Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania (PART 2)

Europan said:

Fuji’s black and white films used to be made by Oriental Photo Industrial, stills and motion picture.

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Used to be? Oriental was a separate company, but they are all so interlocked it is difficult to distinguish between them. AFAIK, Fuji did not use competitors for source materials to make their own films. I knew the owner or Oriental, and have some of their products here.

PE

Harry Callahan said:

It is. Have a look at post #1220:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/hello-apug-from-film-ferrania-part-2.128272/page-49

and a look at post #1235 and #1246 here:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/hello-apug-from-film-ferrania-part-2.128272/page-50

P30 has about 5g silver per square meter, which is high for today standarts because as PE points out silver content nowadays is around 3g/squ.m. (if my calculation squ.meter to squ. ft is correct).

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According to PE in #1246, high silver content is not an indicator of quality.

Photo Engineer said:

Early methods of sensitizing silver left dead grains which were useless. These were called "high silver" or "silver rich" materials. As technology improved, the process for sensitizing became better and silver levels were decreased. As they were, grain went up but so did sharpness and thus, they made finer grains at the same speed. (following me so far?). Thus, today's films are finer grained but lower silver with better sharpness and equal or higher speed. Today, about 300 mg would equal 500 - 1000 in days gone bye (mg/ft square).

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FILM Ferrania said:

And yet that is exactly where almost everyone is today (except Fuji) - depending on the services of competitors, or being forced to use common suppliers who are overwhelmed.

We choose to see not competition, but "Mutually Assured Success" - to twist the classic cold war phrase.

This may at first appear naive and idealistic, but from our perspective, competition is something to be embraced and signals to customers a healthy industry.

The healthier the industry, the more we all benefit. Plain and simple.

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Best to make clear from the beginning: This is not a critical Post, I'm only curios!

It was said somewhere in the beginning that Ferrania was one of only few that was completely self-sufficient beqause that was Mussolinis order.

My question is: What was _Not_ saved and what didn't exist at all?
We know that the machines for production of base material, chemicals, "Little Boy" and packaging exists.
My guess that a paper mill for making backing paper and machines to make cassettes is missing. Does the extrusions dies (???) for for the different cassettes exists?
Anything else??

/Johan

jogr said:

Best to make clear from the beginning: This is not a critical Post, I'm only curios!

It was said somewhere in the beginning that Ferrania was one of only few that was completely self-sufficient beqause that was Mussolinis order.

My question is: What was _Not_ saved and what didn't exist at all?
We know that the machines for production of base material, chemicals, "Little Boy" and packaging exists.
My guess that a paper mill for making backing paper and machines to make cassettes is missing. Does the extrusions dies (???) for for the different cassettes exists?
Anything else??

/Johan

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There was a lot of stuff sold off before we ever came on the scene - much of it while Ferrania was still technically operating. Some of it when 3M changed the company to Imation (briefly) - and some of it just before we arrived.

But to my knowledge, 99% of the equipment necessary for our eventual self-containment is in our warehouse right now. There are a few things that would have been nice to have that were gone by the time we arrived - but nothing that was 100% essential.
We would not have moved forward with this crazy project otherwise. It would have been, for all practical purposes, impossible to achieve our goals without having everything we need up front.

If we do discover a need for something that we don't have in storage, we can commission it to be built. We have detailed schematics, drawings, CAD files, specs, and/or supplier information. The archives we inherited are a real gold mine and we've just barely scraped the surface.
A lot of this information is on paper, but we also have thousands of punch-cards, miles of microfilm, and thousands of floppy disks and hard drives (these have already been offloaded into a modern server).
One of the major undertakings of the next few years will be to collate, categorize and digitize this information into a modern database with a proper taxonomy and schema to make it simple to access.

But as Nicola told me recently, anything we eventually need that we don't currently have, we will need because we are much more successful than our current 5-year estimates show.
This is, of course, a problem that would be good to have...

To answer your specific questions:

We do have most of one paper coating line, but it needs a lot of work. Adapting it to make backing paper is the idea - but that's on the "way down the road" list.
We have found a source for the near term - we just need to do some actual testing once the 120 machines are up and running.
We are on the lookout for a rotary drum printer to print the backing paper. If anyone sees one up for sale, let me know...

We have two automated cassette-making machines. One is integrated into our 35mm line, and one is a stand-alone machine that will likely be saved for parts.
We also have a couple of manually operated forming machines. One that wraps the plates around the cores and another that pressure-fits the caps. There is also a station for applying the felt - by hand(!)
Nicola sent me a great video from the 60s of three workers cranking out hundreds of cassettes per hour with these worktable/machines.

We don't have the extrusion machines or dies for manufacturing the raw components of 35mm cassettes, but we do have blueprints, specs and everything we need to re-create these things if necessary.
For now, we can simply purchase the tin plates, pre-printed from a local supplier and we can buy the cores and caps from one of Ferrania's former suppliers.
We can of course go to our archives and pull the blueprints for any molds or dies we need - even if the process of getting the molds/dies just right can be a bit pricey.
For the short term, we can buy-in what we need with no problem.

We're also closely watching 3D printing tech. Making industrial components has gone from being a total fantasy to being perfectly feasible (although still very expensive) in just the past 5 years.
At the rate the tech is improving and prices are dropping, we could simply print all the components we need (especially plastics) on demand within in another 2 or 3 years - and probably do it at a cost comparable to buying them in.

Photo Engineer said:

You are correct Harry. At least within reasonable doubt.

PE

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That´s nice to hear as i´m sometimes really getting confused with your (= i mean all the americans) inches and feet and stuff.

faberryman said:

According to PE in #1246, high silver content is not an indicator of quality.

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None said so (?)... it was about processing P30 as reversal for which it needs reasonable silver content and you asked:

faberryman said:

Is it really silver rich? I've never seen any technical information on it, or on any of the films from Ilford, Kodak, Foma, etc. such that silver content could be compared.

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The quality P30 has can be seen thousandfold on the net.

FILM Ferrania said:

And yet that is exactly where almost everyone is today (except Fuji) - depending on the services of competitors, or being forced to use common suppliers who are overwhelmed.

We choose to see not competition, but "Mutually Assured Success" - to twist the classic cold war phrase.

This may at first appear naive and idealistic, but from our perspective, competition is something to be embraced and signals to customers a healthy industry.

The healthier the industry, the more we all benefit. Plain and simple.

Click to expand...

The mutual dependance from competitors is something which is observed in economy today as it was for centuries, this is the work nowadays works the Scotch whisky industry (each producer only makes basically one "single malt" product, blends are made by buying whisky from "competitors") and is present also at large industrial scale, think automotive industries with competing firm exchanging engines, manufacturing capabilities etc.

The problem in the photographic industry is given by the frailties of the system which have been outlined several times: overwhelmed suppliers, unicity of a supplier or general lack of substitutability of suppliers, lack of capital, high distribution costs, small visibility, diminishing know-how, difficulty to chain PE inside a barn etc.

If film were sold as whisky, depending from competitors wouldn't be seen as a problem

In any case, Happy Easter to us all and to Ferrania!

Ron, I can’t present hard evidence for now but recall what the Erno-Fuji representative had told me when I asked for literature about the Fuji black-and-white MP stocks. They were actually custom made for Fujifilm and wore 5-digit numbers such as 71112. Must have been around 1985. Seems to have had to do with governmental things in Japan.

Lookie here: a New update is on the site. Nothing that Dave B has not already hinted at but a confirmation none the less. Dead Link Removed

Alessandro Serrao said:

This is certainly no good news. If the government can't spend money on Ferrania project or has stepped back in completing the buildings it must mean something.
The government however had (has) money to complete the Ferrania Museum...
http://www.ivg.it/2017/06/cairo-lapertura-straordinaria-del-ferrania-film-museum-palazzo-scarampi/
this is strange at least...
So "our building will be sealed from the elements, and thus we will be able to properly control the internal temperature and humidity, regardless of what's going on outside." it seems that production halt is not dependent on finishing partner...

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Before now: Coating, But finishing partner bottleneck.
Now: Lots of Contractors onsite blocking access, Not coating, No problem with finishing partner.
Later: Contractors moved to non production areas, Coating restarted, Problem 35mm finishing partner, 120 film finishing internally.

Clearer now?

/Johan

Well, if the government is stepping back in to fix a few things that will help them, in the long run that's good news. Kinda sucks for now but it is what it is. Lots of other film out there to shoot in the meantime.

Alessandro Serrao said:

no, because if Ferrania had money (to pay contractors - as it seems they are doing now) why the production halted because of lack of Government funds?

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_IT IS_ the government that is fixing things now (water, gas electricity supplies)!
The text below the red link you could read as they will do some additional work as they already is stopped.

/Johan

Alessandro Serrao said:

This is certainly no good news. If the government can't spend money on Ferrania project or has stepped back in completing the buildings it must mean something.

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I read it as the local government has finally came back to finish the infrastructure and deficiencies in the building. So it is renovation time again, which precludes doing clean room precision work. Recall that for the past year the power in the LRF has been coming from Diesel generators as the Power lines were incomplete.

cmacd123 said:

I read it as the local government has finally came back to finish the infrastructure and deficiencies in the building. So it is renovation time again, which precludes doing clean room precision work. Recall that for the past year the power in the LRF has been coming from Diesel generators as the Power lines were incomplete.

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how i read it too.

As others have allready pointed out it´s only the government making final restorations on the building - the building the government does own solely - not a single penny for the Ferrania-team.
"Sealed from the elements" should be a refference to some years ago. They wanted to do some coating or testing, but they couldn´t do it because it was too warm. They tried to seal all the windows, they tried to do the testing/coating at night because it is cooler at night, but it all didn´t help. I think they also did lack a chiller back then, but anyway a building independend from outside temperature and humidity is necessary for colorfilm-production at least.
So this isn´t "certainly no good news", but quite the opposite - a complete working building will make colorfilm-production more likely.

I notice that recent discussion circles around b/w p30 and cassettes for 35mm and backing for 120.
My initial interest in Film Ferrania was due to announcements in various movie making outlets that FF was going to introduce a new color reversal film in Super8 and 16mm.
No mention of Super8 cassettes. What does the future hold for a color reversal movie film. The current slitting of still color reversal film for Super8 is a poor substitute and not really very good for cameras in the long run.
Can we be brought up to date on color reversal movie film?

Regarding the latest update:

The longer story is that Parco Tecnologico - our "landlords" and a company Dead Link Removed - came to us late last year, acknowledging the problems that were left behind and promising to fix them.
Some time passed while they assessed the scope of work, and in January, they came to Nicola and Marco with a plan.
The first thing they did was fix our roof. Our "new" roof was installed in 2015, but it has been leaking in several places because the work was substandard. This is already fixed and up to spec.
The primary "to-do" is to re-address our internal power plant. Some elements must be swapped out to switch us from receiving power from Ferrania Technologies (the stopgap measure that has been in place since early 2016) to being connected to the regional grid.
Nicola mentioned that the upgrades will also prepare us to accept green energy sources in the future - basically allowing us to plug-and-play with solar panels, for instance. The green stuff is part of a larger regional initiative and could take some time before it's installed - but it will just be icing on the cake from our perspective.
The electrical stuff will take the longest to complete, and most of it requires the power to be off, as you can imagine. But they've worked out a schedule that allows production to resume after the most critical elements are installed/fixed.

All of this stuff is annoying and frustrating on a certain level. But a couple of people noted above, at the end of the day, this work is a very very good for us.

And as someone else pointed out, even after this work, our converting bottleneck will remain...

We have grown quite weary of trying to solve this issue with external partners. You would really not believe the lengths we have gone to find a workable solution. And we are most certainly not alone in this frustration because for all practical purposes, there is no solution that is readily available in the market at the quality and capacity we (and others) need.
This is of course why we have opened a round of investment. This first round will target our converting machinery for 135, 120, 127 and 16mm and includes our Kampf slitter, various perforators, and a few stand-alone support machines. The main cost is all of the labor necessary to prepare the spaces in the LRF, move the equipment, install it, and test it. But we've also included money to hire a few new staff to operate and maintain these machines, and to purchase a small amount of necessary raw materials. The capacity of these machines is such that we can offer contract converting to others who share our frustration AND make everything we could possibly need.

(On a side note, the YouTuber George Muncey just posted a video showing some of Kodak's converting machines in operation - which can give you an idea of the complexity of our own 135 line. )

The amount we are raising is far below the threshold of many traditional investors. Plus we're not a smartphone app or web-enabled toothbrush company - which limits our audience for sure.
Despite this, we have had a number of casual investors - mostly members of the film community who understand our potential - step forward and put proposals on the table.
If any of you are interested to become an actual shareholder in a film manufacturing company - especially any of you with industrial photographic experience - I welcome you to click the Invest link on our site, and/or share the link with anyone you might know who could be interested.

guangong said:

I notice that recent discussion circles around b/w p30 and cassettes for 35mm and backing for 120.
My initial interest in Film Ferrania was due to announcements in various movie making outlets that FF was going to introduce a new color reversal film in Super8 and 16mm.
No mention of Super8 cassettes. What does the future hold for a color reversal movie film. The current slitting of still color reversal film for Super8 is a poor substitute and not really very good for cameras in the long run.
Can we be brought up to date on color reversal movie film?

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The discussion is centered around P30 and converting because this step must be completed before the next step can be taken. Things with manufacturing - at least in our case - are really quite linear.
WAY back in the spring of 2015, we said that once 2-layer B&W coating was done, we could move on to increasing the number of layers to work up to 16-layer color reversal.
This remains the fact - however, since 2015, the industrial landscape has changed, and our own financial status has changed quite drastically.
Thus we are committed to this B&W phase until it's 100% running on "auto-pilot" - meaning support staff can be brought in to mix emulsions and run the machines instead of using our core scientists. Once they are free from P30 work, they can return to color reversal.

Regarding Super8 specifically, we have already run tests with some P30 trimmings and a prominent partner. These tests when better than expected, but of course, production must remain focused on 35mm (and soon, 120) until its financially viable to produce a relatively large batch of Super8 with our partner.
The plan as of today is to wait until we have color reversal film to do any significant Super8 production. We could technically release P30 negative film in Super8, with instructions for reversal processing - but this is SO NICHE that it could be a waste of our limited resources.

Thank you for your reasoned response. Your overall strategic plan makes a great deal of sense, illustrating the many intertwined materials and technologies involved in making a roll of film. In a way, this thread is an excellent thorough course in industrial geography. The folks at Ferraniafilm are to be admired.

Today on emulsive.org, our friend Scott Micciche published a very comprehensive piece about processing P30 - it's well worth a read for anyone in this thread who has managed to get their hands on some of our film.

https://emulsive.org/darkroom/devel...t-out-of-ferrania-p30-alpha-by-scott-micciche

We also published a companion piece on our site, collecting together some tools that can help with the constant-gentle agitation that P30 loves so much.

Dead Link Removed

cmacd123 said:

I read it as the local government has finally came back to finish the infrastructure and deficiencies in the building. So it is renovation time again, which precludes doing clean room precision work. Recall that for the past year the power in the LRF has been coming from Diesel generators as the Power lines were incomplete.

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Yes good news! I think Dave said something about this happening earlier on

FILM Ferrania said:

The capacity of these machines is such that we can offer contract converting to others who share our frustration AND make everything we could possibly need.

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This is very good news both for Ferrania and for the photographic film industry, it will make not just Ferrania more viable as a firm, but the entire film sector more resistant to external shocks.

This thread really died.

It's not dead....there's just not been an update from Film Ferrania for a little over a month....so nothing much to talk about until Dave chimes on or until there's another update.

In the meantime I tend to assume the boys and girls at Ferrania are working to produce film, solve the problems and that the local government is beginning to do it's thing with the building.

And no doubt others assume Ferrania has already failed.

At the moment they are taking theyr time to search investors sending to everyone who ask about the ferrania project detailed investors plans.

I believe they’re also working on getting 120 ready too on their p30.