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Panavision going down for the third time?


Keith Walters

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Many here scoffed at the notion that giants like Kodak and Panavision could easily be brought down by new digital cinema cameras when digital proponents predicted it a couple of years ago... but no one is scoffing any more! :lol:

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Many here scoffed at the notion that giants like Kodak and Panavision could easily be brought down by new digital cinema cameras when digital proponents predicted it a couple of years ago... but no one is scoffing any more! :lol:

 

With respect Tom, I don't see how digital has any thing to do with the issues at Panavision?

 

And Kodak is still making plenty of 35mm motion picture film last time I checked, I can pick up the phone and order some right now if I want to. So I don't see at all what you are talking about when you say, "brought down." It hasn't happened.

 

So I am one of those people that scoffs at digital and its ability to knock film out of the market, and I know for a fact I will still be scoffing 10 years and 20 years from now.

 

I was just reviewing screeners tonight for The Dogfather, I wanted to see what the film looks like on my new plasma TV. Man! I am ever glad I chose 35mm once again, the picture quality is just incredible.

 

No digital format can come close to matching it!!

 

R,

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With respect Tom, I don't see how digital has any thing to do with the issues at Panavision?

 

The number of cameras rented from Panavision has gone down due to digital competition. Music videos, short films, cable tv, and even some prime time TV has switch to digital. Now only big money productions are renting equipment from Panavision. This is a huge loss of revenue.

 

And Kodak is still making plenty of 35mm motion picture film last time I checked, I can pick up the phone and order some right now if I want to. So I don't see at all what you are talking about when you say, "brought down." It hasn't happened.

 

Yes, Kodak is still making 35mm film, but it's no longer the only game in town. 16mm films is almost done. Digital has pretty much replaced everything that was shot on 16mm. In a few years Kodak will stop making 16mm because no one will be buying it, and there will be too few places to get it developed as film processing business start to go under. I doubt 35mm is going anywhere, but it won't be the dominate force in film and TV production. In a few years time big budget film and TV will be 50/50 split between film and digital.

 

 

So I am one of those people that scoffs at digital and its ability to knock film out of the market, and I know for a fact I will still be scoffing 10 years and 20 years from now.

 

I was just reviewing screeners tonight for The Dogfather, I wanted to see what the film looks like on my new plasma TV. Man! I am ever glad I chose 35mm once again, the picture quality is just incredible.

 

No digital format can come close to matching it!!

 

R,

 

35mm is amazing and beautiful. Digital has yet to come close to matching the dynamic range of film, but it's getting closer every year.

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Perhaps it's because they price themselves out of the market?

 

They have a Toronto office and you need to triple your camera budget to go any where near them. Mean while you can rent perfectly good Arri gear from a number of places much much cheaper.

 

R,

Totally true. They were the Rolls Royce of film cameras, but unless you were shooting really high end stock with special lenses, I never noticed too much of a difference between them and Moviecam or Arri. Oh sure, the high end and high priced DPs used Panaflex equipment, but to me there's a reason well shot indys used Arris.

 

Most of the local stuff was shot using Arris (maybe even the same BL III package too). Even when the cameras were available through the local Cine Rent West rental hour, most of the locals used Arris. San Francisco is one of the most expensive cities to live in in the first place; using LA pricing for the Bay Area made sure that Panaflex cameras wouldn't be readily available. Well, that was over 10 years ago, so maybe things have changed.

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Totally true. They were the Rolls Royce of film cameras, but unless you were shooting really high end stock with special lenses, I never noticed too much of a difference between them and Moviecam or Arri.

As far as the camera bodies are concerned, I don't think you'd find too many people at PV (without their fingers crossed behind their back at any rate) who would disagree with that.

However Panavision Lenses are an entirely different story, and you can only get them from PV. End of story

Plus, you only get to have the big "P" in the credits if you rent Panavision, stupid but very, very true <_<

Oh sure, the high end and high priced DPs used Panaflex equipment, but to me there's a reason well shot indys used Arris.

Yeah, if you're prepared to take a risk on how well-maintained the cameras are, you can do OK. Or not.

I don't know what it's like in other countries, but Panavision Australia absorbed quite a few smaller rental companies in the time I was there, and some of the Arri cameras we inherited were downright diabolical. When work was quiet we could refurbish them and eventually add them to the rental fleet, but t was shocking to think that they were actually charging people money for rubbish like that. No wonder they went broke.

 

Most of the local stuff was shot using Arris (maybe even the same BL III package too). Even when the cameras were available through the local Cine Rent West rental hour, most of the locals used Arris. San Francisco is one of the most expensive cities to live in in the first place; using LA pricing for the Bay Area made sure that Panaflex cameras wouldn't be readily available. Well, that was over 10 years ago, so maybe things have changed.

As has been pointed out numerous times here and elsewhere, Panavision are/were Arri's biggest customer, so I'm not sure what point you (and a lot of other people) are making.

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but no one is scoffing any more! :lol:

With disrespect Tom, I think lots of people are are scoffing. I was scoffing myself, just a couple of hours ago. :rolleyes:

 

Actually a lot of people scoffed in the mid 90s when the first digital video cameras began to appear, and I dared to suggest that once signal processing starts to move from analog into the digital domain, Sony and the other big Jap companies were eventually going to find themselved upstaged by more digital-savvy US-baed companies.

Was I right, or what?

How many Jap-designed microprocessors have you used today?

And just about all the whizz-bang consumer electronics that's currently pouring out of China is based on US-designed microchips. Intellectual property is worth far more than manufacturing ever was.

 

Actually I wrote a Science Fiction short story in the early 1990s where 5,000 years in the future, human archaeologists find the remains a Sony video camera left on on a distant planet by 21st century human explorers. The faded label said the camera was "made in the USA", which is what may well happen. You wouldn't believe what a job I had convincing the hack editor that I realize that Sony is a Japanese company, but that I also know they're nowhere near as clever as everybody makes out. It's been a few years now since Sony actually made any TV sets and other domestic video equipment, it's all badge-engineered now, and I saw that coming long before most people.

 

By the way, in the story the camera was specially made so that it recorded YUV signals as microscopic images on a glass disk, like a spiral filmstrip, specifically so that any future civilization would be able to re-create the images without too much difficulty. I got that pretty right too, I thought!

Edited by Keith Walters
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It would be interesting to see how Jim Jannard would run the place. He could probably pick it up for a song at the moment, and its value is sure to return. Interestingly, then they would be able to return to actually making their own cameras again.

 

Nothing would fix Panavision faster than an entrepreneur in the bosses' office. The synergy between RED and Panavision alone would make it a great business.

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In a few years Kodak will stop making 16mm because no one will be buying it, and there will be too few places to get it developed as film processing business start to go under.

 

Right, just like they stopped making S8. . .

 

 

They don't have perforating and cutting equipment that has been paid for a hundred times over, and labs *certainly* don't have equipment that can do 16- and 35mm interchangeably as long as you don't try to run both at the same time.

 

With respect, you don't understand the business. Kodak cares about the number of square feet of the stuff they sell, not what size it is. They LOVE selling 65mm negative, because it's more film per minutes shot. They don't like selling 16mm, frankly, but they sell lots of it to NFL films, students, and commercials every year.

 

There are still many many spots shot on 16mm, and television shows. A lot of stuff over in Europe still opts for S16 over HD. It may be grainier, but it has awesome colors and dynamic range.

 

 

 

 

And Michael: I am not trying to start a flame way, I just honestly want Paul and Keith to SHUT UP about things they know nothing about. I don't pretend to be fully aware of Panavision's financial situation, but it certainly isn't as simple as Keith is making it out to be.

 

Paul used to come to me for advice, until I told him, bluntly, that one of his dreamt up ideas for building his own camera was never going to happen.

 

Keith used to respect me, until I said that "Knowing" was the finest looking digital movie I'd seen up until that point on the big screen. Then he pulls my post out of his a$$ a few weeks later as "proof" of why my opinions were faulty, in a completely different thread.

 

 

Both of them don't look at things objectively, they look through the rose-colored glasses of their lost youths. It bothers me when people who aren't objective influence young filmmakers with re-hashed Kodak propaganda or worse. You can hate digital imaging all you want, but you can't stick your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist. We've had HD digital imaging in one form or another for nearly two decades now.

 

 

This isn't a forum for pipe-dreams, it's for people that are trying to work on movies. Grow a thick skin and learn to live with blunt answers if you are prepared to try to make a living in this industry, not pretend that making or working in movies is somehow like living inside the finished product.

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The number of cameras rented from Panavision has gone down due to digital competition. Music videos, short films, cable tv, and even some prime time TV has switch to digital. Now only big money productions are renting equipment from Panavision. This is a huge loss of revenue.

 

I realize more people are shooting digital, yes, but I'm not sure that is total cause for Panavision's woes. In the mid 90s when the Canadian dollar was very low against the US dollar Panavision Toronto still insisted on being paid in US dollars even though they where in Canada! This meant adding about 50% to the price of your rental. So of course most Canadian films just said to heck with you guys and used Arri gear. Basically Panavision only wanted to do business with the US Hollywood shoots that just happened to be shooting in Toronto. These productions already had US dollars so they didn't care about the exchange rate. Well then the US economy tanked and the Canadian dollar skyrocketed. Far fewer US productions came to Canada (we are still at 50% of the numbers we had in 2000).

 

So now Panavision was stuck looking for business from those pitiful Canadian productions they once thumbed their noses at. Except now, producers like me, refuse to use their product line even if I could afford it. They already shot themselves in the foot with me and dozens of other Canadian producers.

 

How is all this caused by "digital"?

 

 

16mm films is almost done. Digital has pretty much replaced everything that was shot on 16mm.

 

Karl already made my point about Super 8, blah blah blah......

 

One other point that needs to be risen at some point on our illustrious forum. All this nonsensical talk about digital killing off film all together.....and we must ask two questions.

 

1) How many guys over at RED User.net where actually out shooting 35mm narrative features before they purchased their Red cameras? And upon receipt of their Red cameras junked their 35mm systems and have been shooting nothing but Red ever since.

 

2) I read many times on this forum and Red User that once they had their Red cameras they would now be able to go forward and make their own feature films. Because Red was now the great equalizer between them and 35mm. I would seriously like to know if ANY guy at Red User.net has successfully completed and SOLD their own feature film since getting their Red camera?

 

My point is that the acquisition medium is such a small part of the over all filmmaking process. You still need a script, cast, crew, and distribution, all of this takes a lot of time and money and no camera will solve any of these issues for you.

 

R,

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I admit I've only skimmed the report, and I don't rent 35mm camera packages every week, but here's my feeling about Panavision: I would never have gone within a million miles of them because I always assumed that they were going to be massively more expensive than just going to J. Random Rental House and picking up an Arri.

 

Doesn't Panavision UK just exist to service American crews working here?

 

P

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Phil, you've nailed it. I mean, I LOVE panavision, and it'd be a dream to shoot something in glorious Super Panavision 70. But they are a dream. They're so danged expensive, when you can rent an excellent Arri.

 

Panavision has to adapt or go bye bye. They should look to Technicolor, and what they did when monopack color came out, and the studios no longer had to deal with Technicolor's color consultants and camera rentals.

 

They adapted. They knew that the new monopack was poop, and adapted their dye transfer process to making prints. The greatest films of the 50s and 60s looked the way they did because Technicolor did the prints. They adapted their cameras, to new processes like Vista Vision, and their proprietary Technirama process.

 

Panavision has to adapt to the new market, to the budget conscious, and they've got to tighten their belts.

 

BR

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Panavision as a company buys Arri cameras 435 etc and changes them so they can accept their lenses ! Thats why they maybe buy so many ? Its beyond me now why anyone would still want to rent a 40 year old Panaflex with only real option Panavision lenses when you you can rent a Arricam use PL lenses [Zeiss} etc or Hawk Anamorphics ,i really as i said before this has anything to do with the Digital options .

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Richard: Frankly, that sh!t where a company insists on using another country's currency shouldn't be allowed. There should be a law banning it, and where it does happen (Interstate 80 in the U.S. used to take Canadian dollars, especially in up-state New York), there should be a premium charged on conversion. Same thing drives me nuts companies not taking $20 bills because their minimum-wage employees are too dumb to look for watermarks and other counterfeit measures. Cost of doing business. Who do they think they are honoring only certain denominations? I can understand not taking $100 bills or all pennies, but short of that, you should have to honor cash of the country you're in as a rule. Otherwise, you shouldn't be allowed to OPERATE under that country's business; businesses get all sorts of breaks in the U.S., Canada, and other industrialized nations already anyway.

 

I wouldn't accept any currency besides U.S. dollars, regardless of the exchange rate. Besides, big companies like Panavision can hedge the fluctuating values of currency by purchasing futures anyway.

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Panavision as a company buys Arri cameras 435 etc and changes them so they can accept their lenses ! Thats why they maybe buy so many ? Its beyond me now why anyone would still want to rent a 40 year old Panaflex with only real option Panavision lenses when you you can rent a Arricam use PL lenses [Zeiss} etc or Hawk Anamorphics ,i really as i said before this has anything to do with the Digital options .

Totally forgot about refitting the lens mounts. Maybe it's just me, but when I used to see rushes I always felt that Panavision stuff looked "less artistic" than stuff shot with BLIIIs or IVs.

 

*EDIT* in case you can't tell I've been out of the loop for a while.

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My limited understanding of Panavision (never rented from any of their houses) is that they were originally organized by buying up most of the Mitchell bodies when that company basically went out of business for making too reliable of a product.

 

No one needed to buy a new Mitchell because they all still had perfectly good *old* Mitchells.

 

So along comes Panavision. They retrofit these fine camera bodies with mounts for all of the best glass.

 

 

 

They entered the digital field by, in part, developing the Panavision Genesis, which ended their rental-only status in the market. Granted they used outside help, but it is essentially their very own digital camera (not that it is very good, IMHO).

 

Frankly, rental saved you a lot of money over owning and maintaining 35mm bodies, magazines, and accessory equipment. You didn't have to store it, secure it, service it, or deal with continually depreciating value on it.

 

 

Now that we are entering a cycle of planned obsolescence with a slew of digital cameras entering the market, the margins must be plummeting for Panavision et al.

 

Several of the big rental houses, including maybe even Panavision are probably going to go out of business as a result of this, which bodes poorly for moviemakers, because if noone can afford to rent this stuff with such a high degree of inventory depreciation, that means that STUDIOS and CINEMATOGRAPHERS have to own, store, service, and eat the depreciating cost of camera equipment in the future.

 

 

That will make filmmaking MORE, not less expensive.

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The number of cameras rented from Panavision has gone down due to digital competition. Music videos, short films, cable tv, and even some prime time TV has switch to digital.

 

The vast majority of prime time TV is shot digitally. The almost-happened SAG strike flipped the new shows that way, only a few older episodics stayed on film for a consistent look with their previous seasons. Panavision has something like a hundred Genesis packages, mostly out on TV jobs. During the TV season, they're all out. We had to go F-35 at times, because we couldn't get a pair of Genesis bodies. As the film/digital market shares shift, Panavision will shift in sync with them.

 

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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My limited understanding of Panavision (never rented from any of their houses) is that they were originally organized by buying up most of the Mitchell bodies when that company basically went out of business for making too reliable of a product.

 

No one needed to buy a new Mitchell because they all still had perfectly good *old* Mitchells.

 

Not correct, Panavision bought the Mitchells from the Studios who did not want to own cameras.

Mitchell went out of business because Panavision poached the staff who were on Strike over 10 or 20 c an hour.

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I don't about other parts of the world, but you could rent DSR 570s and other video cameras from Panavision and the negotiate a rate similar to everywhere else. I also know there are some parts of the company you can't negotiate with, on the other hand some other rental companies do rent gear out at totally uneconomic rates.

 

You can also rent other lenses from Cooke, Zeiss, not just Panavision glass. Although not as interesting as when it was Joe Dunton's original company before the take over.

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that means that STUDIOS and CINEMATOGRAPHERS have to own, store, service, and eat the depreciating cost of camera equipment in the future.

 

 

That will make filmmaking MORE, not less expensive.

 

Back to where we were 50 years ago, thats's progress.

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Keith used to respect me, until I said that "Knowing" was the finest looking digital movie I'd seen up until that point on the big screen.

God, when you pull stuff out of your a$$, you go right for the duodenum don't you. :lol:

 

DISCLAIMER: The fact I can't be bothered responding to every fatuous assertion made by every long-term low-end industry bench-warmer with delusions of relevance posting on here, should not be interpreted as respect for that opinion.

 

As I've said before: Be reasonable Arethra, if I was respectful to you, I'd have to be respectful to everybody.

I mean, Jan von Krogh? Tom Lowe? Thomas James? Where do you draw the line?!

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