2/4/15 Kodak news

My apologies if this has been posted in another board or if this is the wrong place to post.

http://www.kodak.com/ek/US/en/Kodak...m_Agreements_with_Major_Hollywood_Studios.htm

Sounds like good news for use film shooters. Snippet "The agreements announced today make it possible for Kodak to continue to manufacture motion picture film while also pursuing new opportunities to leverage film production technologies in growth applications... This also positions the company to remain the premier supplier of camera negative, intermediate stock for post production, and archival and print film."

I would say that would mean they will keep some of their coating facilities operational. That would seem to be good news for us. Thanks for posting.

This is about camera films. The manufactured volumes thus will be small.

I hope this means that Print film will also survive.

Good news in deed.

My favourite part (from the Democrat and Chronicle article) is a quote from a Kodak spokesperson: 'The Hollywood film contracts "provides a transition that gives us confidence we'll be producing film for years into the future,"'

bsdunek said:

...that would mean they will keep some of their coating facilities operational...

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Facility. Singular. Bldg. 38, the only production coating line they've got left.

MattKing said:

My favourite part (from the Democrat and Chronicle article) is a quote from a Kodak spokesperson: 'The Hollywood film contracts "provides a transition that gives us confidence we'll be producing film for years into the future,"'

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To transition to what? Out of that business and into something else by the sounds.

The agreements announced today make it possible for Kodak to continue to manufacture motion picture film while also pursuing new opportunities to leverage film production technologies in growth applications, such as touchscreens for smartphones and tablet computers.

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If this means what I think it means(...finding other ways to keep film production machinery economically viable) I think this is excellent news!

I'm glad they will still make movie film. Now to get a director to use it, and a theater that has the means to show it.

Ron (PE) told us Sony had committed months ago.

They coat Tx and ECN-2 on the same machinery.

You got another five years of yellow boxes, bad news for Foma and Ilford.

This sounds like good news to me. But, Noel, why do you say bad news for Foma and Ilford; I don't understand?

Xmas said:

Ron (PE) told us Sony had committed months ago.

They coat Tx and ECN-2 on the same machinery.

You got another five years of yellow boxes, bad news for Foma and Ilford.

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Huh? Suddenly, its a problems after all these 50 plus years? I think just the opposite, if Kodak folds, it weakens the whole market.

Athiril said:

To transition to what? Out of that business and into something else by the sounds.

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Looks to me they might be trying to find adjacent business opportunities where film is relevant, and I don't mean photographic film, I mean film in general, like 3M manufactures most of the film used for LCD televisions, for example. I think Fuji has attempted similar strategies.

fotch said:

Huh? Suddenly, its a problems after all these 50 plus years? I think just the opposite, if Kodak folds, it weakens the whole market.

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Agreed. And Simon from Ilford has said something similar.

Although talk is cheap and such statements have good reason to be discounted, this is the first we have heard any statement like this from Kodak in, like, forever:

“Film has long been – and will remain – a vital part of our culture,” said Jeff Clarke, Kodak chief executive officer.

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They actually said something nice about film in a corporate statement. I'm surprised it went unnoticed. And, I believe he meant Kodak corporate culture but who really knows?

Regarding the film coating lines and transition, there is nothing particularly magic about a film coating machine once you get past the coating head(s). The is what the former management (Perez) was getting at when he said "I was the only one in the room that understood that this plant could be turned into a giant ink-jet printer" or something to that effect when being shown the B-38 coating facilities for the first time. It was shorty after that when it was said Kodak would go into the box printing business.

Realizing this is all easier said than done - although I am guessing it has been tried - once a coating has been laid down on the substrate, whatever that coated product is it can probably go through the rest of the coating, spooling, slitting process much the same as photographic film. Modification would be required, of course, but might be very realistic. This was the great hope for Verbatim in the late 80's/early 90's when Kodak thought they could coat magnetic media in their Rochester facilities. (In what turned out to be an uncharacteristic but fairly wise move on Kodak's part, they dumped Verbatim and it's magnetic media business since it quickly went downhill from that time.)

Doesn't Innoviscoat do much the same at their facility? As far as I understand the former Kodak coating plant in Windsor-Park coats all sorts of stuff now besides X-Ray film for Carestream.

So the best hope for films from Kodak anyway, is that they find something else to put through that machine in addition to film. And, even better, find a reason to bring the second line at B-38 out of mothballs.

cmacd123 said:

I hope this means that Print film will also survive.

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It might be good news. I cannot say definitively but I suspect that the "Print film" they refer to in this context is the specialized material they use to strike work prints and projection prints from the camera originals. If so that has nothing to do with print film as you and I know it.

Harman coats all sorts of different, non-photographic material using their coating line. It happens to be both smaller and more flexible than Kodak's, so Harman has the advantage there.

This might spur Kodak into investing in a smaller, more flexible line.

Just FYI, Kodak was already coating magnetic media in Rochester. They made VHS tape for the huge VHS market, and they made diskettes. They wanted more of the market so as to introduce their 10 meg floppy drive. It didn't work out. I was one of the alpha and beta testers.

PE

If only we still used as much magnetic media as we once did, maybe we would still have Kodachrome....Kidding, of course!!!

cmacd123 said:

I hope this means that Print film will also survive.

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I do not see the connection between camera and print films.

Xmas said:

Ron (PE) told us Sony had committed months ago.

They coat Tx and ECN-2 on the same machinery.

You got another five years of yellow boxes, bad news for Foma and Ilford.

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You have that wrong. More products available means more competition and more product to stimulate people to come back to film.

fotch said:

Huh? Suddenly, its a problems after all these 50 plus years? I think just the opposite, if Kodak folds, it weakens the whole market.

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+1

Beautiful!

"We’ve been asking filmmakers, what makes a project ‘FilmWorthy.’ Their responses have varied from the need for its exceptional depth to its distinctive grain, but overwhelmingly, the answer is ‘the story.’ They need film to tell their stories the way they envision them, and hold a strong desire for it to remain a critical part of their visual language. Enabling artists to use film will help them to create the moments that make cinema history. The agreements announced today are a powerful testament to the power of film and the creative vision of the artists telling them.”