Kodak Files for Bankruptcy Protection 1/18/2012

alanrockwood · Jan 27, 2012

spoolman said:
PE: With that plan even I would invest in Kodak or whatever is going to be left.It is practical, makes sense business wise and probably none of the so-called experts that are now in charge would not recognize this as the best way to go even if it came up and bit them in the backside !!!!

Doug

Just make sure you invest AFTER the company emerges from bankruptcy. If you buy shares before then you will be wiped out.

(I realize I have said this before, but it bears repeating.)

michaelbsc · Jan 27, 2012

tomalophicon said:
I'd shoot myself in the heart.

Probably the smartest move. But we already know that story.

michaelbsc · Jan 27, 2012

hoffy said:
Bingo! This is the reason why I asked the question Scott if he had been in contact with anyone from Kodak.

What have we actually heard? Absolutely nothing.

OK, from a corporate point of view, we probably are nothing more then a bunch of Anoraks and Film nerds, but in this shrinking market, I'm afraid that from a Film point of view, we are all that Kodak have.

We have seen comments from Ilford here in the past. We have seen comments from other suppliers from Eastern Europe, but I have never seen an official comment from Kodak or Fuji. Maybe they don't get social media?

I've never worked with Kodak. But I promise you that Fuji doesn't understand it. And the Westerners don't have much say at Fuji.

vpwphoto · Jan 27, 2012

Photo Engineer said:
How about all of you?

PE

I am going to buy another 100' of double X 16mm!

semi-ambivalent · Jan 27, 2012

hoffy said:
Bingo! This is the reason why I asked the question Scott if he had been in contact with anyone from Kodak.

What have we actually heard? Absolutely nothing.

OK, from a corporate point of view, we probably are nothing more then a bunch of Anoraks and Film nerds, but in this shrinking market, I'm afraid that from a Film point of view, we are all that Kodak have.

We have seen comments from Ilford here in the past. We have seen comments from other suppliers from Eastern Europe, but I have never seen an official comment from Kodak or Fuji. Maybe they don't get social media?

Pardon, but what is an "Anorak" in this context? I own an anorak made out of English "Ventile" cloth. From the early 70s. But that's probably not what you mean here.

s-a

Steve Smith · Jan 27, 2012

semi-ambivalent said:
Pardon, but what is an "Anorak" in this context?

I think the origination of this expression is due to the anorak being the clothing of choice for train spotters. Now used as a term for any nerdy/geeky types who like trains, buses, aircraft, old cameras, etc.

Steve.

semi-ambivalent · Jan 27, 2012

Steve Smith said:
I think the origination of this expression is due to the anorak being the clothing of choice for train spotters. Now used as a term for any nerdy/geeky types who like trains, buses, aircraft, old cameras, etc.

Steve.

Hey! I resemble that remark!

s-a

Aristophanes · Jan 27, 2012

Photo Engineer said:
My comments here center on "What would you do if you were the CEO of EK"?

I would first establish a budget for film sales advertizing. Second, I would become a supporter of APUG and Photo Net for Analog. and finally, I would have a representative present on APUG and PN to interact with customers for Analog products and digital products.

How about all of you?

PE

I would not advertise film to the converted. They already will buy as much as they can afford.

Advertising to the general public is a waste unless you are also advertising new cameras for all that film to go into. Where are those?

The biggest stumbling block to film use int he digital age is how to convince people who no longer pay for processing of film to take up that cost again, plus buy the film, all in a world where a majority is now sharing online.

Advertising will not turn the market around and probably won;t do much to stem the decline in sales against these headwinds. I'd spend the capital elsewhere, like setting up a single point mail order processing lab for all Kodak emulsions, with direct sales film and darkroom products, as well as investing in a top-notch scanning service that drops files straight to the consumer's preferred online photo storage place.

I don't think that can happen in a publicly owned Kodak, but a private ownership group would be advised to go there. The pressure to grow revenues in public companies is relentless and cannot deal with managing a shrinking, and realistically small, product line.

DREW WILEY · Jan 27, 2012

From a distribution standpoint any aggressive direct sales scheme would be anathema if you ever
expect to obtain Kodak film locally anywhere. They can't have it both ways. Virtually every private dealer would drop them like a rattlesnake. They have a right to make a buck too, and many folks still
expect the convenince of walking into a store a buying just what they need without delay. A strategy like that has proven to be marketing suicide in any number of instances. It also creates a
total bottleneck where if anything goes wrong to that one source, the system collapses.

Brian C. Miller · Jan 27, 2012

Photo Engineer said:
My comments here center on "What would you do if you were the CEO of EK"?

I would first establish a budget for film sales advertizing. Second, I would become a supporter of APUG and Photo Net for Analog. and finally, I would have a representative present on APUG and PN to interact with customers for Analog products and digital products.

How about all of you?

PE

How to turn around Kodak as a film company:
#1: Drop every single unprofitable division. No digital printers, etc. There's quite a few profitable things going on at Kodak. No stupid more pie-in-the-sky projects in commodity markets.

#2: Establish in consumer's minds that film is the cool thing. Film is it. This means promoting people using film.
"Do you Lomo?" "Hello, Lomo!" "I went to the movies and saw a film."
There's a guy who carries a Philips Explorer 8x10 to war zones. Can't remember his name right off hand.
I would sponsor at least one top photographer in each war zone using film. Tell him to photograph everything, like Arthur Fellig did. How do we know Lance Armstrong from some other sweaty guy on a bike? Advertising.

#3: And always rub it in everybody's face that film produces better quality. Until Tim Parkin's test, I didn't know that digital sensors have a problem with accurate color reproduction. I was flabbergasted to see that sunlight reflecting off chrome would produce magenta artifacts. Somebody spent how much for that digital camera and it just falls over dead like that? Ech! Really, various small bloggers have done more for film advertising than Kodak.

#4: Mail processing. The mailers would be available where you bought the film, so that you could get easy roll film processing. Sure, the local processors could do this, but do they? No. Most processors offering mail-order make you jump through a few hoops to send your film to them, and sometimes the services are limited. You have to find someone, navigate the page, find the form, fill it out, go to the post office and mail it. Two weeks ago I sent off my film to a mail-order processor, and maybe it will be here soon. Slow turnaround sucks.

#5: +1 on a Kodak rep for the forums, all of them.

#6: Were the Coloramas thrown away? That's a great way to show digital doesn't do this! The Coloramas at the end were made from cropped 35mm. What digital camera can do that? Have a rotating exhibition around the country, and put the things at eye level. It's not fair that New York gets everything!

#7: ECN-2 process is alive and well! Why not initiate a switch to ECN-2? Motion picture film is awesome!

#8: This is not the least thing: Advertising! Products die if they aren't advertised. Show what film does, how easy it is to use, and build a case for it!

hoffy · Jan 27, 2012

michaelbsc said:
I've never worked with Kodak. But I promise you that Fuji doesn't understand it. And the Westerners don't have much say at Fuji.

But I bet the 'Westerners' have an office in English speaking countries around the world. I'm sure they speak english and I'm sure that they can at least make their own minds up to come into the social media and say "Hey guys, we still exist. Come buy our stuff".

I could assure you that if a new member came onto this forum and introduced them as "John Smith, head of Marketing, Fuji USA", there would be people stumbling over themselves to say high and tell him how good fuji products are. And I bet you there would be an equal number of people going "hey, John Smith joined APUG. They must be committed to film....maybe I should buy some Fuji next time I place an order". In reality, how much would that cost them? Half an hour out of the marketing managers day?

(BTW and a off topic. Has anyone seen Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy? I noticed that this was filmed on Fuji stock (Fuji Eterna 500T 8573, Reala 500D 8592). Had an awesome look and I thought one of the better photographed films I have seen in a long time)

Photo Engineer · Jan 27, 2012

tomalophicon said:
I'd shoot myself in the heart.

So did George Eastman.

No, I meant what would you do if you were the CEO or whatever inorder to save the company!

PE

Aristophanes · Jan 27, 2012

Photo Engineer said:
So did George Eastman.

No, I meant what would you do if you were the CEO or whatever inorder to save the company!

PE

Saving film means dumping Kodak.

Saving Kodak (well...its creditors) means dumping film.

Can't have it both ways. The market for film cannot sustain a public company.

Photo Engineer · Jan 27, 2012

Well, I should say that I have it on good authority that Kodak reads APUG and Photo Net quite diligently and keeps up to the minute regarding some threads! There, believe it or not, but it is true.

They do not post!

As for the advertizing of film products, there is too much "film is dead" out there and my effort as CEO would be to turn that around by advertizing. That would be at the core of my advertizing strategy.

PE

michaelbsc · Jan 27, 2012

hoffy said:
I could assure you that if a new member came onto this forum and introduced them as "John Smith, head of Marketing, Fuji USA", there would be people stumbling over themselves to say high and tell him how good fuji products are.

Fuji, like most Japanese companies, are very centrally controlled by the Japanese. If John Smith did that he wouldn't be the director of marketing the next day.

Ken Nadvornick · Jan 27, 2012

Aristophanes said:
Saving film means dumping Kodak.

Saving Kodak (well...its creditors) means dumping film.

Can't have it both ways. The market for film cannot sustain a public company.

Finally, in the 263rd post, the essence of the situation distilled into three simple sentences.

Publicly traded companies do not control their own destiny. Share/stake holders do. Follow the money.

If Kodak today (well, before Chapter 11...) discovered a workable technology to make gazillions of dollars by switching to the manufacture of toilet seats, you can bet the rent that by tomorrow morning the share/stake holders would be banding together and bringing legal action to force it to switch its business overnight. We want growth. And we don't give a rat's ass how you get it. Or what the ripple effects will be.

Beyond Kodak, this is IMHO one of the greatest weaknesses in the capitalism model. It virtually guarantees short-term thinking. When such thinking aligns with the greater long-term good, it's only by accident. And when it doesn't, we cede our dominance in any and all manner of critical industries.

Ken

Photo Engineer · Jan 27, 2012

Today, I took my book to the print shop for test printing. Good place, good people, good work! Here is the interesting part. Over 50% of the equipment I saw was Kodak!!! Yes, huge Kodak POD printers. Bang zoom, I had a bound copy of my book in hand. It took about 1 hour to convert it to their format and fix page errors, and then about 1 minute to print and bind all 230+ pages including a nice graphic cover!

They love their Kodak printers! The quality was astonishing. And, now I can get as many as I want, whenever I want!

All Kodak and they are still happy with what they have. Oh, and the head of this company is a former Xerox man.

Interesting.

PE

cmacd123 · Jan 27, 2012

michaelbsc said:
Fuji, like most Japanese companies, are very centrally controlled by the Japanese. If John Smith did that he wouldn't be the director of marketing the next day.

Actually, I have seen semi-official posts from a sales guy from Fuji over at Cinematography.com He used to be with one of their dealers and was hired to "spread the word"

cmacd123 · Jan 27, 2012

DREW WILEY said:
From a distribution standpoint any aggressive direct sales scheme would be anathema if you ever
expect to obtain Kodak film locally anywhere. They can't have it both ways. ...nd many folks still
expect the convenince of walking into a store a buying just what they need without delay. .

Actually, A clever marketing guy could make taht work. How about if you go online and see the product you want, you give your Postal code and the web site tells you who in your area has it in stock. You buy and the retailer gets a notice to put it aside for you. and gets their normal markup..

No body has it, you are asked which dealer you normaly like to shop at. You order direct and the package is shipped for 2 day delivery. (you do have to pay a nominal shipping charge) Your dealer gets a cut, and the subtle hint that if they keep this stuff in stock they would have gotten a bigger cut. If you still want it shipped even after it is in stock localy, (say it is too hard to get to the dealer) they get a bigger cut than if they were out of stock. Perhaps the system could even have the local dealer use a local parcel service to give you same day.

Likwide they could do processing the same way. Prepaid postage mailer going to a local lab. (with a backup system behind the curtain if you send in something that the lab does not do, so the work is done where it can be done well. This is of course the system ILFORD offers in the UK, although they do it in house, Like Kodak did in the past. Kodak had some anti-trust issues and had to let folks compete, but that is probably less of an issue.

cmacd123 · Jan 27, 2012

Photo Engineer said:
Today, I took my book to the print shop for test printing. Good place, good people, good work! Here is the interesting part. Over 50% of the equipment I saw was Kodak!!! Yes, huge Kodak POD printers.
They love their Kodak printers! The quality was astonishing. And, now I can get as many as I want, whenever I want!
PE

I am sure that Kodak makes these things very well, I just would not want to make them my only business which is where EK is going.

Photo Engineer · Jan 27, 2012

Charles;

Yeah, you saw right through me.

However, this guy has Kodak toner stacked to the ceiling! That is where the $$ is.

How Kodak failed to make a buck there and succeeded at processing chemistry I'll never know.

PE

ME Super · Jan 27, 2012

cmacd123 said:
Actually, A clever marketing guy could make taht work. How about if you go online and see the product you want, you give your Postal code and the web site tells you who in your area has it in stock. You buy and the retailer gets a notice to put it aside for you. and gets their normal markup..

No body has it, you are asked which dealer you normaly like to shop at. You order direct and the package is shipped for 2 day delivery. (you do have to pay a nominal shipping charge) Your dealer gets a cut, and the subtle hint that if they keep this stuff in stock they would have gotten a bigger cut. If you still want it shipped even after it is in stock localy, (say it is too hard to get to the dealer) they get a bigger cut than if they were out of stock. Perhaps the system could even have the local dealer use a local parcel service to give you same day.

Likwide they could do processing the same way. Prepaid postage mailer going to a local lab. (with a backup system behind the curtain if you send in something that the lab does not do, so the work is done where it can be done well. This is of course the system ILFORD offers in the UK, although they do it in house, Like Kodak did in the past. Kodak had some anti-trust issues and had to let folks compete, but that is probably less of an issue.

Here in the US, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and other B&M retailers with online presences operate with this exact model or pretty close to it. If I want a certain item, I can go online and find out which store has it in stock, and either drive there to pick it up (and risk it not being there if it's a hot item) or put in my order online and the store will set it aside for me (I think Wal-Mart calls this "Site to Store"). If they don't have it, I can order it and either (a) have it shipped to the store of my choosing for free, or (b) have it shipped to my house for a nominal charge. Same way if I want the other kind of image files printed - I can upload and go to the store and pick it up in an hour, or I can have it shipped to my house for a nominal fee.

Look at how successful these B&M retailers are at doing this - I really think this model could work well for Kodak. They could do the same for developing film as you suggested - prepaid mailers that you could address to the closest "in-network" lab. If that lab doesn't offer that service, they forward it to a lab that does. Kind of like how Fuji forwards some stuff (like they did Kodachrome) to Dwayne's.

ME Super

Aristophanes · Jan 27, 2012

Film, as George Eastman new, and even cameras, are almost the perfect mail order item.

Online scans with optional prints are faster than the old turnaround times now, and more versatile.

The key issue for film is cost. The cost of the film + processing + scans + prints is much greater than how people utilize their digital output, so the sales pitch for film really will have to be "You press the button, we do the rest" for the product to be a cost-efficient, unique, and nostalgic alternative to me-too digisnaps. It's anti-Photoshop. Film has character. Delayed vs. instant gratification. These are all valid marketing angles for a much smaller Kodak film output (probably not part of the original EK...we'll see).

I hear the point about how the channel will abandon Kodak if it rationalizes and centralizes its distribution and processing. My response: it's happening anyway. I can foresee all Kodak film being processed at a single lab facility in the future, with maybe a few select art shops allowed to specialize in certain markets, and the at-home industry supplied through the same central outlet.

If there is only one coating machine, why would there be more than one lab?

Photo Engineer · Jan 27, 2012

Because on coating machine can coat more film in one hour than one lab can handle in one year?

An exaggeration, I am sure, but a good trial example to show the error of your idea. You see, the coating machine is up to 70+ inches (2 meters) wide which is split down into strands of film. It runs at thousands of feed per minute (thousands of meters too for that matter). So, one coating machine can ALWAYS outstrip one processing machine.

PE

semi-ambivalent · Jan 27, 2012

Ken Nadvornick said:
Finally, in the 263rd post, the essence of the situation distilled into three simple sentences.

Publicly traded companies do not control their own destiny. Share/stake holders do. Follow the money.

If Kodak today (well, before Chapter 11...) discovered a workable technology to make gazillions of dollars by switching to the manufacture of toilet seats, you can bet the rent that by tomorrow morning the share/stake holders would be banding together and bringing legal action to force it to switch its business overnight. We want growth. And we don't give a rat's ass how you get it. Or what the ripple effects will be.

Beyond Kodak, this is IMHO one of the greatest weaknesses in the capitalism model. It virtually guarantees short-term thinking. When such thinking aligns with the greater long-term good, it's only by accident. And when it doesn't, we cede our dominance in any and all manner of critical industries.

Ken

In "Super Capitalism" Robert Reich talks about the decline of Corporate heads as Stewards of the Nation and the rise of the purely profit-driven corporation. You're right, it's a terrible weakness in the system. I'm convinced that there is enough market demand for film to support two bigger (in film) players. But Kodak is huge; the market that a Kodak needs is never coming back. About a smaller coating plant? Well I don't know, but nobody else here does either. We're just working our jaws while it plays out.

Kodak Files for Bankruptcy Protection 1/18/2012

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