GOOD, but I am glad that I did not start holding my breathe at the beginning of this thread.
Piss on what? P30 is unavailable. I think the problem is they are currently without electricity until the Italian government gets around to wiring the building.Have you tried the film? do you have anything to add to the thread or are you here exclusively to piss on it?
Piss on what? P30 is unavailable. I think the problem is they are currently without electricity until the Italian government gets around to wiring the building.
Machinery that probably isn't available to buy "brand new, ready to use" nowadays.
GOOD, but I am glad that I did not start holding my breathe at the beginning of this thread.
I don’t believe one can buy any machinery brand new, off-the-shelf, for any stage of film production. I mean, there are no coaters, slitters or perforators that are 100% suitable and available for purchase right now, ready to assemble and use. Everything is custom, tailor-made and must cost really big bucks.
So, anyone that thinks making film is a matter of buying the right machinery and materials, hiring the right professionals, following a standard recipe for emulsion, then coating and finishing... well, I’ll keep that judgement for myself.
I'd argue that P30 *is* a fantastic film, and quite unlike anything else on the market. I love my Fomapan 100, Ilfrod HP5+ and FP4+...but P30 has it's own very distinctive look....and no visible grain. When it appears in 120 it's going to be something of a game changer for anyone who wants to make huge enlargements.
But more than that....Ferrania have announced that they should be able to manufacture the product in-house now...that means not just coating the film but making finished 35mm cassettes and boxing them, ready to ship out to us....rather than coating the film and relying on some unspecified partner (with whom they had issues) to actually load it into cassettes and box them up. They're working on 120 and then 127.
All the machinery and expertise to make E6 slide film is there, they just need time and funds. And before anyone whines about "I supported the kickstarter campaign".....yes, that was explicitly to buy and save the machinery....which they did.
I think that most setbacks have had little to do with Ferrania itself and more to do with the Italian infrastructure projects.
Yeah, Film Ferrania is the real victim here.This is an important point. I did some math the other day. Subtracting all of the time the government has been working on our building and the time when the building was not 100% operational due to unfinished projects - we have been fully operational just 18 months. Four of those months were way back in 2015 before the asbestos was found - so that time was, in the end, pretty much wasted. The other 14 months were from September 2016 - November 2017 and during that time, we created and produced P30 film - and sold every last roll within days of making it available.
They are almost done in the "having a working film factory" task, so they are almost ready to get into the "make slide film" task.
Yeah, Film Ferrania is the real victim here.
I'm really glad, too! I've got enough issues without having someone's self-inflicted suffocation on my conscience.
To be perfectly frank, there have been many times over the past few years when it has seemed like FILM Ferrania "will never happen," to use your words.
And yet, despite everything that has happened, we are still here - still trying to create a sustainable production solution for film that can withstand the coming decades.
But you are correct that this thread has become exceedingly long. At some point in the near future, it will be time to shut it down.
If it is because we have failed and closed our doors, you are of course free to start an "I Told You So" thread. There are certainly a few people who would join that thread and you can pat each other on the back for your wisdom and foresight.
I would simply warn you and some other folks that the film industry is a house of cards that is somehow still standing after 98% of the cards have been removed. Wishing ill on anyone who is trying to put some of those cards back is really not in your own best interest.
I suspect that when we shut this thread down, it will be because it's time to discuss our products instead of our ambitions.
By the way - awesome username!
You are completely correct on all points.
There are companies who can and will fabricate new film production equipment, but you're right, you can't just pick something from a catalog. All film manufacturing equipment is bespoke and extremely expensive to the point that making new machines is often not financially feasible.
No one, not even Kodak, can simply go out and BUY everything they need. This is because even with their relatively considerable resources, buying a new coater and the necessary synthesis machinery, as well as hiring in a dedicated staff specifically to make Ektachrome (to use a relevant example) would be company suicide.
Instead, they are adapting their process to make Ektachrome using "the stuff in the room" - and as we have all seen, this takes time. There is no shortcut. There is no "app for that." And this kind of work does not exist in "Internet Time."
Has Film Ferrania considered a distributed manufacturing approach? This is kind of along the lines of 3D Printing concepts (i.e, produce in place, at will, from "recipes", in the case of 3D Printing, recipes are CAD files and BOMs). Press based coating will likely not be as flexible as 3D Printing, but some developments could take place that may drive it in that direction.
With that said, we are keeping our eyes on 3D printing tech. At the rate it's advancing, who knows what may be possible in 15 or 20 years. Maybe one day, we can walk up to a small alcove in our ready room and say "Computer. Kodachrome, 120 format," and have it materialize. That would certainly make my life WAY less complicated.
I must say that I very much like your out-of-the-box thinking.
Your ideas certainly seem feasible on some level, and I applaud the concepts - but I just don't think we are there yet.
Film manufacturing requires highly specialized equipment and there is no viable business model, that I can think of, that allows for anything but centralized bulk production.
Distributed "bespoke" production would be too expensive for both the company and the end customer - and worse, there would be absolutely no way to control the quality or consistency of the product if it was being made by 100 different "mini-coaters". And since the vast majority of film consumers wish to buy fully finished rolls they can pop into their camera, that only adds to the problem.
3D printing technology has made huge strides in a short period of time. I just saw a YouTube video for the first desktop 3D printer that can produce metal objects, something that even two years ago required a very high-end machine with a very big price tag. But we are still a long way from being able to 3D print film. Let's just take the 35mm canister itself as an example. It needs a piece of adhesive-backed felt, a tin outer shell (to be retail worthy), the core, a piece of tape or other type of fastener, and the end caps. 6 separate components made from 4 distinctly different materials that must be assembled in a particular order - and in complete darkness of course. Oh, and the tolerances of all these components must be at the micron level to prevent light leaks. 120 is a bit simpler, but coating carbon black onto paper and printing the numbers on the reverse side, in a way that does not in any way interfere with the film itself - is really much trickier to do than I ever suspected before learning the details myself.
I have yet to see a 3D printer that can make felt, and all of the other components are a tiny fraction of the cost to make using traditional die/molding methods. This will be true for some years yet.
With that said, we are keeping our eyes on 3D printing tech. At the rate it's advancing, who knows what may be possible in 15 or 20 years. Maybe one day, we can walk up to a small alcove in our ready room and say "Computer. Kodachrome, 120 format," and have it materialize. That would certainly make my life WAY less complicated.
But you are correct that this thread has become exceedingly long. At some point in the near future, it will be time to shut it down.
I suspect that when we shut this thread down, it will be because it's time to discuss our products instead of our ambitions.
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