Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania

Ken Nadvornick · Jan 17, 2015

FILM Ferrania said:
Based on recent discussions with the Italian team, they anticipate the coating run to be 3-4 days.

That's to make a mini-jumbo only. One giant spool of 100 ASA coated stock about 20cm wide.

Then it goes into the slitter and gets cut to width based on an optimization scheme the team has developed to yield the most usable material and the least waste.

Then it goes to finishing to get spooled. We are likely to outsource this for this preliminary run rather that occupy resources hooking up our finishing equipment.

Then it goes to packaging. Every package will be hand-folded, every roll hand-inserted, every finished box hand-numbered.

The parts that don't include coating will take approximately 30 days total.

At least, this is our schedule as it stands today.

Dave, I really, really hope you guys can eventually make this work over the long run. I just got back some finished 6x6 transparencies made one afternoon just for the simple enjoyment of being outdoors in the sun and doing them, including the humble sample below. You should see this on a light table.

It would be an utterly devastating loss if E-6 film ever went totally extinct.

Mamiya C330S TLR w/80mm f/2.8 on Fujifilm Provia 100F
Restored Antique Oliver Superior Grain and Fertilizer Drill
2014 Sky Valley Stock and Antique Tractor Show and Threshing Bee
Monroe, Washington, USA

Go Ferrania...

Ken

Regular Rod · Jan 17, 2015

My name is not on the Founders' Wall, I have received no updates since backing Ferrania's Kickstarter, my emails to 'help@filmferrania.it' are not replied to. What is going on?

RR

railwayman3 · Jan 17, 2015

Nzoomed said:
Hi Dave,
I got my postcard from Italy today!
Anyone else got theirs yet?
Im in New Zealand, so i was quite impressed how fast it arrived.

Received my card (in UK) a couple of days ago. And managed to find my name on the Founders Wall (about half-way down) without too much difficulty !

Ricardo Miranda · Jan 17, 2015

To RR:

You were already given an answer here: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Can you log on the your KS account? No> then you have your answer.
Yes> then you can see what email address you have given, It might be a wrong one and that would be the reason emails haven't reached you.

railwayman3 · Jan 17, 2015

Regular Rod said:
My name is not on the Founders' Wall, I have received no updates since backing Ferrania's Kickstarter, my emails to 'help@filmferrania.it' are not replied to. What is going on?

RR

That's really odd; I'm in the UK like yourself (East Midlands), and regular communications have come via Kickstarter emails. My own payment was made via the Kickstarter arrangement through Amazon, I was notified by email of the date it would be charged to Paypal and this was done on the exact date.
A recent communication asked me for my name as I wanted it to be shown on the Founders' Wall and my address for mailing of the postcard and the film in due course.
The card came last week, so I can't fault either Kickstart or Ferrania.

Did you receive a proper acknowledgement when you pledged your backing, and was your money actually collected ?

Ektagraphic · Jan 17, 2015

Thanks for such a great update Dave!

Regular Rod · Jan 17, 2015

Ricardo Miranda said:
To RR:

You were already given an answer here: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Can you log on the your KS account? No> then you have your answer.
Yes> then you can see what email address you have given, It might be a wrong one and that would be the reason emails haven't reached you.

Did you read my post before you decided to butt in?

KS account? No problem
email address? Is the right one

I can also see that my name is correctly recorded as is my pledge (nicely lit up in green).

Now if you don't mind I'd like Ferrania to reply to my email that I was asked to send to help@filmferrania.it

Thank you.

RR

Regular Rod · Jan 17, 2015

railwayman3 said:
...
Did you receive a proper acknowledgement when you pledged your backing, and was your money actually collected ?

Yes.

RR

ME Super · Jan 17, 2015

Gentlemen,
We all know nobody reads these days - not even the teachers. So cut each other a little slack - we're just trying to figure out what could've gone wrong. I'm sure Dave will be back on here once the weekend is over here in the US and can give you a hand.

Dr Croubie · Jan 17, 2015

cmacd123 said:
Use "find in page" (often Control f) to search for a part of your name.

Ah, the joys of having a very unique surname (well, one of the very few joys, mostly overridden by people who can't pronounce and/or spell it).
I found it after only typing 6 letters of my last name, didn't need the other 5, no other matches besides me.

pbromaghin · Jan 17, 2015

Well, I signed up for the Ferrania email updates several months ago and never received anything until I pledged the Kickstarter. Now it seems to be working fine.

Ricardo Miranda · Jan 18, 2015

Regular Rod said:
Did you read my post before you decided to butt in?

KS account? No problem
email address? Is the right one

I can also see that my name is correctly recorded as is my pledge (nicely lit up in green).

Now if you don't mind I'd like Ferrania to reply to my email that I was asked to send to help@filmferrania.it

Thank you.

RR

Dear RR

I didn't see your answer to David's question on that thread. Now, lets see if I can help you a bit more.

I'm going to show you what is on my KS page, so you can compare with yours:

Now, that was the public profile.
This is on the backer history page. Note the tab with "SURVEY".

Can you find that page? I can't show you what is on my Survey page, because it shows my address.
You should have the same. And if you didn't answer the survey, it should be flagged to you.

Good luck!!
Ricardo

FILM Ferrania · Jan 19, 2015

Regular Rod said:
My name is not on the Founders' Wall, I have received no updates since backing Ferrania's Kickstarter, my emails to 'help@filmferrania.it' are not replied to. What is going on?
RR

Hi Regular Rod,

I just checked the help@filmferrania.it inbox (a pinned tab in my browser that I check and respond to every day). There are currently no unanswered/unresponded messages.

However, we're not receiving emails from anyone named Regular Rod. Perhaps you'd like to message me directly with your actual name and/or the email address you are sending from. I can then find any messages you have sent and reply to them again.

As I think someone else pointed out, if you're not receiving updates from Kickstarter, this is most certainly an issue on your side of the equation. More than 98% of our backers responded to our initial request for shipping info within 48 hours of sending the survey through the Kickstarter system.

So nothing is "going on" except that you seem to be having troubles receiving emails from Kickstarter and these problems are beyond our control.

We are happy to help you troubleshoot, but of course we need to know who you are outside of APUG...

FILM Ferrania · Jan 19, 2015

Regular Rod said:
Now if you don't mind I'd like Ferrania to reply to my email that I was asked to send to help@filmferrania.it

As noted previously, I cannot connect "Regular Rod" to any of the (all answered) emails in the help@ inbox.

ME Super · Jan 24, 2015

Saw this on my Facebook page, and thought you all might like to see it. It's in Italian. Unfortunately I don't speak Italian, but it was nice to see the LRF and equipment.

http://video.repubblica.it/tecno-e-...web-ha-resuscitato-la-pellicola/189619/188552 It's titled (in Italian) Rivincita analogica: a Ferrania il web ha resuscitato la pellicola. Google's garbled translation of the title is Analog revenge: a Ferrania the web has resurrected the film. Based on that, I'd guess that a better translation of the title might be Analog Revenge: Ferrania and the web have resurrected film.

For those of us (like me) that don't speak or read Italian, is there any chance we could get a transcript? (Yeah, it was me that asked for that on Film Ferrania's Facebook page).

Ken Nadvornick · Jan 24, 2015

Thanks for that link. Fascinating to watch, even though I'm clueless with Italian.

Go Ferrania. Go Italia...

Ken

Photo Engineer · Jan 24, 2015

Notice at about 4:00 in the film, they show cross sections of a film taken with a microscope. Also note that thus far all coatings are made horizontally from the hopper and are about 5" wide.

In the part from 1941 note the festoon drying.

PE

rhmimac · Jan 24, 2015

On the founders wall, and very proud of it...

cmacd123 · Jan 24, 2015

Photo Engineer said:
Also note that thus far all coatings are made horizontally from the hopper and are about 5" wide.

Not too surprising, in that they did say the first batch was going to be made on the "research Coater" - and that they don't consider it as a economically viable production method. Previosu photos of this unit saw it coating somewhere between 5 and 8 inches wide.

The long term plan seems to be if you read between mr. Daves posts is to somehow install the coating head of the main coatter in what if currently unused office or utility space in the research building, and make a smaller version of the dryer using salvaged parts. This will give them more width, but they will probably have to redesign the web speed somewhat slower than in it's hayday so they can allow the web enough time to dry with a smaller amount of travel area . This will be an engineering challenge as other folks have pointed out that the faster the web runs the easier it is to get a uniform coating. They say they have lots of space as the building used to have 600 workers and they are planning to keep it below 100 workers.

I guess that the various converting and packing machines will end up in what looks like multiple small darkrooms, as with fewer projects they will only need a few test darkrooms. Presumably the finishing machines may become less automated to reduce the size and complexity and sidestep the need to keep up ten to twenty year old computers. perhaps the salvagers may have even grabbed the previous generation of machinery to keep computer problems down to a dull roar.

I also have a bit of scepticism that they can pull off such a major bit of re-engineering but at this point I am quite willing to give them my best wishes and a great deal of benefit of the doubt.

Francesco_from_Rome · Jan 25, 2015

ME Super said:
Saw this on my Facebook page, and thought you all might like to see it. It's in Italian. Unfortunately I don't speak Italian, but it was nice to see the LRF and equipment.

http://video.repubblica.it/tecno-e-...web-ha-resuscitato-la-pellicola/189619/188552 It's titled (in Italian) Rivincita analogica: a Ferrania il web ha resuscitato la pellicola. Google's garbled translation of the title is Analog revenge: a Ferrania the web has resurrected the film. Based on that, I'd guess that a better translation of the title might be Analog Revenge: Ferrania and the web have resurrected film.

For those of us (like me) that don't speak or read Italian, is there any chance we could get a transcript? (Yeah, it was me that asked for that on Film Ferrania's Facebook page).

I still haven't seen the video so I can't comment on the transcript. Your translation of the title is almost perfect, the title can be translated as follows: "analog revenge: the web resurrected film in Ferrania".

Francesco

Ricardo Miranda · Jan 25, 2015

Or "Analogue revenge: at Ferrania the web has resurrected film".

RattyMouse · Jan 25, 2015

Photo Engineer said:
Notice at about 4:00 in the film, they show cross sections of a film taken with a microscope. Also note that thus far all coatings are made horizontally from the hopper and are about 5" wide.

In the part from 1941 note the festoon drying.

PE

PE, what are you saying here? I don't understand.

Richard S. (rich815) · Jan 25, 2015

FILM Ferrania said:
As noted previously, I cannot connect "Regular Rod" to any of the (all answered) emails in the help@ inbox.

I'll bet that's not his real name.

Photo Engineer · Jan 25, 2015

RattyMouse said:
PE, what are you saying here? I don't understand.

I am pointing out that they are doing research on real film coatings both processed and unprocessed, and that they are making film, albeit in small quantities relative to what they might end up producing. I am pointing out interesting (to me - and probably to you) points in the film.

PE

Francesco_from_Rome · Jan 25, 2015

So I watched the movie. It was very interesting. I will try to provide a brief recap
***
At the start, he says that when photography was invented people didn't stop to paint. They kept on painting because the result of an oil painting is rather different from a photography. And this is something which can apply even to today, with the transition to digital imaging: the medium affects the way you react to the image itself.

Then Corrado Balestra went on to describe the coater, saying that the different layers of photosensitive chemicals are kept separated and must be not mixed even if they are liquid.

Then a brief history of Ferrania was recap, from the start in the first decades of XX century to the present (startup and kickstarter) and the near future, when they aim for some 40-50 employees and for a production which will be characterized by two features: will be of high quality and will be flexible for the small amounts that a niche sector like film photography is, very different from years ago.

They see their target customers in people under 30 which have not known film until now, and will focus at start on one positive film, which will be in two formats for stills and two formats for motion stocks.
***

Feel free to ask if you have any questions on some specific passage.

I will add that repubblica.it is the largest online newspaper in Italy so they got a lot of views here.

Francesco
ps: I think it's obvious that I am completely unrelated to FilmFerrania apart from being on the Founders Wall and having backed them up on Kickstarter.. and that I can't wait for the the delivery of their goods !

Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania

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