Bye bye Kodak

[Adrian Samuals]

The End of an era:(

[Phil Rhodes]

If you're referring to the end of the space shuttle, consider it was never a fantastic success - it was much more expensive than even fairly pessimistic estimates, they didn't do nearly as many launches as they'd hoped, and it is (based on a fairly small sample) one of the most unsafe person-to-orbit systems ever made.

 

It was cool, but it wasn't actually that useful. Going back to giant fireworks feels like a retrograde step, but may not actually be.

 

The solution of course is something like this, but don't worry - the British hate to be world-leading, innovative, or in any way successful, so it's never going to get built.

 

If you're referring to Kodak, my sympathy is muted.

 

P

[John Sprung]

The British did one brilliant thing early on in the space race. They built Jodrell bank.

 

They knew that they couldn't afford the big fireworks, so they put their resources into the best possible capture of the data coming back from other nations' probes. Their images from the Venus landers were much better than what the Russians got.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Phil Rhodes]

On the other hand, the UK is the only country to have constructed an indigenous satellite launch capability, then abandoned it.

 

We suck.

 

P

[K Borowski]

Phil, oddly enough, I find your pessimism curiously uplifting. Maybe under the same principle as comedy being routed in the suffering of others rather than your own :-D

 

 

I will feel very bad when Kodak is gone. :(

 

Take this with a grain of salt, because I've been indoctrinated, am almost obligated to have this opinion, but I agree the shuttle was incredibly ineffective. Look at our space station. It was partially scrapped, may have to be abandoned, and is in an orbital inclination that is almost completely useless for one of its intended purposes: launching space missions. This was done to make it more accessible to the higher latitude of the Russians, ironically of incredible importance now that the US basically has to bum rides from them and do shots to get there on '60s technology (Shuttle reliability, agreeably being worse).

 

Incidentally, the shuttle WAS predicted to have I think it was 1/100 failure rate, and that was almost exactly, IIRC the number of failures that they had. May have improved slightly with the paranoia that arose after that second shuttle disaster with Columbia. But said disaster was, almost on the tick true to those predicted failure figures.

 

My understanding is the SSME was an incredibly costly engine to fuel. What's even worse, programs for shuttle-derived vehicles being scrapped may mean that, in the long term, a lot of those finicky systems were all for nought.

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I admit to being terribly depressed myself hearing about Kodak's latest troubles. Let's not count them out yet though! They may be hurting, but they're far from through.

[Markshaw]

I honestly believe it will be a sad day if we do lose Kodak. It's always sad to see an icon disappear.

[Simon Wyss]

Question was if EKC will survive, wasn’t it?

 

More acutely, if motion-picture film will continue to be manufactured

 

I have the impression that Aaton, Arri, Bolex, Ikonoskop, and Panavision people know more than us. To them, obviously, film seems to be an institution.

[Matthew W. Phillips]

Just wanted to bump this thread over a year later to show that Kodak is still here despite the panic. Doing well? Of course not but existing none the less.

[Phil Rhodes]

Yes, that's good to see.

 

I just fear what'll happen when some Chinese outfit starts turning out stock. Rumours abound that they already have, although perhaps it wouldn't attract the mass marketeers.

[Matthew W. Phillips]

Yes, that's good to see.

 

I just fear what'll happen when some Chinese outfit starts turning out stock. Rumours abound that they already have, although perhaps it wouldn't attract the mass marketeers.

 

Maybe we can get the "Hong Kong Sync" with the humourous dialog track drift. :D

[Robert Houllahan]

Yeah and to keep it weird I am just going to say the following:

 

Burt Rutan

Scaled Composites

Space-X

Kodak

 

USA! USA!

 

Snappy New Year!!

 

-Rob-

[Andy Hager]

What's interesting in this Bloomberg article is how they mention that Kodak is a company in termoil and then later in the article mention that Hewlett Packard is one of Kodaks largest competitors in the inkjet photo printing market.

 

What Bloomberg forgot to mention, was that Hewlett Packard is also a company in termoil and has struggled to restructure its overall buisness the last couple of years! None of the major computer manufacturers are on sold business footing at all anymore! Look at Dell, Compaq and Gateway. All of them have had some major restructoring over the last five years as the business world really doesn't see the need to upgrade any of there computers in a big hurry anymore. Notice how IBM completely sold out of the PC market all together. Take a look at Apple, they don't make all that much selling MacBooks and MacPros, they sell phones!

 

No doubt that Kodak is a company in termoil, but honestly, aren't all digital equipment manufacturers in some tight spot?

[Charles Brubaker]

One thing I'm wondering about is the future of 16mm stock. A filmmaker friend of mine says that they may discontinue all production of 16mm stocks sooner than we think.

 

So I'm wondering what the future looks for Super 16mm as a shooting format. I got the impression that there are still sizable number of filmmakers shooting on 16mm (with post done digitally). Not a huge number, but just enough to keep making them. I know more and more theaters are opting to use digital projection, but what about 35mm as a shooting format?

[Geoff Howell]

One thing I'm wondering about is the future of 16mm stock. A filmmaker friend of mine says that they may discontinue all production of 16mm stocks sooner than we think.

 

I'd bet that a third party would buy raw stock from Kodak and slit and re-perf it for use with 16mm like they've been doing with Fuji slide film and super8.

[Andy Hager]

All of the film gauges available today are derivatives of larger sizes of stock. 35mm is just slit down reperfed 70mm stock and so on down the line with 16mm and super 8. As far as I know, there still are folks who are slitting and perfing regular 8mm.

 

At this point in the game, I think it is now an all or nothing kind of deal. I don't think there will be any breakups or discontinuations of film gauges available, just the kind of stock manufactured will change, like the discontinuation of Ektachrome and Kodachrome, for example.

 

In the end, one day I think Kodak will just simply do what Fuji just did and make a blanket statement and say something like: it costs X amount of dollars to manufacture this, and we sold X amount of dollars worth of it and now we can no longer lower our overhead costs of manufacture so, we don't see a viable business in this market segment here anymore. THE END!

[rob spence]

16mm stock is just 35mm slit in half, if 35mm survives then there's no reason why 16mm wont too.

[Mark Dunn]

Ayone looked at the Kodak site lately (not the MP section, just the kodak.com or .co.uk or whatever)?

Very depressing. Only a handful of stills stocks left, and consumer film buried away in a corner without even its own heading to click on.

I sold off my old stock last year as I haven't use film for 8- make that 9- years. If I wanted to buy professional rollfilm again tomorrow, I wouldn't know where to find it. Probably ebay. Where I sold it.

Edited January 8, 2013 by Mark Dunn

[rob spence]

http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Customers/Productions/index.htm

 

seems like the big boys are still using it

[Simon Wyss]

16mm stock is just 35mm slit in half, if 35mm survives then there's no reason why 16mm wont too.

 

No, it isn’t. 16-mm. stock has a thinner base than 35-mm. The difference is only about a mil but 16 cameras don’t like the 35 thickness. Slitters, as a second point for consideration, are never set up mixed. You have always either all 35 or all 16 across the width of the jumbo rolls. Or 32, but those years are gone when double-16 was printed or quad-8. The after 32 slitters stand around in labs. Thirdly, there are almost no perforators on the market that allow to punch 35 and 16. You have individual perforating machines.

[rob spence]

oh, dear, we may need one of these then...

 

http://www.subclub.org/darkroom/splitter.htm

[Reyad Hasan Prince]

Kodak was really good. Long time leasting.but now a days, Matthew and Company is the leading full service film and video production company in Austin, TX area.

 

From pre-production to script writing and shooting your spot and then post production we can take care of all of your video production needs.

[Matthew W. Phillips]

Kodak was really good. Long time leasting.but now a days, Matthew and Company is the leading full service film and video production company in Austin, TX area.

 

From pre-production to script writing and shooting your spot and then post production we can take care of all of your video production needs.

 

LOL. Are you trying to spam this board?

[Simon Wyss]

Look at the long line of innovation they came up with: From the first movie films in the 1890s to some of the first digital cameras, polyester film, color negative, Kodachrome, the stocks for technicolor, the first films to land on the moon, Super 8, Cineon, the Kodak picture CD in the '90s, and a lot of things I am not remembering too well late on a Friday night.

 

Perhaps bold to pick this up so late but that Friday night it must have been late for you.

• The first flexible film was made and patented by Rev. Hannibal Goodwin in 1887. Eastman stole the invention from him 1889. There has been a trial, a judgement and a fine.
  
• PETP or PET Polyester was first produced by Emerette F. Izard under Wallace Hume Carothers with DuPont in 1940. DuPont began offering Cronar base films in 1950, and the EKC bought licence to manufacture it in 1955, called Estar.
  
• Color negative films have been invented by Agfa chemists. Eastmancolor was developed from the published Agfa patents.
  
• The Technicolor stocks were nothing special, only the panchromatic camera film had to be covered with a red-dyed filter gelatine. Special Order by Mr. Kalmus
  
• 16mm and Super-8 were developed by Bell & Howell Co.
  
• “Moon landing” films were nothing special, too. Ektachrome on Estar
  
• EXR, extended range sensitivity film, was bought from Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc.
  

The EKC has bought itself into most business. What they weren’t able to afford any longer was the silver. Its price got seven times the 1992 value in 2012. Three days ago this press release:

http://www.agfa.com/...ontract_EPM.jsp

[Geoff Howell]

No, it isn’t. 16-mm. stock has a thinner base than 35-mm. The difference is only about a mil but 16 cameras don’t like the 35 thickness.

 

interesting, I wonder if this is a non-issue for the folks repackaging 35mm stills film into super8 cartridges as presumably they can make adjustments to the pressure plate within the actual cartridges

[David Cunningham]

interesting, I wonder if this is a non-issue for the folks repackaging 35mm stills film into super8 cartridges as presumably they can make adjustments to the pressure plate within the actual cartridges

 

The other problem is that already perforated 35mm motion picture film only produces 1 length of 16mm. You can't get two out of it because the perforations are different and cannot be re-used from the 35mm and there isn't enough room between the perfs for a full 2 lengths of 16mm. So, slitting and re-perfing 35mm for 16mm would be silly.