Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania (PART 2)

[Nzoomed]

With every announcement, Fujifilm clearly states the reason for the discontinuation is due to lack of sales. If there is demand, why are there no sales?

I actually get the feeling that Fuji has had less ability to downscale than Kodak did.
There is a constant demand, and i think film usage has stopped dropping and actually picked up if anything.
Biggest problem for Fuji is that their machinery would have been for a huge scale, and I have no idea how much they have reconfigured their coater like Kodak had to do in B38, and even that was not enough to keep Ektachrome profitable at the time.
From what Ive read, Kodak are actually having to invest more again to increase production! Obviously there is still a market, as they sell lots of motion picture film, and Fuji had to stop this production, im assuming Kodak was perhaps a more popular product in this sector, or perhaps Fuji couldnt adjust their coater to the size of the market?

For a long time Kodak had to struggle to keep profitable with its main coater in B38 which they had to invest alot to retool it for lower production output, now the opposite is true.
They must have done a bit of market research, but im interested to know what amount of ektachrome they think they will sell compared to 2012?

 

[Berkeley Mike]

New investment has to be seen in the context of current and potential investments that are less expensive and show more potential. Fuji has potential gains in many arenas. Film may not be seen as one of them.

 

[Harry Callahan]

The bankruptcy occurred because there was no money to pay the bills due.

Of course but they still sold a lot of products, way more than Ferrania, had way more money on disposal than Ferrania, way more property etc. . My point is that Ferrania is a different enterprise which doesn´t need a sales volume like Kodak to survive. Even if Kodak takes the lion´s share on E6 Ferrania still might survive by the "hyena`s share". And Kodak couldn´t avoid bankruptcy though they more or less had the lion´s share back then.

As a retired Kodak engineer I hate to say it, but the long term viability of Kodak as a manufacturer is anything but certain

As i don´t want Kodak to disappear i also hate so say this, but therefore i am glad that the guys of Ferrania had the courage to save all the stuff at Ferrania and enough backers showed up to help them make it. One more potential manufacturer of analog film is way better than one less. At least, as far as i know, the analog film division of Kodak did not have decline in sales last year while their print division had. So film seems to look stable at least.

 

[Harry Callahan]

I actually get the feeling that Fuji has had less ability to downscale than Kodak did...

I think Kodak just didn´t see the digital revolution comming. When they realized that sales won´t stop dropping they allready faced bankruptcy and no longer had the money to reasonable downsize production, or to make volume more adjustable.
Fuji on contrary went into pharmaceutics before the digital revolution, whether they seen it comming or not, when the dig. rev. hit they had enough money to reasonable downsize production, but they just didn´t do it. I get what Berkeley Mike is saying about investment, but by reasonable downsizing production Fuji would have kept a source of income. Yes, not a big one, but they would have kept one. Their cine films for example weren´t as fine grained as Kodaks Vision line, but they were at a competitive price and they had a different look - another choice for cinematographers which is nice to have.
But it seems like Fuji decided some time ago to drop analog. Let it taper off until "demand is too low", too low for their production volumes, and then close the door and scrap the machines. I even read somewhere that they scraped master rolls of Velvia in 2014, i think, though there were quite some interested in buying those, but nope Fuji is done with analog it seems.
So Kodak would like to move on but had/has serious problems, while Fuji could move on but doesn´t seem to want to.

 

[Prof_Pixel]

I think Kodak just didn´t see the digital revolution comming. When they realized that sales won´t stop dropping they allready faced bankruptcy and no longer had the money to reasonable downsize production, or to make volume more adjustable.

I started working on digital projects in 1983 and those of us working on the projects certainly understood what was happening in the digital 'revolution' and we certainly understood that the profits from digital products wouldn't come close to matching the profits from traditional film based products. Upper managements pay depended on maximizing short term profits and they had no incentive to try and maximize long term profits. They rode those short term profits to retirement.

 

[BAC1967]

The movie industry inflicted a lot of damage to Kodak. When the studios forced the theaters to go digital that eliminated thousands of feet of film going to each theater each time a new movie came out.

 

[Agulliver]

Prof_Pixel would know a hell of a lot more than I.....but I am aware that it was Kodak employees who invented the digital camera and Kodak certainly did attempt dearly development. Then during the revolution they had some fantastic sensors which just didn't sell enough. Kodak tried making money from printers and ink but that flopped too. It wasn't simply because they didn't see the revolution coming....Kodak just didn't gain enough market presence with their products.

And then the movie industry certainly didn't help either Kodak or Fuji.

The bottom line is that Kodak have stated in more than one place that they've been able to downscale production to a level more suited to today's market. And as far as anyone knows, Fuji have not. That would certainly explain why Fuji are unable to profitably make certain films.

 

[Nzoomed]

I think Kodak just didn´t see the digital revolution comming. When they realized that sales won´t stop dropping they allready faced bankruptcy and no longer had the money to reasonable downsize production, or to make volume more adjustable.
Fuji on contrary went into pharmaceutics before the digital revolution, whether they seen it comming or not, when the dig. rev. hit they had enough money to reasonable downsize production, but they just didn´t do it. I get what Berkeley Mike is saying about investment, but by reasonable downsizing production Fuji would have kept a source of income. Yes, not a big one, but they would have kept one. Their cine films for example weren´t as fine grained as Kodaks Vision line, but they were at a competitive price and they had a different look - another choice for cinematographers which is nice to have.
But it seems like Fuji decided some time ago to drop analog. Let it taper off until "demand is too low", too low for their production volumes, and then close the door and scrap the machines. I even read somewhere that they scraped master rolls of Velvia in 2014, i think, though there were quite some interested in buying those, but nope Fuji is done with analog it seems.
So Kodak would like to move on but had/has serious problems, while Fuji could move on but doesn´t seem to want to.

I find it hard to see that Kodak did not see digital coming, at the end of the day they were the ones who invented the product that killed their own business.
I remember seeing kodak digital cameras on the market for a long time, but they were never popular and I remember most people buying the likes of Canon, Fuji, sony and Nikon for example.
Even Kodak's film cameras were very budget and low end consumer level for a very long time, just a piece of plastic.
It seemed to me they were not interested in marketing professional photographic equipment, but rather the film itself that the professionals used.

I think Fuji led the way in consumer digital for some time and was a major player of digital cameras, now with smartphones we are seeing a decline of pocket cameras also, so i think Fuji will be feeling the heat on this also, they certainly would not survive if they sold only digital cameras, but they do at least offer some real professional end cameras.

Now we see Kodak introducing a rather professional modern super8 camera which is good to see, I think if they can offer some new analog film cameras of reasonable quality to attract young shooters of film and an easy mail order processing service for all E6 films and I think their market will improve.

If Fuji ever pull the plug on all film or even Velvia alone, I think it would cause more outrage than it did for Kodachrome or Ektachrome combined.
Not that I am a fan of Disneychrome, but it is a very unique film. Looks like there is a strong base of shooters out there for Velvia.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

Another question for Dave, regarding super8 film:
Is it possible you would have the means to produce sound stripped sound super8 film?
This is something lacking from Kodak's end, and if possible to produce would get you a good customer base with all the super8 shooters who cant use their super8 sound cameras anymore.

As far as I know, we cannot make Super 8 sound film.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

I think the best way to approach film photography is to not worry about the future. Live in the moment; slide film is available today so shoot and project it today.

YES x1000!

 

[RattyMouse]

Of course but they still sold a lot of products, way more than Ferrania, had way more money on disposal than Ferrania, way more property etc. . My point is that Ferrania is a different enterprise which doesn´t need a sales volume like Kodak to survive. Even if Kodak takes the lion´s share on E6 Ferrania still might survive by the "hyena`s share". And Kodak couldn´t avoid bankruptcy though they more or less had the lion´s share back then.



As i don´t want Kodak to disappear i also hate so say this, but therefore i am glad that the guys of Ferrania had the courage to save all the stuff at Ferrania and enough backers showed up to help them make it. One more potential manufacturer of analog film is way better than one less. At least, as far as i know, the analog film division of Kodak did not have decline in sales last year while their print division had. So film seems to look stable at least.

Kodak is very careful to not let out any true information about film sales. Their film operation is mixed into the Consumer Film Division and typically either loses money or is stagnant. The reason for losses is explained from their inkjet operation, which is part of CFD.

Regarding the downsizing of their film operation. This would, as you would expect, cost many many millions of dollars. Never since I have started reading their quarterly investment guides has Kodak ever documented any expenditures in this area, nor have they guided investors that they would be spending significant capital to improve this aspect of the business. Not once in nearly 5 years of following this has this been mentioned.

As they are required by SEC rules to disclose such expenses to their owners, I do not believe building 38 has been downsized to any significant extent. There is no documentation of this work at all.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

If the demand were there, Fuji would not have discontinued their packfilms. I never shot that film but was very sad to see it go.
B & H has had short dated E6 films for most of the summer. Even at these reduced prices it does not go out of stock.
Fujifilm has discontinued various SKU's of E6 film, indicating very poor sales.
3-4% grow IS important for film manufacturers. That's why we have seen countless emulsions discontinued during the past 5 years.

Based on everything I know - even at the end - the demand for instant pack films was hovering around 200,000 boxes per year globally.

Fuji did not discontinue pack films because there was NO demand, they discontinued pack films because there wasn't enough demand for a company of the size of Fuji - plus, according to some rumors I've heard, they needed to repurpose some equipment to make more Instax film, which has been growing steadily over the past 5 years.

And this same principle is true for just about every emulsion that has disappeared in the past few years - not zero demand, but not enough demand to "pay for" the enormous industrial infrastructure necessary to make it.

 

[RattyMouse]

And this same principle is true for just about every emulsion that has disappeared in the past few years - not zero demand, but not enough demand to "pay for" the enormous industrial infrastructure necessary to make it.

Yes. Agreed. Somehow Fujifilm thinks that continually discontinuing emulsions is going to make their infrastructure work. Or they are exiting the film business without telling their customers.

Building 38 is indeed an enormous piece of infrastructure. Same problem.

 

[cmacd123]

Prof_Pixel would know a hell of a lot more than I.....but I am aware that it was Kodak employees who invented the digital camera and Kodak certainly did attempt dearly development. Then during the revolution they had some fantastic sensors which just didn't sell enough.
And then the movie industry certainly didn't help either Kodak or Fuji.

Kodak proably was most hurt by not seeing the Switch to digital projection in theatres. For every New Movie that opens on a 100 Screens, Before digital projection their was over a million feet of print film required, split between Kodak and Fuji, with a small amount produced by Agfa- Belgium. My guess is that that requirement was the reason for the drive to building 38 and the companion coating line. the shear area of film to be coated dwarfed almost all other remaining markets like colour negative.

Kodak actually could have downsized on the cheap otherwise, as the Toronto plant for example was designed to make 1/10th of the volume made in Rochester before NAFTA, and had demonstrated that it could make movie Negative when it got the mandate one year. Movie Print is certainly no more complex to make. Camera Heights is now a housing development.

to touch on another point, Kodak could and did make very sophisticated Cameras, but in the pre-digital age the razor and Blades model - selling inexpensive cameras that required high margin film was a sure fire game plan. Look at the Pocket Instamatic 60 if you want to see what Kodak was capable of making.

 

[markjwyatt]

Just a side note, as it does not represent a lot of volume in the big picture, but I recall Kodak was pretty active in high speed photography (I.e., super slow motion capture). Just another area that Kodak logically moved into in the film arena. I am not sure if they kept up with digital in this area or not.

 

[cmacd123]

by reasonable downsizing production Fuji would have kept a source of income. Yes, not a big one, but they would have kept one. Their cine films for example weren´t as fine grained as Kodaks Vision line, but they were at a competitive price and they had a different look - another choice for cinematographers which is nice to have.

for several years their was an all out war for Movie film between Fuji and Kodak. I am sure that Kodak would have spent half the effort if they did not have the "Eterna" line to deal with. Both Fuji and Kodak updated their Movie negative at least three times, (In Kodak's case vision, Vision 2 and now Vision 3) Fuji also had a couple of "special" stocks like a 500ISO DAYLIGHT stock for studio work under HMI lighting, and the 160T vivid colour stock for making colour Pop where needed. Now they have withdrawn from that market, I imaging we will see Vision 3 for quite some time.

the Fuj revisons were just shown by a change in the 4 digit type number so they were not as obvious.

 

[1L6E6VHF]

<snip>

to touch on another point, Kodak could and did make very sophisticated Cameras, but in the pre-digital age the razor and Blades model - selling inexpensive cameras that required high margin film was a sure fire game plan. Look at the Pocket Instamatic 60 if you want to see what Kodak was capable of making.

Funny you bring up the Pocket Instamatic 60. I loved mine that I bought used, circa 2000.
The tradgedy of the Pocket Instamatics was that they may have been introduced a few decades too early.

Upon introduction, the available films were Verichrome Pan (grainy for 110), Kodacolor II (brand new just for 110, not sharp) and Kodachrome 64 (grainy and unsharp for 110, IMHO).

When I found a PI60 at a thrift store and tried it out on the CN films at the turn of this century, I was surprised with the results. Fujicolor Superia 200 performed extreme well, even at 8x10 enlargement.

Halations from the sun or reflections of it gave away the fact the pictures were subminiature before sharpness or grain could.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Kodak's technological forecasting (done by analog engineers) said that digital would not become relevant until 2020. I was among those who disagreed and pointed out that Moore's law was not taken into account in this (among other problems such as chemists talking about electronics). I was actually sworn at by a Kodak manager which was actually a very very rare thing at EK. I was asked to get out of his office.

Kodak handled all digital R&D very poorly.

PE

 

[Harry Callahan]

@Prof_Pixel+Nzoomed:

I admit that i forgott that Kodak had invented the digital camera. But i´ve read somewhere that Kodak did not assume (digital) video to take over on film regarding resolution etc. . They assumed video to remain an amateur-format, or for news-broadcast, and film to remain the quality-medium. Around 2008 the first (affordable) video-cameras having HD-resolution came and started to euqal 16mm and a few years later Kodak went bankrupt.

Kodak is very careful to not let out any true information about film sales. Their film operation is mixed into the Consumer Film Division and typically either loses money or is stagnant. The reason for losses is explained from their inkjet operation, which is part of CFD.

Regarding the downsizing of their film operation. This would, as you would expect, cost many many millions of dollars. Never since I have started reading their quarterly investment guides has Kodak ever documented any expenditures in this area, nor have they guided investors that they would be spending significant capital to improve this aspect of the business. Not once in nearly 5 years of following this has this been mentioned.

As they are required by SEC rules to disclose such expenses to their owners, I do not believe building 38 has been downsized to any significant extent. There is no documentation of this work at all.

On another forum someone unraveled the numbers and it did show that the film-division did not make losses last year, maybe even a little increment, while inkjet did loose. I recall because usually it was the other way round.
It would be good for Kodak if they were able to downsize B38 to nowadays demand, maybe the price of Ektachrome will indicate on that - on the other hand it would be a bonus for Ferrania if Kodak wasn´t able to, because then Ferrania would be able to produce more efficiently.

 

[Harry Callahan]

for several years their was an all out war for Movie film between Fuji and Kodak. I am sure that Kodak would have spent half the effort if they did not have the "Eterna" line to deal with. Both Fuji and Kodak updated their Movie negative at least three times, (In Kodak's case vision, Vision 2 and now Vision 3) Fuji also had a couple of "special" stocks like a 500ISO DAYLIGHT stock for studio work under HMI lighting, and the 160T vivid colour stock for making colour Pop where needed. Now they have withdrawn from that market, I imaging we will see Vision 3 for quite some time.

the Fuj revisons were just shown by a change in the 4 digit type number so they were not as obvious.

Yes, progress on the Vision-series was impressive. It made S8 look like 16mm and 16mm like nearly 35mm.

 

[Agulliver]

Kodak state that they have downsized, or at least in some way altered production methods to allow smaller batches. The first evidence of this is P3200 back, a film in now but extant demand that couldn't be justified five years ago.

If people choose to believe that Kodak are lying about this, that is their choice.

 

[Agulliver]

As far as I know, we cannot make Super 8 sound film.

A shame, but 100% the answer I expected when I saw the question.

The last people in any position to make super 8 sound film were Kodak, who ceased circa 1997 because their 25 year old equipment was knackered and needed repairs which could not be justified by the small amount of sound film being sold.

While I'd love to shoot super 8 sound again, I'm resigned to silent. I do have a strong preference for reversal, so am patiently awaiting Ektahcrome and the new Ferrania film. I have realistic expectations on price, so I won't be buying it by the brick...but I will be buying it.

 

[RattyMouse]

Kodak state that they have downsized, or at least in some way altered production methods to allow smaller batches. The first evidence of this is P3200 back, a film in now but extant demand that couldn't be justified five years ago.

If people choose to believe that Kodak are lying about this, that is their choice.

Again, modifications to something like Building 38 would cost a huge amount of money. We are talking many millions of dollars. Nowhere is this expenditure indicated in financial documentation. Nowhere. Where is the evidence? The arrival of P3200 is not proof in anyway that this has happened.

 

[ITD]

The arrival of P3200 is not proof in anyway that this has happened.

No, this is not evidence that Kodak has spent what you believe would be necessary to modify their equipment to produce smaller volumes, but it is evidence that something has changed to make Kodak believe it can sustain the product in the current market. Either demand has soared back to levels where previous production volumes could be successfully sold (yeah, I know ), or they've thought of something to downsize production that you haven't considered, so does not show up in the financial documentation. Is that not possible?

 

[RattyMouse]

No, this is not evidence that Kodak has spent what you believe would be necessary to modify their equipment to produce smaller volumes, but it is evidence that something has changed to make Kodak believe it can sustain the product in the current market. Either demand has soared back to levels where previous production volumes could be successfully sold (yeah, I know ), or they've thought of something to downsize production that you haven't considered, so does not show up in the financial documentation. Is that not possible?

It may be possible, and there are enough ex-Kodak scientists here at Phototrio to give their thoughts on this. Previously, they have been pretty negative on the possibility of downsizing building 38 at this time. I don't know that they have learned anything new to change their opinion. From my memory, the big hope for downsizing relied on transferring production from building 38 over to a much smaller research coating machine. I dont think anyone is speculating that this has occurred.