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What if KODAK stops manufacturing FILM?


Rajavel Olhiveeran

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How much have you seen in the way of so called "artists film" Phil? Firstly there are a lot of those films which would be impossible to make on video at all! Certainly if a new digital process was made to try and emulate them, the results would be VERY different.

 

I was thinking the same thing reading this thread. I don't think you can reproduce the look of E. Elias Merhige's Begotten on digital. I think each frame was photograped 10 times through an optical printer.

 

begotten.jpg

 

begotten_god_self_eviscerating.jpg

 

Also agree with your point, Freya that process is important to film artists. Not everybody is in film to make millions producing blockbuster feature movies as quickly and as conveniently as possible.

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I'm sure If you search the net you'll find them.

 

I have searched from time to time, but never found any. You made the assertion that "There a lots of companies that make film, most in South East Asia...". I am interested to know what you know about this that the rest of us don't.

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Well, this took me about 2 minutes to find:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_industry

 

India is largest producer of films in the world.[1][2] In 2009, India produced a total of 2961 films on celluloid, that include a staggering figure of 1288 feature films

 

 

More recent stats found here:

 

http://cbfcindia.gov.in/html/uniquepage.aspx?unique_page_id=30

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Well, this took me about 2 minutes to find: http://en.wikipedia....i/Film_industry India is largest producer of films in the world.[1][2] In 2009, India produced a total of 2961 films on celluloid, that include a staggering figure of 1288 feature films More recent stats found here: http://cbfcindia.gov...ique_page_id=30
Indeed, those articles speak to filmaking (as in storytelling), not film manufacturing, which is what I thought we were discussing. Edited by Gary Lemson
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I have to call "codswhallop" on that statement. Ronald Perelman paid an enormous amount of money for Technicolor a few years back, and he has a very long track record for refusing to let his bad purchases die a natural death. Such things have been decreed before, nothing ever came of it.

No he bought Deluxe , Technicolor is owned by Thomson. It seems now in this country a deal between them means Technicolor will do the Neg Process everything else Deluxe will handle !

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Freya:

 

What do you think percentage-wise that would be though?

 

I can't believe it'd be anything more than 1-2% of the profits that Kodak is getting from S8 in its film Entertainment Imaging division.

 

I wouldn't like to say at all Karl. To be honest I was as surprised as you!

However, if it is as much as even 1%, then that is very significant in the current situation Kodak are in.

It probably staves off a fair few redundancies.

 

It does explain a lot, as I have noticed a shift at Kodak to being a lot more interested in S8 than they used to be, and when you think about it, you have to admit, I bet they sell way, way, way more S8 than they ever have of those A-minima rolls!

 

S8 is actually quite a practical format in some ways. I mean if you just want a tiny film or to make a loop or something, you can do so cheaply and just project it, and the projectors are even fairly portable. Suprisingly handy little format.

 

love

 

Freya

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Indeed, those articles speak to filmaking (as in storytelling), not film manufacturing, which is what I thought we were discussing.

 

 

I think Pav Deep was alluding to both.

 

Main point being, with such demand remaining

in the world for film, it's like Mark Twain

once said -- Reports of his death are greatly

exaggerated.

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I have to call "codswhallop" on that statement. Ronald Perelman paid an enormous amount of money for Technicolor a few years back, and he has a very long track record for refusing to let his bad purchases die a natural death. Such things have been decreed before, nothing ever came of it.

 

 

Keith,

 

I sincerely hope you are right about the longevity of Technicolor. Of course Technicolor

is heavily invested in digital technology also.

 

The fact that Bill Meurer of Birns and Sawyer started auctioning off all of his film cameras

yesterday is another red flag, or "canary in the coal mine", if you will.

 

Nothing would please me more than the idea that we have another 5 to 6 years left before the

film manufacturing plants and processing labs shut down.

 

 

best regards,

-Jerry Murrel

 

CineVision AR

Little Rock

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Now, however, I am disappointed to see Kodak slash their neg stock portfolio down to five and offer only one reversal option, and eliminate Plus-X. I am in (somewhat) active negotiations to bring a replacement.

 

Is it possible to elaborate on your "active negotiations" for a Plus-X replacement?

I would love to hear any possible good news.

 

Thanks,

Todd

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No he bought Deluxe , Technicolor is owned by Thomson. It seems now in this country a deal between them means Technicolor will do the Neg Process everything else Deluxe will handle !

Sorry, you're right, deluxe.

Whatever, there are still going to be prints made as long as Ron can finagle the finance necessary.

It was actually pretty funny what happened in Australia. RP owns both Panavision and Deluxe (who traded under the name "Atlab" here), and he decided to rationalize operations by shoe-horning Panavision Oz into the same building as Atlab. Just as he got that done, at great expense, the banks foreclosed on Panavision, and he no longer has any equity in it.

 

Then, the owner of the building decided to rent what remaining floor space they had to Arri Australia! It's a bit like having me, Phil Rhodes and Jim Jannard all in the same building...

The only good thing about working for Atlab used to be the fantastic amount of under-cover car parking they had, (great in the Summer). So much for that now!

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Keith,

 

I sincerely hope you are right about the longevity of Technicolor. Of course Technicolor

is heavily invested in digital technology also.

 

The fact that Bill Meurer of Birns and Sawyer started auctioning off all of his film cameras

yesterday is another red flag, or "canary in the coal mine", if you will.

 

Nothing would please me more than the idea that we have another 5 to 6 years left before the

film manufacturing plants and processing labs shut down.

 

 

best regards,

-Jerry Murrel

 

CineVision AR

Little Rock

Well everybody knows that on Nov 3, Canon are going to announce the successor to the EOS 5D.

PL mount is confirmed, and it's almost certainly going to offer non-pixel-skipping 30fps+ 1920 x 1080.

Add that to the complete absence of any Proprietary "Albatross-ware" video formats, and I think we'll be seeing the real "film-killer".

Low cost (for everything) means ways of making film that haven't really been explored before.

That is, something really worthwhile on the table for once.

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Well everybody knows that on Nov 3, Canon are going to announce the successor to the EOS 5D.

 

Whither it's a successor to the 5D, which is basically a stills camera remains to be seen. The impression I get is that it's more a F3 competitor or perhaps the FS100, than a new version of 5D.

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Low cost (for everything) means ways of making film that haven't really been explored before.

That is, something really worthwhile on the table for once.

 

In what way will digital be making movies that haven't really been explored before? I'm fine with digital, but statements like this perplex me. There are film and video - now digital - artists who've been pushing the boundaries for decades. Are you just talking about the popcorn sellers that show up at my local multi-plexes?

 

I know artists who mess with the chemistry of film to change the ISO, they bury the film and then shoot it weeks later, they play with other chemicals on the film, they do all kinds of experiments. How is a cheaper digital camera format going to help them explore ways of making film they haven't really explored before? I guess the digital artists will be happy, but they've already been at it for decades now.

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It is interesting that we a expending so much effort to discuss the end of film for making movies.

 

I think a much bigger threat is the end of cinema...due to piracy. It won't matter if we shoot digital or film if everyone is stealing the end product. We won't be shooting much of anything, at least not as a career, just a hobby...

 

Sorry, just popped in my head just now :)

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It is interesting that we a expending so much effort to discuss the end of film for making movies.

 

I think a much bigger threat is the end of cinema...due to piracy. It won't matter if we shoot digital or film if everyone is stealing the end product. We won't be shooting much of anything, at least not as a career, just a hobby...

 

Sorry, just popped in my head just now :)

 

Interesting that digital has made it easier to pirate films.

 

That said, piracy has also helped film. Many films are still available today thanks to pirates. 9/10, when you hear about a print for a lost film being found in some private collection, that print is pirated copy. Taken from the cinema rather than sent back to the studios to be thrown in the trash. Granted, I'm mostly talking about the kind of piracy that benefits a film years after its commercial release. It certainly doesn't help the film industry if people can download Transformers 3 to their PC on the same night it opens in theaters.

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Almost everything I've ever shot would have been made impossible by film.

 

Once again, I would point out that the biggest protagonists of film are the people who don't have to pay for it.

 

People who direct professional digital productions don't have to pay for the cameras or for the crew either, the film is another cost.

 

Just because I can't afford one, doesn't mean I wouldn't like to own an Aston Martin and if I really wanted it enough, I'd attempt get together the business that would allow me to afford it.

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Taken from the cinema rather than sent back to the studios to be thrown in the trash.

 

Old prints in remote locations like Alaska often were dumped locally, rather than spending money to ship them back. Years in the frozen ground preserve them, and they get found again from time to time. Prints that did come back were evaluated, and if they were in good enough condition, they were used as slug leader for cutting sound tracks. Sound cutters would sometimes keep decent prints of good movies, and buy more slug leader. After a while, the studios started putting big scrape marks through them before selling them as slug.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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I've shot some stuff that literally would not have been possible, or never would have been done in the 2-3 days we had to shoot if we shot film.

 

...how come.

 

 

There's many reasons....We had so many set ups to get through that we could have never done it fast enough with film. Like the whole concept of the film would have to be simplified and changed, since we couldn't afford rentals, locations, actors etc. for more than 2-3 days. And some of the digital cameras are much better in low light conditions, like streets at night when we didn't have many lights...or we were mounting DSLRs to the outside of moving cars with inexpensive car mounts. Or we would do certain camera moves on a jib, steadicam, or dolly that might be tricky and require a lot of takes to get right (especially with some of the less experienced crew we had) and would just be out of the question on film...the shots would have to be much simpler. Of course a lot of my points are more valid in smaller budget, independent films when there's less money, less time, less experienced crew etc. On a bigger budget film, a lot of my problems may not be an issue.

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As some here have said, black and white film should be around for a while, and I think one reason why it will stay is the resurgence of interest in black & white for still photography. Lots of younger kids never got to experience it and are curious, and I think they instinctively can grasp that there's just something different and really cool about it, vs the digital and video stuff they've grown up with; I see this all the time in college photo department where I work. And lots of old-timers who bailed on film when the whole still world decided to switch over to digital have gotten bored and have been picking up their old cameras again and getting back in the darkroom. Large format is even enjoying some of this renewed interest. Is it enough for a giant company like Kodak to put much thought or effort into? Probably not, it'll probably remain a niche, fine-art thing (and probably stills thing too, but it'd be nice if there was a little bit of motion stock still coming out somewhere), but I don't think it'll go away completely. It's been nice recently to be able to try out lots of different new photo papers being made by some of the eastern European companies like Foma and Adox. Should film ever die completely, that's still not the end of chemical photography, though (well, for motion pictures it would be, but not stills). There's always calotypes, wet plate, etc, that can made at home. Check out the book Primitive Photography. Regardless, though, I know that no matter what happens, it's going to make the cost of a sheet of 8x10 film get a whole lot more expensive :(

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