Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania (PART 2)

Which stores? When did Dave address this? I can't find the reference

 

Sorry I'm super confused now... Ferrania website says (http://www.filmferrania.it/faq/)

The shops indeed have it in stock! Shouldn't shops have stock after the store is open? Am I missing something obvious?

 

Still not clear. Do shops in Rome have P30 on the shelf?

 

Since they said the broke even on the online shop, perhaps they are seeing if retail direct is the way to go. I bet that the shops are not supposed to sell it other than to walk in customers.

 

I tried ars-imago.com = sold out

 

Websites are often the last to be told!

 

Last month Ferrania said sarcastically "Yes, it's such a shame that we are busy trying to figure out how to make enough film to meet demand that we don't have time to post useless updates that no one reads." In the meantime we Kickstarter supporters still can't buy it through the Ferrania store, yet there is enough available to sell it through retail stores (not much use to those of us who are about 1,000 miles from Italy ! ). Credibility diminishes by the day,

 

I saw it too on Sabatini yesterday, I guess they had a surge in orders after it was mentioned here!

 

€8.50 for a roll?

 

Just a random check on Amazon UK......Tri-X is the equivalent of 6.25 euros. FP4+ is 5.50 euros. Fomapan 100 is 4.20 euros if you buy a 5-pack. All post-free if you make up a small order, in stock and delivered in the UK in 1-2 days. And all are established and reliable products. Just saying.......

 

I only find the p30 a 9 euros in the shops in the list! :O

 

Carestream was formerly just Kodak's medical imaging division, but split off into its own company some years ago and adopted a new brand.

3M-Ferrania built the coater that Carestream uses in their Colorado facility. I assume this coater was formerly part of 3M-Ferrania's US operations, and was sold to either Kodak or Carestream at some point long ago.

As I mentioned elsewhere, their coater is basically the same as our precision coater, only larger, producing Agfa-standard jumbos and so, theoretically, we could easily produce film with Carestream.

Reps from Carestream have visited FILM Ferrania in 2015 or 2016 (I can't remember exactly) and we have communicated with the head of the Colorado facility. But despite this, there does not seem to be a solution to have Carestream Colorado coat for us - I'm not entirely sure why.

This is the sum total of my knowledge on the Carestream-Ferrania-Kodak-FILM Ferrania connection.

 

We had a very small amount of film left after the pre-sale. Not enough to re-open our online shop.

So we sent this small bit of film to a few shops who have been in contact with us for a long, long time. Two in the US, one in Canada and a distributor in Italy who services about 20 small shops.

A few of these shops may still have stock, but to the best of my knowledge, most of the film is sold out - and we won't be able to replenish the stock until after we re-open our online shop (currently on course for mid-January).

 

I imagine having Carestream coat Ferrania film something very very expensive...

 

Whereabouts in Canada?

 

Amazon and eBay are WAY more expensive than our existing logistics. Amazon is of course cheap for customers, but for a product like single rolls of film, it's impossibly expensive.
Existing distribution is spotty. It's strong in some countries and practically non-existent in others. And distributors won't even look at us until we can supply a regular volume in the 1000's of rolls.
For the most part, we would rather sell direct to shops and give them a better profit margin (the margin that is eaten by distributors) - however we know that certain markets prefer to buy from distributors.

The "wash" on the pre-sale of P30 film was, in part, because our logistics costs were still higher than expected - but more than that: a) those first rolls were the most expensive (for us) that we will ever produce, since they were the first... and b) a bit more than half of the film was purchased for $5/€5 per roll by our Kickstarter Backers, who were given coupons. Depending on the specific batch, this was at or below our actual cost.

All of this was expected to some degree. We needed to test the market. We needed to show everyone that we can actually make film. We needed to learn about actual instead of theoretical costs. We would have liked to make a profit, but it simply wasn't the priority.
So in the end, we consider the pre-sale to be an enormous success, even if it didn't add to our bank balance in any significant way.

Our current partner is our only option at this time for finishing 135 film. We have spoken to EVERYONE else - to no avail. There are very specific reasons for this shortage in 135 finishing services. It's incredibly frustrating - but that's as much as I can say about it.

We have turned our attention to getting our own fully-automated 135 finishing line installed. With this machine, you load 35mm bands in one end and pack up the finished boxes at the other end. Running at half-capacity with one operator working one shift, it can produce 1.5M rolls per year.
The cost to put this machine online is significant and we've been pursuing a variety of strategies to finance this installation.
The capacity of this machine is far more than we need for ourselves and we have spoken to many other brands who NEED this service. But so far, no one is interested in partnering with us to speed the process - a fact that is even more frustrating because everyone we've spoken with knows quite clearly how much this service is needed.

So, as usual, we will do it on our own - which means slowly...

 

Beau Photo in Vancouver. You can call them - they might still have a little bit of stock...

 

Thank you.

 

Dave, Kodak and 3M were competitors. The Colorado plant was built in the '70s by Kodak and Kodak was recruiting Photo Engineers and Coating Engineers to move there. They built an ultra wide machine there for Endura Paper and medical products. That plant was bought by a Canadian company with the provision that they do toll coating for EK for the desired products, Papers. The medical products went to the Canadians and then they moved on. After the split, 3M may have been involved.

PE

 

Thanks for this. I'm really not schooled on the exact timelines of everything. I'm not even sure exactly when Carestream became a free-standing entity. I only know that their coater (or one of their coaters?) was built by Ferrania and shares the same control mechanisms as our own.

In fact, when my partners learned this, they were very excited that Carestream could coat for us. Essentially, with one day of coating, they could make all of the P30 film we would sell in the next 12 months, which would take a huge burden off our staff's shoulders.

But like I said, for one reason or another, this proved to be yet another dead end. I'm not sure if it was because of Carestream or because we were somehow unprepared...

 

Would it be feasible to sell bulk rolls of P30? Either in 135 or 120? I've never seen 120 in bulk, but I have about a hundred empty spools with backing paper (I'm crazy and don't throw them out) and could feasibly reload them in the dark. Bulk 135 would still need to be slit and perfed, but the packaging would be simpler. Just wondering. I love the P30 that I've shot so far and would like to try it in 120.

 

Yes I agree, this could be a good option to get p30 out there, as there are many who load bulk rolls and would help speed up sales with less work required in packaging the product etc.
I know Dave said at the time this was not an option right now because the production levels were not high enough, but this may have changed now and it might be worth pursuing.

 

Well, I wish Ferrania all the luck in the world. I loved the 5 rolls I purchased and shot my last roll of it today. It seems like you've hit every red light and speed bump along the way that you could. Hopefully things improve for you sooner rather than later.

 

35mm bulk film would likely require that they get a perforator up and runing, it is unclear if they provided their "partner" with pre-perforated rolls. Also they might not have a machine that could put frame numbers on bulk rolls.

teh 35mm Cassette loading station that showed at the time of teh kickstarter was an all in one setup with did everything from bending flat casettes to perforating and packing the finshed rolls. I would guess that they would need their entire current staff to run it if it was still set up the way it was left with the old company shut down. Probably would do a few thousand rolls an hour.

that is the machine that Dave was looking for interest from another firm is going together on resurrecting.

if I was reading between the lines corectly from his last post, they need some sort of device like that running before it makes sense for them to coat some more film.

 

I thought they had a perforator all working, ive seen their video of it that was posted some time earlier, i think the issue is with finishing the rolls and packaging them into 135 canisters, which was done by a third party.