Film from Italy -- Ferrania starting production 2014

[MattKing]

So for movie purposes, why not just shoot transparency to begin with? I know they used to...


~Stone | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

Because:

1) movies are edited before they are distributed; and
2) when they are distributed, they need thousands of copies from each original.

A positive to positive film copy will always be of lower fidelity than a negative + negative = positive film copy. It is inherent in the nature of the physics involved and the technology available.

Editing usually involves several copying iterations, and of course the preparation of copies for distribution adds another, so fidelity in the copying process is critical.

 

[AgX]

Is ECP-2 a negative or transparency?

And Fuji pulled out, it's just Kodak now

ECN is a negative acting material made for taking (camera) purpose.

ECP is a negative acting material made for viewing purpose (projection transparency). Negative from Negative makes Positive...


Aside of Kodak Agfa is great in colour cine-film production.

So for movie purposes, why not just shoot transparency to begin with? I know they used to...

Using reversal film for cinematographic use is done when most simplicity and economics in the processing is looked for. As in in the amateur field.


But...

a two stage process (aside of that editing and multi-prints making issue) enables a lot of variability between the two materials used. This yields various ways to improve quality on several fields, in contrast to a one-step approach.

 

[clayne]

A positive to positive film copy will always be of lower fidelity than a negative + negative = positive film copy. It is inherent in the nature of the physics involved and the technology available.

I don't think this is true. One is going to lose some amount of fidelity through both means and a aside from minor process details (which one could, I guess, argue aren't that minor), it should be a wash.

 

[AgX]

See my remarks in post #28.
The advantages will be much greater than the minimal loss in the copying step.

 

[clayne]

I'm not talking about shooting negatives, making inter-negs, inter-pos, DI, final prints, etc. I get all that and the reasons used.

I'm specifically challenging neg->neg somehow offering more fidelity than pos->pos, completely outside the scope of cinematography or movie making.

 

[AgX]

Even outside the cinematographic field a neg-pos workflow (at least two materials involved) gains more freedom and thus quality.

 

[clayne]

I'm not talking about freedom to muck around. I'm specifically targeting the comment that neg to neg is somehow higher fidelity than pos to pos.

 

[AgX]

Fidelity starts from what you get. Current colour reversal materials are not good at it. Even basically such materials are are not good at it.

 

[MDR]

I'd say you get more latitude and dynamic range with neg film so neg to neg should be better. Positive films usually have more inherent contrast than negative films meaning they retain less image information that can be reproduced and you already loose a lot of information at the copy/printing stage. Neg low contrast to ultra low contrast Neg (print) pos higher contrast to slightly higher contrast (loss of information).

 

[clayne]

Yes but pos pos materials take contrast into consideration. They aren't exposure from camera films.

 

[StoneNYC]

I would argue that everything in the movie world is scanned now anyways and scanning a transparency editing the content and then producing transparencies for projection causes less issue in quality than 3 copies on film, but I could be wrong about the scanning bit.

I assumed the reason they use the low contrast negs had more to do with the digital editing process and technicolor's handling profile and how they prefer to begin with muted colors and low contrast and add that stuff later on.


~Stone | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Steve Smith]

1) movies are edited before they are distributed

Are they edited as a negative?


Steve.

 

[MDR]

No as prints or more likely scans (fully digital) Btw. editing does not equal cutting. The negatives/prints are cut by a negative cutter.

 

[MattKing]

I'm not talking about freedom to muck around. I'm specifically targeting the comment that neg to neg is somehow higher fidelity than pos to pos.

Among many other things, I rely on the many posts on this subject that PE has made - he has on multiple occasions stated that the limitations of the physics and chemical components themselves mean that a negative + negative copying process is inherently capable of higher quality.

 

[brianmquinn]

Here is what I have from them


Welcome
Hello and welcome to this mailing list.
Just a few words to thank everybody who subscribed, although no more than a single brand is shown at the moment on the Ferrania home page.

We think it is worth answering some questions that often arise on the discussion boards we are also following.

As you know, Ferrania discontinued its photographic products some years ago and after that some buildings and equipments were dismantled or sold because the destiny of film seemed to be compromised forever after introduction of digital. Obviously we dream to put the film in a new era where it can live in symbiosis with digital imaging technologies.

After more than one year of work, we are finally trying to start again with a small production of film. But rescaling a production workflow is not an easy process: some chemical products are not available anymore on the market, former Ferrania workers and engineers must be involved again in a completely new production workflow, etc.

We worked a lot on many of the above issues and now we are proud to say that the moment is arrived of really making film.

Right now there is a six month R&D project aiming to produce a first Jumbo of film. If during this period we are able to solve all the remaining technical issues and if the market gives us a reasonable preliminary feedback, we will be ready to go ahead and ship new film in the first quarter of 2014!

Ok, now the question is: what kind of film?
We think it is better to start revamping the very last produced emulsions. The first two that we will make are a color negative film derived from Ferrania Solaris FG-100 Plus (only for still photographs) and a professional color reversal film derived from Scotch Chrome 100.

And which formats?
We have the equipment to finish film in almost all photographic and motion picture formats: 110, 120, 126, 127, 135, 220, Super 8, Double 8, 16mm, 35mm and 70mm but at first we will put on line only the ones that are requested by the market.

More details are coming, please continue to follow us!

Cheers

The FILM Ferrania team





Copyright © 2013 FILM Ferrania s.r.l., All rights reserved.
You are receiving this mail because you asked for news at our website. Thanks for the interest!

Our mailing address is:

FILM Ferrania s.r.l.
Viale della Libertà, 57
Ferrania - Cairo Montenotte, SV 17014
Italy

 

[StoneNYC]

Here is what I have from them


Welcome
Hello and welcome to this mailing list.
Just a few words to thank everybody who subscribed, although no more than a single brand is shown at the moment on the Ferrania home page.

We think it is worth answering some questions that often arise on the discussion boards we are also following.

As you know, Ferrania discontinued its photographic products some years ago and after that some buildings and equipments were dismantled or sold because the destiny of film seemed to be compromised forever after introduction of digital. Obviously we dream to put the film in a new era where it can live in symbiosis with digital imaging technologies.

After more than one year of work, we are finally trying to start again with a small production of film. But rescaling a production workflow is not an easy process: some chemical products are not available anymore on the market, former Ferrania workers and engineers must be involved again in a completely new production workflow, etc.

We worked a lot on many of the above issues and now we are proud to say that the moment is arrived of really making film.

Right now there is a six month R&D project aiming to produce a first Jumbo of film. If during this period we are able to solve all the remaining technical issues and if the market gives us a reasonable preliminary feedback, we will be ready to go ahead and ship new film in the first quarter of 2014!

Ok, now the question is: what kind of film?
We think it is better to start revamping the very last produced emulsions. The first two that we will make are a color negative film derived from Ferrania Solaris FG-100 Plus (only for still photographs) and a professional color reversal film derived from Scotch Chrome 100.

And which formats?
We have the equipment to finish film in almost all photographic and motion picture formats: 110, 120, 126, 127, 135, 220, Super 8, Double 8, 16mm, 35mm and 70mm but at first we will put on line only the ones that are requested by the market.

More details are coming, please continue to follow us!

Cheers

The FILM Ferrania team





Copyright © 2013 FILM Ferrania s.r.l., All rights reserved.
You are receiving this mail because you asked for news at our website. Thanks for the interest!

Our mailing address is:

FILM Ferrania s.r.l.
Viale della Libertà, 57
Ferrania - Cairo Montenotte, SV 17014
Italy

This is awesome!!! Can you relay to them somehow about APUG and see if a representative will join like Ilford and Adox have on here?

E-6 YAY!!!! Does anyone know what it looks like? I never used scotch chrome 100.

Also excited at the prospect of 70mm available in chrome.

Hope since they can do 110 that maybe they will do advantix APS style film as well, I don't care about the magnetic part unless the camera won't function without it.. Not sure, but I love my canon advantix camera and long to shoot it again.

Thanks for the good news!!


~Stone | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Simonh82]

If it happens this would be amazing news. I would support them out of principle.

35mm and 120 would have me covered. I've love to see another 100 speed colour neg on the market and a new slide film would be great.

 

[Paul Howell]

Both the C 41 100 and E 6 are good consumer grade films, I have used both in the past, 3 M a long time ago, K Mart carried it, and would buy again. The problems with both Kodak and Fuji is they have such a large scale of production, Farrania may be able to scale production to fit the remaining market.

 

[Scott Gibson]

They will absolutely have my business for E6 film. Also for 127 format, should they decide to manufacture it. I suppose nothing is for sure until the film is actually on retailers' shelves though. Here's hoping they're able to pull it off!

 

[AgX]

Stone,
You made a good point about APS (type IX240). Interesting to see the feasibility of this film type (or just conversion) not listed. Though Ferrania made it in the past.

 

[StoneNYC]

agreed, E-6 in 127 would be really great, Adox just said they would consider making one of their B&W films available like Ilford has in 46mm roll lengths but with backing paper on a separate roll as a package deal and we would have to re-roll it. So if Ferrania could make them as actual spools that would be best and would kill the competition Plus, super slides! haha.

 

[AgX]

Be aware that this all is a statement of intent. As hinted at repeatedly here at Apug the market at least for middle of the road films is marked by the price. And with C-41 films still available for about a Dollar from high productive competitors, how could a new enterprise described as low volume compete with them?

 

[StoneNYC]

Be aware that this all is a statement of intent. As hinted at repeatedly here at Apug the market at least for middle of the road films is marked by the price. And with C-41 films still available for about a Dollar from high productive competitors, how could a new enterprise described as low volume compete with them?

as I said in the other thread, it's about offering options not available by larger competitors... sizes not available like 127 for example, also another E-6 option, maybe one that isn't over saturated in red/blues and is still beautiful would be an option. If they are able to also to sell their films in kits for example, you could buy a "home pro pack" that consisted of 5 or 10 rolls of E-6 plus the full chemistry packets to process it at home, that would be a great package deal, especially in the US where you can't buy E-6 kits in small amounts anymore (except the 3 bath crap kits).

Lots of ways to compete in a niche market ... just have to be creative.

 

[wblynch]

Ferrania was the last producer of 126 Instamatic.

Since no one else in the world (meaning planet Earth) can produce 126 Instamatic, I surely hope Ferrania will do it !

 

[Scott Gibson]

Be aware that this all is a statement of intent. As hinted at repeatedly here at Apug the market at least for middle of the road films is marked by the price. And with C-41 films still available for about a Dollar from high productive competitors, how could a new enterprise described as low volume compete with them?

My thoughts exactly. As I said, I really hope they're able to pull it off; until then, I'm staying cautiously optimistic!