl, I don't share your concerns and I don't think writing letters will ever change decisions made my a huge company with a great history that spends a lot of money trying to figure out the nature and the directions of the market.

 

You're right in that writing letters to them is a waste of paper. However, I think that a letter with POPs for 10,000 feet of Portra negative film and 100,000 feet of 5 in. paper will let them know that they had best appease their film shooters or they'll loose them to Fuji. I think Kodak's CEO needs reminded just how much film is consumed every year by those of us that continue to use it.

 

~Karl

[Matthew Buick]

It's not exactly totally ''on-topic'', but I was wondering. Just how many hands has Kodak's film division actually past through over the years?

[Hal Smith]

True, but was Eimac Division the biggest glass electronic power tube manufacturer in the world?

Yes, they had 90% of the market in the US for years and years. Eimac's tubes lasted longer and worked with fewer problems than russian, european, or asian tubes. Most broadcast engineers threw hissy fits if management wouldn't pay the extra cash Eimac cost. New transmitters came with Eimac in them and hams were also great fans of Eimac tubes. New Old Stock original Eimac's are going for about twice what the off-shore replacements can be had for, I've got a few stashed away myself.

 

The analogy to what would happen if Kodak bailed ungracefully is quite accurate.

[Matthew Buick]

How much do these tubes cost? I'm looking at buying an old tube Betacam.

[Hal Smith]

How much do these tubes cost? I'm looking at buying an old tube Betacam.

They manufactured transmitting tubes, not camera tubes. Phillips/Thomson was one of the manufacturers of camera tubes, their brand was Plumbicon. Hitachi's version was the Saticon. If you get a tube camera and the tube's no good you'll probably be able to find a good one on eBay.

 

Wikipedia's Camera Tube page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_camera_tube

[Matthew Buick]

There's another cock-up for the album. :(

 

Anyway, thanks for you courteous response.

 

I have a feeling this thread is starting to derail, so, back to the original subject. :)

[Francesco Bonomo]

Yes, they had 90% of the market in the US for years and years. Eimac's tubes lasted longer and worked with fewer problems than russian, european, or asian tubes. Most broadcast engineers threw hissy fits if management wouldn't pay the extra cash Eimac cost. New transmitters came with Eimac in them and hams were also great fans of Eimac tubes. New Old Stock original Eimac's are going for about twice what the off-shore replacements can be had for, I've got a few stashed away myself.

 

The analogy to what would happen if Kodak bailed ungracefully is quite accurate.

 

 

Thanks Hal, my question was out of curiosity because I don't know anything about Eimac's tubes. The analogy is indeed accurate, but shouldn't we wait and see? I'm pretty sure there are thousand of ways things could go wrong if kodak was sold to the wrong people, but based on the most recent experience with the same company, i.e. kodak selling its medical division, i'd say we could actually hope for the best.

[K Borowski]

I'm pretty sure there are thousand of ways things could go wrong if kodak was sold to the wrong people, but based on the most recent experience with the same company, i.e. kodak selling its medical division, i'd say we could actually hope for the best.

 

I'm worried about this too. I'm worried it'll be a neutered company with no new R&D and a severely curtailed line of products, mainly just ECN-2 and C-41, no E-6 stocks, no K-14, no B&W, and certainly no S8 or 16mm double-perf. There are some things you just can't get without a big organization behind them.

 

Look at how Ilford couldn't even keep it's camera perforation dies sharp enough to continue making movie film. I'm worried that the same fate will befall Kodak if it gets sold to a foreign company, like from China. If the consistency we associate with Kodak products were to suddenly not be there anymore, the impish arguments we make for the "film aesthetic" are certain to fall by the wayside in favor of F900s and REDs. Without a solid product and consistency behind it, shooting film is not something that will be commercially feasible anymore, especially for movie photography.

[Matthew Buick]

I'm worried about this too. I'm worried it'll be a neutered company with no new R&D and a severely curtailed line of products, mainly just ECN-2 and C-41, no E-6 stocks, no K-14, no B&W, and certainly no S8 or 16mm double-perf. There are some things you just can't get without a big organization behind them.

 

Look at how Ilford couldn't even keep it's camera perforation dies sharp enough to continue making movie film. I'm worried that the same fate will befall Kodak if it gets sold to a foreign company, like from China. If the consistency we associate with Kodak products were to suddenly not be there anymore, the impish arguments we make for the "film aesthetic" are certain to fall by the wayside in favor of F900s and REDs. Without a solid product and consistency behind it, shooting film is not something that will be commercially feasible anymore, especially for movie photography.

 

Wow, that is a most depressing outlook on thing, though somehow I don't think it'll happen, the manufacturing plant and workforce will probably remain the same, and I'm sure that any company big enough to buy Kodak's film division will be perfectly capable of consistency.

 

Anyways, Luckyfilm is supposed to be quite good.

[Brad Grimmett]

I'm worried that the same fate will befall Kodak if it gets sold to a foreign company, like from China.

What would you think if Kodak was sold to a company like Time/Warner? This is absolute speculation of course, but it could possibly be a good thing for film lovers if one of the studios owned Kodak. It would give that particular studio a really good reason to keep film alive. But of course at this point all of this talk is speculation because nothing has been sold yet. I guess we'll just have to wait and see and always prepare for change.

[Terry Mester]

... For one, they often don't disclose they've discontinued a product until supplies of that product have almost run out, as they did with Kodachrome, their EXR 50D stock, and their Vision 800T stock, which puts student filmmakers like myself in a huge bind trying to find a stock that they had assumed would be available in the forseeable future. ... Another thing they do is put gigantic minimum orders on simple items like double-perf film. The master rolls of this stuff are only 10,000 feet long, so the minimum order for something like that should be 10,000 feet max, not *100,000* feet which is essentially no more labor intensive per slice than 1-10,000 foot custom order. ...

Karl, have you formally complained about this to the appropriate Vice President? Their refusal to sell 10 thousand feet to a student is utterly stupid. Make a complaint higher up, and you may get somewhere.

What would you think if Kodak was sold to a company like Time/Warner? This is absolute speculation of course, but it could possibly be a good thing for film lovers if one of the studios owned Kodak. It would give that particular studio a really good reason to keep film alive. ...

Having Hollywood Studios become Majority Shareholders is the best prospect for the future of Kodak. Hollywood Producers and Directors should recommend this to Studio Execs. This would ensure Kodak's commitment to Film. It's possible that Antonio Perez has the support of the current Majority Shareholders. Nothing will improve at Kodak until Perez is fired, and a whole bunch of the Film people he fired (over the past three years) are brought back. Perez brought in a bunch of Digital people to run the company! As a result of the Healthcare Unit sale, I expect that Kodak's Stock will drop below $20 and possibly $15 Dollars over the next year. This will mean the end of Perez's tenure. Rather than write to Kodak or Perez to complain about current corporate policy, people should complain to the current Majority Shareholders (listed below) about Perez: :angry:

To: Robert M. Maynard, Chief Investment Officer

To: Charles H. Brandes, CFA and Peter Branner

Brandes Investment Partners

11988 El Camino Real, Suite 500, P.O. Box 919048

San Diego, California, 92191-9048

E-Mail: ClientService@Brandes.com, info@brandes.com

 

To: Bill Miller, CFA, Chairman

Chief Investment Officer, and Portfolio Manager

James P. Daly, Jr., Director Of Marketing

Timothy O. McGurkin, CFA, Director of Client Service

Legg Mason Capital Management

100 Light Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

E-Mail: Capmgmtinfo@leggmason.com, Jpdaly@leggmason.com, Tomcgurkin@leggmason.com

 

Bruce S. Sherman, Chief Executive Officer,

Chief Investment Officer and Senior Portfolio Manager

Private Capital Management

8889 Pelican Bay Boulevard, Suite 500, Naples, Florida 34108-7512

E-Mail: information@private-cap.com

 

TO: Chief Investment Officer

FMR Corporation

82 Devonshire Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109

www.Fidelity.com

[K Borowski]

Karl, have you formally complained about this to the appropriate Vice President? Their refusal to sell 10 thousand feet to a student is utterly stupid. Make a complaint higher up, and you may get somewhere.

Having Hollywood Studios become Majority Shareholders is the best prospect for the future of Kodak. Hollywood Producers and Directors should recommend this to Studio Execs. This would ensure Kodak's commitment to Film. It's possible that Antonio Perez has the support of the current Majority Shareholders. Nothing will improve at Kodak until Perez is fired, and a whole bunch of the Film people he fired (over the past three years) are brought back. Perez brought in a bunch of Digital people to run the company! As a result of the Healthcare Unit sale, I expect that Kodak's Stock will drop below $20 and possibly $15 Dollars over the next year. This will mean the end of Perez's tenure. Rather than write to Kodak or Perez to complain about current corporate policy, people should complain to the current Majority Shareholders (listed below) about Perez: :angry:

To: Robert M. Maynard, Chief Investment Officer

To: Charles H. Brandes, CFA and Peter Branner

Brandes Investment Partners

11988 El Camino Real, Suite 500, P.O. Box 919048

San Diego, California, 92191-9048

E-Mail: ClientService@Brandes.com, info@brandes.com

 

To: Bill Miller, CFA, Chairman

Chief Investment Officer, and Portfolio Manager

James P. Daly, Jr., Director Of Marketing

Timothy O. McGurkin, CFA, Director of Client Service

Legg Mason Capital Management

100 Light Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

E-Mail: Capmgmtinfo@leggmason.com, Jpdaly@leggmason.com, Tomcgurkin@leggmason.com

 

Bruce S. Sherman, Chief Executive Officer,

Chief Investment Officer and Senior Portfolio Manager

Private Capital Management

8889 Pelican Bay Boulevard, Suite 500, Naples, Florida 34108-7512

E-Mail: information@private-cap.com

 

TO: Chief Investment Officer

FMR Corporation

82 Devonshire Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109

www.Fidelity.com

 

Terry, thanks very much for the information. I will definitely get in touch with some of these people. I don't know if I can do it (legally), but I'm buying shares and showing up next year and I'm going to do my best to get my cause stated to that stupid son-of-a-bitch. While I don't think it is realistic bringing back all of the people they fired, I think they should reinvest all of the profits they make from film stock sales into R&D at this point, to keep the product line stronger than HD as long as they can. They could easily get another 15-30 years out of film if they'd just put money back into it, and not piss users off like they have been doing. Also, I wasn't referring to cine film. I run a still photography business, mostly labwork and weddings and events that's all Portra C-41 film. I've had all kinds of trouble getting the right damned perforations for the 70mm camera backs I use. They don't make the right perfs for their 400-speed version, so I have to order 100,000 feet from them just to get perfs that probably take them 20 seconds to stamp with their machine. I could just get the film in 220 length, which is 20 shots per back, but I'd prefer being able to go 40-50 frames between reloads, which only 70mm film allows.

 

Kodak has been stubborn, but usually acquiesces to requests I've made for cine stock. I was actually the guy that got them to make Kodachrome 40A with regular 8mm perfs. for John Schwind, before they decided to discontinue it. . .

 

That's another bonehead move, their discontinuing Kodachrome 40A and 200. They're going to axe their last Kodachrome stock, K64, within the year, just wait, which makes NO SENSE because the stock was still selling pretty strong, and because D'Waynes, the only lab left that does it, wants to keep doing it. I personally spoke to Grant, the president of that lab, and he was very interested in doing longer lengths of the film, when I was trying to get Kodak to start making longer lengths of K40 for 16mm. They only make/made 100-foot lengths until they axed it. So now poor D'Waynes is left holding the bag. They have an expensive machine with very difficult to control chemistry that has a lot of time and money invested in it that will be totally obsolete should Kodak pull the plug on K-14. So now they're scrambling to diversify for no good reason.

 

Sure Kodachrome was a "charity" film, just like E-6 and B&W, but those are legacy markets that built good amateur photography and filmmaking skills since the 1930s. They are hurting film as a whole by eliminating their less profitable products. When people are willing to pay for them to coat a roll of the stuff, why on earth wouldn't they make it, especiall;y when K40, K25, K64, and K200 were all made with the same basic dyes :blink:

 

Another thing: if I want *seven* feet of 16mm double perf, they should click their heels and make it for me and charge an appropriate premium. All they care about now is volume, which alienates future film users that can't currently generate that kind of volume. If I want 5 1200-foot lengths of Vision2 50D for my Auricon, why should they have a problem with cutting those 5 lengths instead of 6 1000-foot lengths? It might cost them a few cents here and there, but they still make a whole boatload of profit on the film and chemicals and silver recovery cartridges they sell and recycle, so they need to realize that selling something that will profit them indirectly is almost as good as something that will profit them directly.

 

I don't care what that Prima Dona Perez wants the company to transition into, I just want him to keep his fat hands off of the film division's profits. And selling X-ray division 1/5 of the company? Was he drunk when he signed the go-ahead on that deal? One of Kodak's largest coating machines was in the X-ray facility, so now Kodak has to pay money to coat paper wider than 24". Bonehead move, selling off a division that is still massively profitable.

[Stephen Williams]

How much do these tubes cost? I'm looking at buying an old tube Betacam.

 

Hi Matthew,

 

The last time I had a BVP3 retubed cost about £5000. They were guaranteed for 500 hours and were OK for approx 1250 hours. After that the green left trails when you panned the camera.

 

Stephen

[David Sweetman]

Another thing: if I want *seven* feet of 16mm double perf, they should click their heels and make it for me and charge an appropriate premium. All they care about now is volume, which alienates future film users that can't currently generate that kind of volume. If I want 5 1200-foot lengths of Vision2 50D for my Auricon, why should they have a problem with cutting those 5 lengths instead of 6 1000-foot lengths?

 

Those are both ridiculous requests. Because they're running a business, that's why they can't. Opportunity cost, that's why they can't; if they spend their time doing one thing, the price of that time is what they didn't do, but could have. So if they spend all their time bending to every pointless request for the sake of comfort for one low-volume consumer, then they lose the volume they could have filled in that same time. I don't see anything wrong with that at all, it just means Kodak is a well-run company.

 

Have you tried Dr. Rawstock for things like that? Or, I can't remember where you're based...

[Matthew Buick]

Hi Matthew,

 

The last time I had a BVP3 retubed cost about £5000. They were guaranteed for 500 hours and were OK for approx 1250 hours. After that the green left trails when you panned the camera.

 

Stephen

 

Wow, that is a lot, too much for me. :D

[Stephen Williams]

Wow, that is a lot, too much for me. :D

 

Hi Matthew,

 

Thats why CCD cameras took off.

 

Stephen

[Matthew Buick]

Ah. I had no idea the the tubes were so expensive to manufacture. I thought they were selling for pennies these days.

 

It's a shame, I am a real sucker for that warm tube look. :(

[David Sweetman]

It just occured to me that not only do I shoot film, I spin records and write on a manual typewriter. LP's are still produced because there is still a market for it, however typewriters are not being produced because they are almost completely obsolete, such that the market is no longer there. So I guess the determiner of the future of film will lie in the market. If film itself continues to maintain several advantages over video, then its market will remain, and its producers will continue to produce.

 

Kall me a Keynesian, whatever. Or it could go down clasically, adam smith style, where the producers decide to determine what is produced and what is not, though this would be a bad idea unless Perez really does have a pro-video agenda which superceeds business strategy.

[Leo Anthony Vale]

It's a shame, I am a real sucker for that warm tube look. :(

 

You can't beat the look on the color 'Ed Sullivan' shows.

 

The richness trumps the lack of sharpness.

[Matthew Buick]

You can't beat the look on the color 'Ed Sullivan' shows.

 

The richness trumps the lack of sharpness.

 

They're not bad.

 

I jus' wants me dem t00bs!