Kodak to Sell Kodak Park

StoneNYC said:

:munch:

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I'm hungry too, but not using such emoticons to mock PE. He's absolutely correct that there is a probability (not saying whether that is high or low relative to film) that products will vanish in the midst of a factory move. That is one of the biggest unintended consequences and the probabliity is not small. Once lost, establishing alternate sources is generally impossible. There is a lot more involved in manufacturing than just possessing the machine.

Tom1956 said:

What future developments? Kodak film can't be made any better. It's perfect. That's like talking about anvil technology on ways to make a higher quality anvil. It is what it is and doesn't get any better than that. They can make Kodak film just like they're doing till the rapture, or the cows come home, whichever is first.

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Other things they might coat... flexible solar panels come to mind.

Nano technologies that produce film that is better and or cheaper or both that could be implemented to help kodak save on costs and produce film for longer into the future... any number of reasons we can't think of or have the technological knowhow to understand YET.

Historical societies are notorious for ruining the lives of those that "used" to own buildings before they step in and say "well you can't install a new better x-device because it didn't exist then, you'll have to just fix the broken one at 4 times the cost" this ranges from simple things like a new heating system, to things like a new roof, or the materials needed for a new roof that have to be sourced from more historical methods and places ... it's laborious, costly, and inconsiderate of the people who actually built the structures.

A friend of mine grew up in a home that George Washington stayed at on his campaign... it's OLD, the house had been built by the owners great great great grandparents and the family had lived on the property the entire time, but the historical society got wind that they were going to renovate the house because it needed new internal ceilings and all sorts of stuff to make it habitable, and said "no you can't do that, it will ruin it's historical-ness" and they actually spent the entire family fortune to defend this house that THEY OWNED AND HAD BUILT THEMSELVES.... and some idiot thought they had the right to have a say in what happened to their own damn property.

Well they are now broke, but they won, except now the house can't be worked on because there is no money, and it's falling apart...

Historical societies pretend they are doing good and preserving history, but all they really often do is ruin peoples lives... and cause trouble.

BrianShaw said:

I'm hungry too, but not using such emoticons to mock PE. He's absolutely correct that there is a probaility (not saying whether that is high or low relative to film) that products will vanish in the midst of a factory move. That is one of the biggest unintended consequences and the probabliity is not small. Once lost, establishing alternate sources is generally impossible. There is a lot more involved in manufacturing than just possessing the machine.

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umm I was whistling because he was saying what I already said and backing up my comment...

I was mocking the others that doubted my statements...

IE "see even PE agrees with me"

Oh... sorry. Looks can be deceiving somethimes. I just considered that it was his post that had the whistling and muching attached. I read that wrong. Sorry.

BrianShaw said:

Oh... sorry. Looks can be deceiving somethimes. I just considered that it was his post that had the whistling and muching attached. I read that wrong. Sorry.

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It's cool, but one person I wouldn't ever dare mock or disagree with is PE, I might question a comment he makes to understand more clearly, but I pretty much take his word as gold... yellow gold...

We really are fortunate Mr Mowry and a few of these others share their knowledge with us. Cause I can flat guarantee you once I get rid of these printing presses, no up and coming young printer will ever go on a printer's chat site and read anything I wrote. Ain't happenin'.

With regards to film, the only thing I disagree with PE on is that negative film is better than reversal. It's an artistic/purpose thing. I like analog projection. I won't deny that more R&D has gone into negative film, and that the additional printing step plus the mask gives better corrections (and opportunities for correction) than reversal film, for which there is no opportunity for color correction. But when I project a negative, the colors come out all wrong - reversal film does what I want it to. Negative film does not.

PE knows his stuff! I've said before, he has probably forgotten more about film than most of us will ever know.

railwayman3 said:

A large area of the property where the Ilford factory stands is empty and it's in a prime and expensive residential area. The development plans, all currently in the public domain and on the web, use the larger part of the site for quality residences, and provide a new small purpose-built factory for Ilford on the remainder...

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Interesting. More information here:


Peter Elton, managing director at HARMAN, is quoted as saying “This opportunity to reshape our facilities would enable us to continue as Mobberley’s largest employer and create a contemporary headquarters more suited to our current and future needs.”

When HARMAN emerged around 2005, it obtained a 20-year site lease. That preparatory site work for the move is slated to begin later this year means to me any coating-line related obstacles have been planned around and that HARMAN's agreement with a move, possibly well before 2025, has been obtained.

Ilford film and paper are coated on a single line today. Whatever the challenges doing that presents, HARMAN has found a way to overcome them. Should the Cheshire East Council see fit to approve the development plan, I'll be even more confident that the future of monochrome silver halide imaging is secure. Maybe Simon will purchase one of those new homes and walk to work, then be able to dispose of his car.

Edit: poking around the Cheshire East Council Web site reveals many details. This report, dated the last day of February 2014, is of particular interest:


I've not yet figured out how Appendix 1 meshes with Appendix 2. The pink HARMAN buildings in the site plan key to existing and new facilities. One might expect that, if some existing facilities are to be retained, the coating building would be one of them. However, HARMAN-related project costs (which total just under 10 million GBP) include more than 2 million GBP for bringing a "Sensitising building" "To Shell" and another 138,000 GBP for "Fit Out." That seems to mean a move of the coating line. Perhaps Simon will explain. Or not.

Tom1956 said:

We really are fortunate Mr Mowry and a few of these others share their knowledge with us. Cause I can flat guarantee you once I get rid of these printing presses, no up and coming young printer will ever go on a printer's chat site and read anything I wrote. Ain't happenin'.

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I wouldn't be so sure about that. You've probably forgotten more about printing than most of us will ever know. Despite the onset of digital printing, there is still interest in traditional typesetting and letterpress, especially for fine art work. Here's an example here in Rochester: http://www.geneseearts.org/Book-Arts/About-Printing-&-Book-Arts.php

Are there any printing chat sites like APUG?

fotch said:

No disrespect toward StoneNYC however, am I the only one that does not take his business advise seriously?

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No one takes anything posted by StoneNYC seriously.

ME Super said:

I won't deny that more R&D has gone into negative film, and that the additional printing step plus the mask gives better corrections (and opportunities for correction) than reversal film, for which there is no opportunity for color correction.

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Negative film needs masking more than reversal film as due to the neg-pos process two materials with deficiencies are involved in contrast of only one with reversal film for projection.

As someone mentioned above, regarding the law of unintended consequences, the Kodachrome 25 film could not be coated on the new machine, and the costs of reformulation was greater than the income on sales! This has come from other sources and so I am not telling stories out of school.

Any move must have an ROI and so if the move and down time in particular cost more than income, you are in trouble.

I neither agree nor disagree with Stone or anyone else on this. I have just been commenting. And, I try not to forget as memories are all I have left kinda. So, now I am working on an outline for V2 of my book. But, my old faithful computer died Friday night and there are no replacement parts for it! Gotta getta new one.

PE

AgX said:

Negative film needs masking more than reversal film as due to the neg-pos process two materials with deficiencies are involved in contrast of only one with reversal film for projection.

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However, a well made print on a good print film, done from a color negative film will outdo any reversal film when projected side by side. BTDT. After all, every motion picture is made that way and sometimes with up to 12 or more generations of intermediates in between.

PE

Photo Engineer said:

However, a well made print on a good print film, done from a color negative film will outdo any reversal film when projected side by side. BTDT. After all, every motion picture is made that way and sometimes with up to 12 or more generations of intermediates in between.

PE

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Which is why I stopped taking slides and moved to print film.

my information might be outdated, but as far as a know, the lowest volume kodak can make is 312900 feet. this ads up as follows: one emulsion batch will give enough emulsion to coat 3 master rolls. one master roll is 54 inches wide and 3000 feet long. they ditch 20 millimeters on both sides, so in case of 35mm you will get 38 streaks, witch is 104310 feet for one master roll. that might sound an unimaginable amount in photography, but it is barely enough to support even a mid-sized motion picture shot on film (for the sake of this argument, let's assume that that production uses only one type of emulsion).
i might be too optimistic, but i think today everyone who wants to use digital has been doing so already (in both the photography and motion picture industries). so, unless the disappearence of print films, or kodak themselfes screw production up... we might be okay. in other words, if kodak motion picture film survives the next 2-3 years, it will survive the next twenty.
KNOCK. ON. WOOD.

Your sum up is not reasoned. What you do is starting from maximum emulsion volume and roll lenght and width. This neither reflects technical minimum volumes and areas nor investments (material, labour) Kodak will regard as limit for profitabel manufacturing.

AgX said:

Your sum up is not reasoned. What you do is starting from maximum emulsion volume and roll lenght and width. This neither reflects technical minimum volumes and areas nor investments (material, labour) Kodak will regard as limit for profitabel manufacturing.

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No he said MINIMUM volume.... Read again...

No, he refered to a emulsion batch volume, the maximum roll width and maximum roll lenght, to deduce a minimum coating area. And yet all technical issues do not tell anything about being being profitable.

visualbassist said:

my information might be outdated, but as far as a know, the lowest volume kodak can make is 312900 feet. this ads up as follows: one emulsion batch will give enough emulsion to coat 3 master rolls. one master roll is 54 inches wide and 3000 feet long. they ditch 20 millimeters on both sides, so in case of 35mm you will get 38 streaks, witch is 104310 feet for one master roll. that might sound an unimaginable amount in photography, but it is barely enough to support even a mid-sized motion picture shot on film (for the sake of this argument, let's assume that that production uses only one type of emulsion).
i might be too optimistic, but i think today everyone who wants to use digital has been doing so already (in both the photography and motion picture industries). so, unless the disappearence of print films, or kodak themselfes screw production up... we might be okay. in other words, if kodak motion picture film survives the next 2-3 years, it will survive the next twenty.
KNOCK. ON. WOOD.

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These figures are so out of line with reality! I have no idea where you came up with this "data". Kodak can coat as little as 1 master roll which is about 5,000 ft of 72" film with a 2" edge. There is more waste as size goes down.

So, go back and do some research!

PE

AgX said:

No, he refered to a emulsion batch volume, the maximum roll width and maximum roll lenght, to deduce a minimum coating area. And yet all technical issues do not tell anything about being being profitable.

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My apologies.

a got the data from a book that was written for film school students about analoge and digital post production (in hungarian). the kodak website is quoted as a source, but a couldn't dig anything up myself. it was published in 2006, and it focuses on motion picture only.
if it is that off, i apologize.

visualbassist said:

a got the data from a book that was written for film school students about analoge and digital post production (in hungarian). the kodak website is quoted as a source, but a couldn't dig anything up myself. it was published in 2006, and it focuses on motion picture only.
if it is that off, i apologize.

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Thank you and welcome to APUG.

Your post is on topic.

While we can all worry about "the end of the world as we know it", it won't really change anything except internal stress levels. I would rather just shoot and enjoy life today. And stockpile a bit on the things that can reasonably be stocked up. With luck, I will die before what I enjoy stops being available - or my stockpile ends... And I hope to live another 20+ years.

Cheers.

Blaine

blaine.minazzi said:

While we can all worry about "the end of the world as we know it", it won't really change anything except internal stress levels. I would rather just shoot and enjoy life today. And stockpile a bit on the things that can reasonably be stocked up. With luck, I will die before what I enjoy stops being available - or my stockpile ends... And I hope to live another 20+ years.

Cheers.

Blaine

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Couldn't have said it better myself.

Kodak selling off the real estate of The Park is meaningless and has nothing to do with producing film. This selling and leasing back is done all the time. The place I currently work sold the building to an investor and leased if back about 15 years ago with no ill effects.