Fujifilm to cease making Motion Picture Film

John Holland · September 14, 2012

Excellent post Andy , i cant add anything to that .

David J Paradise · September 14, 2012

Its sad that film is slowly dying... Digital is taking over and that legendary look is slowly going away...

http://www.elsotano.com.co/videos.php

Well, digital hasn't taken me over and I am positive that film will persevere.

In fact, the only formats that have let me down badly, with creative work vanishing from sight, are the video and digital ones.

The film formats I use are always reliable for both cine and stills.

From time to time I choose Super 8mm and power up the Beaulieu's. Other times I'm loading Portra 120 into the Pentax 67. Do I use digital? Sure, when a particular project calls for it but right now I'm shooting Fujifilm with an Arri BL4 converted to 2-perf.

For all those fretting and yelling about the possible demise of film; I hope you may channel your energy in a better, more imaginative way and go do something creative whether it be with film, digital, or live performance.

Freya Black · September 14, 2012

But with Fuji Motion Picture they were great, wonderful and supportive staff, great products that allowed you achieve the looks you dreamed off.

Definitely agreee with all that and would suggest that they were also open minded and non judgemental. They would support you and let you go wherever you were going with it, rather than trying to guess who you were by the cut of your jacket or something. Very positive!

The night before I found out I was at BAFTA at a new talent screening, on this massive screen there was a mixture of formats, a great deal of Alexa material, including a Firefox ad i shot. Second to last in the

Alexa yup!

roster they showed the Fuji Complete 16 Promo I shot, even though its Super 16, it blew up extremely well, and with its over saturation and general weirdness it felt almost like a breath of fresh air to all the digital stuff. Then last of all a short film shot on 2-perf 35mm came on and looked wonderful - blowing everything else out of the water.

Bet it looked FANTASTIC on the big screen.

However, how do you explain that 'extra something' to a producer, that its worth the extra money and effort to shoot film, in particular 35mm?

Don't think it's down to the producer. The stuff is already in the air for the most part.

Ironically I had been shooting on Red earlier that week, and in the meeting I'd been keen to push my willingness to shoot other formats. But a label is a label, and now brands and consumerism is taking over, craft is irrelevant.

I don't think it's just down to brands and consumerism but it is a change at a fundamental level from analogue to digital. A change in thinking completely. I thought what Adrian said about imagination was really insightful. The analogue stuff is the realm of imagination and that stuff I call magic, and as people have said, art. Video has more of a tradition in the realm of science. In the television industry in the past, a good video image was never determined by what it looked like per se, but more how it appeared on the scopes. What the numbers were. The stuff you could measure and quantify. The amount of noise. The dynamic range, The resolution etc. This was what was important. That's still around, it could be poorly framed badly shot crap but will it make it through the technical tests, that's what's important.

I'm reminded of when cd's came along and some people suggested that some of the cd fanatics seemed more interested in a good signal to noise ratio than what the music actually sounded like.

.

Stuff like art and the craft of things is already more on the back burner. I also think that more of the craft will move into post. Could say a lot more about all this but I've seen a lot of this stuff happening already. It's already there, expect a LOT more of the same!

Of course its not surprising this has happened, for years Fuji saw motion picture as a prestige department - they make most their money from the materials used for LED TVs. They only had 30% of the market so obviously as the market was squeezed they would be the first to go. Had Kodak not been so famously in trouble we would have seen that all along. Kodak also has the loyalty of the big studios and some major contracts securing them for the next half a decade.

I also think that Fuji was probably bigger in the UK and had more of a dependancy on the TV industry which is mandating "No More Film" which is leading to a huge and sudden collapse in sales. This may have been a temporary thing but the people at Fuji will only see the numbers.

love

Freya

John Holland · September 14, 2012

I am very upset about Jerry and the rest of the very small team in Soho Square . They couldnt have been better of supporting Fuji just the best. Kodak should have been so good but never have been . Maybe as far as i am concerned Kodak just dont have such great motion picture products.

Todd Anderson · September 19, 2012

For what it is worth, here is the Japan Times take on breaking the news. It is interesting to note that Fuji started manufacturing Motion Picture film in 1934. I always thought it was a bit later...

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nb20120914a2.html

Fujifilm to cease making movie film

by Kyodo, Jiji

Fujifilm Corp. will stop producing motion picture film around next spring because the rapid digitization of the cinema industry is making the business unprofitable.

Fujifilm has been making film for movie cameras and screening in theaters since its establishment in 1934.

It is now common in the industry to use digital cameras to shoot movies because editing and distribution are much easier.

Fujifilm, currently Japan's sole maker of motion picture film, said Wednesday that finding demand for the product has become difficult, especially after price hikes in July.

After taking final orders from Japanese, U.S. and European studios, the unit of Fujifilm Holdings Corp. will end movie film production next spring. The Tokyo-based maker, however, said it will still produce special film designed to preserve motion pictures for a long period. The firm will keep making archive film that can retain image quality for more than 500 years.