Emerging Kodak

Marvin · Mar 21, 2013

At one time I had a MBA supervisor who had run out of gas in his car and was asked to go help him out and found him searching the owners manual for what to do in case you ran out of gas. I carried a gas can and said lets go get some gas and we got his car started. Sometimes book knowledge doesn't replace common sense. I think some MBAs couldn't run a Hot Dog Stand!

noacronym · Mar 21, 2013

Kodak could very well be bought by some LLC partnership of individuals cherry-picking the equipment with a determination to produce film--to salvage the standard of quality on a downscaled operation. To have any hope of success they would of course need to flee south to escape being swallowed by the tax beast. The opportunities in N or S Carolina for tax deals probably were never better. There's lots of other states like that who would be glad to have them. Or it could get sold to the Chinese.

Prof_Pixel · Mar 21, 2013

noacronym said:
Or it could get sold to the Chinese.

During the '50s, my Dad worked on an expansion of a paper mill in Port St. Joe, Florida. Many years later (about 2003) I happened to drive through the city and everything was gone. I was told all the paper making equipment was sold to a company in China; the mill had deep water access, so the Chinese simply brought in a freighter and picked it all up.

AgX · Mar 21, 2013

There is a worldwide growing overcapacity in film manufacture.
China is a forerunner in digitalisation. What would China need a film plant for?

noacronym · Mar 21, 2013

AgX said:
There is a worldwide growing overcapacity in film manufacture.
China is a forerunner in digitalisation. What would China need a film plant for?

Because it wouldn't hurt China and it would deplete American industry that much more.

RattyMouse · Mar 21, 2013

Long ago I suggested that China could save film. I was roundly thrashed for thinking that was possible.

No one has any hope for the future of film. It's always "that can't be done" yada yada...

zsas · Mar 21, 2013

My reply re your China can Save Film theory is that China doesn't have a name. A name is everything. As I sit here and type on my Foxconn phone (I mean iPhone), ask yourself if your really think China can save film? Or can Kidak possible lease its name to say Lucky who might manufacture it? I highly doubt as Lucky just ended their color lines. Ratty I just respectfully disagree with your premise....

zsas · Mar 21, 2013

Ratty in addition to the practical theory I have above, think about the emotional....you see a lot of, "...my Dad handed me a roll of X to load in the Z camera and at that moment, I was hooked for life on X film....".

That is what we are talking about. Artistic tools like brushes, paints, film, etc., have this realm that it hard to quantify and just delegate to another entity....just my $0.02..

noacronym · Mar 22, 2013

There's always been periods of decadent and happy consumption. It's cyclical. As goes the US economy, so goes the rest of the world. America is not finished shooting itself in the foot. Give it a few more years and things might turn around. Film is a luxury now--not so much a necessity. But it needn't die completely. Until then... About any of us can do it sit tight and wait it out.

Brian C. Miller · Mar 25, 2013

China can't save film simply because they've basically skipped from not having a camera to cameras in cell phones. Why bother with a film camera when you already have a camera in your cell phone, and its quality is good enough for you? So they aren't buying a lot of digital cameras, either.

Kodak tried investing in Chinese film production, and then dropped it altogether and wrote it off the books.

(Personally, there's no point to sitting tight and waiting it out. Time to go shoot film!)

pentaxuser · Mar 25, 2013

Marvin said:
I carried a gas can and said lets go get some gas and we got his car started. Sometimes book knowledge doesn't replace common sense. I think some MBAs couldn't run a Hot Dog Stand!

An MBA has a puncture and while changing the tyre manages to let all four wheel nuts roll down a drain. He realises that he might miss a very important meeting. He stands there distraught. A very unprepossessing stranger walks by and asks what the trouble is. The MBA explains and the stranger thinks for a moment says that if he took a wheel nut off each of the other three wheels he could secure the fourth wheel and drive carefully to the nearest garage for a set of wheel nuts.

The MBA is so overjoyed that he offers the stranger a lift home. The stranger says that it is OK as he just lives across the road and points to a lunatic asylum.

The aghast MBA says: "You've been advising me on a complicated technical matter and you are a certified lunatic!"

The stranger replies: " I am afraid so but at least it is better than being stupid"

pentaxuser

noacronym · Mar 25, 2013

pentaxuser said:
An MBA has a puncture and while changing the tyre manages to let all four wheel nuts roll down a drain. He realises that he might miss a very important meeting. He stands there distraught. A very unprepossessing stranger walks by and asks what the trouble is. The MBA explains and the stranger thinks for a moment says that if he took a wheel nut off each of the other three wheels he could secure the fourth wheel and drive carefully to the nearest garage for a set of wheel nuts.

The MBA is so overjoyed that he offers the stranger a lift home. The stranger says that it is OK as he just lives across the road and points to a lunatic asylum.

The aghast MBA says: "You've been advising me on a complicated technical matter and you are a certified lunatic!"

The stranger replies: " I am afraid so but at least it is better than being stupid"

pentaxuser

The way my Dad tells it: "I might be crazy, but I ain't stupid".

DREW WILEY · Mar 25, 2013

The MBA rolls his new BMW into a ditch and totals it. He crawl out all bloody, crying about his car.
Someone stops to help him, "Sir, I wouldn't worry about that car ... did you know your arm got ripped
off?" Then the MBA really starts bawling, "Oh, my Rolex, my Rolex, I lost my Rolex!"

RattyMouse · Mar 25, 2013

Brian C. Miller said:
China can't save film simply because they've basically skipped from not having a camera to cameras in cell phones. Why bother with a film camera when you already have a camera in your cell phone, and its quality is good enough for you? So they aren't buying a lot of digital cameras, either.

Kodak tried investing in Chinese film production, and then dropped it altogether and wrote it off the books.

(Personally, there's no point to sitting tight and waiting it out. Time to go shoot film!)

I see people shooting film here ALL the time here in Shanghai. Hell there are 4 or 5 stores that I know of that sell NOTHING but film. I am sure there are many more I have never seen. Also, there are thousands upon thousands of used film cameras in the shops here. All doing very decent business.

There is clearly a film shooting crowd here in China. Surely this should be cultivated and grown by the film producers. The sheer potential market in China is always amazing.

RattyMouse · Mar 25, 2013

Just a few weeks ago I was out wandering the city with my camera when I turned the corner and ran into a group of young Chinese photographers. All had Hasselblads and were clearly film shooters. Nice to see.

SchwinnParamount · Mar 25, 2013

If Chinese film could be made with the quality of Kodak or Ilford film, I'd buy it. Unfortunately, my last experience with Chinese large format film was, shall we say... not terribly positive.

zsas · Mar 26, 2013

RattyMouse said:
I see people shooting film here ALL the time here in Shanghai. Hell there are 4 or 5 stores that I know of that sell NOTHING but film. I am sure there are many more I have never seen. Also, there are thousands upon thousands of used film cameras in the shops here. All doing very decent business.

There is clearly a film shooting crowd here in China. Surely this should be cultivated and grown by the film producers. The sheer potential market in China is always amazing.

Based on the ending of Lucky's color line recently, I take the dissent re your theory.
http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20120910/106503.shtml

However, China, like all countries, will continue to have analog diehards, I just have this theory that their % of diehards is not as high as you might think when scaled as a % of tot pop (I've no fact to support, just my guess)....

RattyMouse · Mar 26, 2013

Michael R 1974 said:
If there is demand for film in China, the Chinese should buy film manufactured by Kodak and Ilford in the U.S. and U.K. We don't need more brands. We need support for Kodak and Ilford products.

Eyeballing the film stores that I frequent here I'd say that Ilford and Fuji are the films most used with Kodak a distant 3rd.

zsas · Mar 26, 2013

Could the fact that film is sold in shops be more of a technological-gap-phenomenon and not really evidence of any more/less analog'ers in China? I bet, that more than 50% of film in the states is supplied via online (Bh, Adorama, Freestyle, etc) and mom/pop shops are less so here due to the (possible) faster change in e commerce in the states vs China? Food for thought....

Emerging Kodak

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