Orwo colour film teaser?

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brbo

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I find this confusing because this is also a film for cine and it is sold in cans of 30 to 300 meters long. Is there any lab or service capable of develop in C41 such film lengths? Cine processors are full of ENC-2 chemistry...

It is not sold as cine film. Not yet, anyway. In fact, it's not available even as a still film at the moment.

Let's wait and see. This ECN-2/C-41 confusion could probably be just marketing people not knowing what they are talking about and/or just saying what they think people would like to hear.

My bet is still that this is an ECN-2 film. C-41 doesn't make sense if they intend to market it primarily as cine film.
 
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Given the persistently low color film inventory levels at places like Freestyle, I’m glad to see another company make a go of it. I don’t know if this will prove to be the right color film for me, but I’m glad to give it a shot and wish them the best
 

Ten301

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When you put everything ORWO has said now and previously in their announcement of this film, I think it’s fairly clear it’s a mixture of truth and marketing, with the earlier announcements being more truthful.

I think this is Agfa’s formula for XT320, possibly with a few tweaks or workarounds for components that are no longer available. ORWO proudly keeps bringing up XT320, “Out of Africa”, etc, so they’re making no secret of this. They also said early on this would be an ECN-2 process film.

Later, the marketing comes in. Why would they make a C41 process cine film? If their goal is to get into some of Kodak’s pro business, that’s all set-up for ECN-2 with remjet, so C41 makes no sense. My guess is the cine film will be ECN-2 and labeled as such. As for 35mm still loads, it will be labeled C41 and have remjet pre-removal ala Cinestill, but it won’t be its native process. The true ISO will be 320 in ECN-2, getting the 500 boost in C41.
 

Agulliver

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It's possible the person/people behind the Facebook page got something mixed up. It's plausible that they'll sell cassettes of 135 film (and perhaps other still formats) tweaked for C41 processing and the actual cine stock will be ECN-2
 

AgX

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This would mean manufacturing 2 different films.

Unless they designed it to yield good results in both processes. (Agfa in the past at least claimed something of this kind with a print film.)
 

pentaxuser

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It's possible the person/people behind the Facebook page got something mixed up. It's plausible that they'll sell cassettes of 135 film (and perhaps other still formats) tweaked for C41 processing and the actual cine stock will be ECN-2

Any idea how it is tweaked? This sounds like ORWO has discovered all the economic benefits of cine film but simply do something to those rolls of ECN-2 that makes it C41 compatible and for darkroom printers has eliminated the associated problems that are said to be only rectified via hybrid means

It sounds as if ORWO has managed to "square the circle" as we say in the U.K. by simply "tweaking" the film inthe sense of somehow doing something to a finished ECN-2 that turns it into C41

pentaxuser
 

pentaxuser

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Expectations on what kind of films are actually offered sank extremely over the last years...

Yes this brings us to the main philosophical question of the 2020s decade. When does marketing become outright old-fashioned lying?😠

pentaxuser
 

koraks

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This sounds like ORWO has discovered all the economic benefits of cine film but simply do something to those rolls of ECN-2 that makes it C41 compatible and for darkroom printers has eliminated the associated problems that are said to be only rectified via hybrid means

Yeah. So what's most likely the case here is that it's just ECN-2 film and that the examples we're being shown have been developed in C41 and then digitally color corrected. There's no such thing as an easy chemical/physical 'fix' to turn ECN2 into C41 film.

Occam's Razor and all that.
 

AgX

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This sounds like ORWO has discovered all the economic benefits of cine film ...

What all economic benefits of cine film?

As manufacture per area is equal or even more expensive (camera films) as with still film, you need an advantage by volume over still film. But as with still film the cine film market has collapsed.

What remains is the camera film market for a few feature movies and short movies per year.
This market must then be substantially larger than the still fillm market, to have effect on production costs. (And then I am ignoring issues as rem-jet, roll-film, processing and printing, described here simplified as "tweaking".)

However there already is a established supplier. Moreover one to which major movie producers are bound by contract.
A market other established manufacturers as Agfa and Fuji even left. A new manufacturer then would have to get into this market, with customers which are known to be conservative.
 
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Raghu Kuvempunagar
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What remains is the camera film market for a few feature movies and short movies per year.

"In collaboration with our partnered Film Studios in the UK and USA, we are pleased to announce that we are in discussions to shoot a major motion picture entirely using this new film stock."

 

AgX

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Following your idea manufacturing cine camera film for the own movie productions would yield just those volume signifcantly larger than the expected own share on the still market.
I rather see this as an announced adventure into the cine market, with an added outlet somehow into the still market.
One may ask though how serious this adventure is meant or how serious it actually is. All marketing I see so far is aimed at the still market not at movie producers.


By the way, the mentioned Orwo studio in the UK is a mere production facility, not a movie producer in itself. The marketing concept of new Orwo involves a lot of name dropping of weird firms, making them look huge.
 
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brbo

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Orwo labels their sample shots with "developed in C41" text. Ever heard of Kodak stating that samples of Portra were developed in C-41? This is an ECN-2 cine film sold (also) to still market.

Kodak's revenue from Alaris supply agreement for still film roughly matches that of their cine film business. Orwo is probably guided by that, splitting their strategy at least at first and then maybe focusing on the more promising market (cine?) or even maintaining presence in both if still film crowds will "eat" the cross-processed results (as they seem to do with Cinestill). At the moment, with supply shortage in still films, it seem that Orwo didn't risk much with Wolfen NC500 for still photography, it will probably sell even at the exorbitant price (Portra 800 teritory).
 

Huss

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From 35mmc:

Mirko Bödecker, Managing Director of Adox & FotoImpex, announced the next new color film from Adox will be a low ISO 3/DIN 6 film named Helios.
 

AgX

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From 35mmc:

....

Huss, do not belittle us more than we deserve...

It was here at Apug that Mirko annnounced that Helios film (I admit, a bit hidden in the 200 ISO thread):


 

mohmad khatab

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Isn't it about time we conclude that:

1. Nobody will make better color film than Kodak or Fuji.
2. Any color film from other producers will be either worse or more expensive, and likely both (but never better).
3. Regardless, we will speculate to no end and make repetitive emotional threads.

??

As if you own the absolute truth in this universe.
What is this you say.
This life belongs to no one, this life belongs to everyone.
Everyone has the right to struggle as long as it is within the framework of integrity and honor.

20 years ago, if you were to tell someone that China was going to build their own space station, they would have called you crazy. And now it has not only established a space station, but it has a very ambitious space program.

What would your position be if the days proved the incorrectness of what you claimed as abstract facts?
Your words will become laughable after a few years,,,
What will be your position then,,?
Will you be ashamed then?
Or will you erase your words and say “I didn't say that”?

Let the days have their say and let us see and we must not precede events with illogical expectations.
 

koraks

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All marketing I see so far is aimed at the still market not at movie producers.

Perhaps you're not part of the movie producer target audience :wink:

I don't know about the absolute volumes of still vs. cine film. Neither am I aware of the market share that Orwo believes it can capture in either market. Given those uncertainties, there may or may not be a situation where a cine film product would generate a higher turnover and/or higher potential profit than a still film. Your guess would be as good as mine. Perhaps @Henning Serger will chime in on this at some point. He's about the only person who frequents this forum and who actually has some answers to questions like these.

One thing is certain, however: it is possible to sell an ECN-2 film to still photographers; Cinestill has proven this. I seriously doubt if the reverse could ever work. Indeed, I don't think there's a realistic possibility to get any movie producer motivated to shoot a feature film on a C41 stock and then have to deal with the challenge of getting it to the silver screen in a convincing way. Perhaps one or two experimental spirits will jump on it for an arthouse production (which I'd then quite like to see!), but it will never be a 'volume' market.
 

AgX

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Perhaps you're not part of the movie producer target audience :wink:

I don't know about the absolute volumes of still vs. cine film. Neither am I aware of the market share that Orwo believes it can capture in either market. Given those uncertainties, there may or may not be a situation where a cine film product would generate a higher turnover and/or higher potential profit than a still film. Your guess would be as good as mine. Perhaps @Henning Serger will chime in on this at some point. He's about the only person who frequents this forum and who actually has some answers to questions like these.

Well, the new people at Orwo do not know about my small part at that audience in the past. Nor does Henning Serger.

But I tried to find out what Orwo does now with that project of theirs at that audience.
 

AgX

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One thing is certain, however: it is possible to sell an ECN-2 film to still photographers; Cinestill has proven this. I seriously doubt if the reverse could ever work.

No doubt. But meanwhile anything concerning film can be sold. And I say this without irony. The market has changed over the last decade.

The question rather is, at what volumes.

And I know elder guys from the industry who are completely stunned by this all.
 

Huss

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Huss, do not belittle us more than we deserve...

It was here at Apug that Mirko annnounced that Helios film (I admit, a bit hidden in the 200 ISO thread):



:smile:

It's hard to keep on top of the goings on in the film world!
 

AgX

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Maybe we Apuggers are too old for this chaos... Maybe we should lean back with a cup of Valerian tea, leave this all to the true social media, look into a webshop now and then. And wonder...
 

flavio81

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My bet is still that this is an ECN-2 film. C-41 doesn't make sense if they intend to market it primarily as cine film.

Of course. ECN2 film that, when developed in C41, is perfectly fine for all the younger film shooters who love outdated film, "film soups", and other similar stuff that doesn't give correct colors.

I think this is Agfa’s formula for XT320, possibly with a few tweaks or workarounds for components that are no longer available. ORWO proudly keeps bringing up XT320, “Out of Africa”, etc, so they’re making no secret of this. They also said early on this would be an ECN-2 process film.

Yes, this sounds the most plausible.

"In collaboration with our partnered Film Studios in the UK and USA, we are pleased to announce that we are in discussions to shoot a major motion picture entirely using this new film stock."

Thus, it's confimed. It IS an ECN-2 film. No cameraman would shoot a color camera film that isn't ECN-2 process, even using E-6 process would be a daring thing (already done recently, but still something of an special order for a lab, particularly for 35mm gauge).

One thing is certain, however: it is possible to sell an ECN-2 film to still photographers; Cinestill has proven this. I seriously doubt if the reverse could ever work. Indeed, I don't think there's a realistic possibility to get any movie producer motivated to shoot a feature film on a C41 stock and then have to deal with the challenge of getting it to the silver screen in a convincing way.

100% agree.
 
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Raghu Kuvempunagar
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Maybe we Apuggers are too old for this chaos... Maybe we should lean back with a cup of Valerian tea, leave this all to the true social media, look into a webshop now and then. And wonder...

Frankly I don't understand the craze for the (relatively) expensive low-fi colour films especially when they're invariably scanned and not wet-printed. One could shoot the cheapest B&W film and use an automatic colourizer to get a colour image with low-fi look from the scanned B&W negatives which can further be manipulated digitally according to one's taste. :smile:
 

flavio81

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Frankly I don't understand the craze for the (relatively) expensive low-fi colour films especially when they're invariably scanned and not wet-printed. One could shoot the cheapest B&W film and use an automatic colourizer to get a colour image with low-fi look from the scanned B&W negatives which can further be manipulated digitally according to one's taste. :smile:

We're too old.

PS: Great idea...
 
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