The point about master rolls is spot on. This applies to the entire industry, including Fuji and Ilford and their combined capacity. My concern is that there is no new capital to purchase the production assets of Kodak because there are no new customers for the product and the current sales are still in decline. ....
If demand falls too far retaining adequate technical knowledge also becomes a serious issue alongside production facility maintenance and refurbishment.
This is probably the biggest fly in the ointment. Kodak and Fuji make MILES, or Vison Print film and Eterna Print Film respectfully. This is a Low speed colour product on a Polyester base for Process ECP2. The use for this stock is to make relatively short lived Prints to show in Theatres. Movie Projectors run this stuff at 90 ft a minute, so just look at the run time of your favourite recent movie to see how much of this film your local theatre needs. And two weeks later a new Movie comes out and the prints get shipped back to a Kodak Subsidiary to be destroyed.
The Studios hate this so much that they have now made a deal which will subsidise the theatres to switch to digital projection. No prints, just a few DVD's or even just satellite download to a hard disk. I think the system is called "Virtual Print Fee" It is likely that all Theatres in North america will be switched to this system by the end of 2012. The Print film is sold rather cheeply, and it does not contain much silver so it is not only profitable but also justifies the maintenance and staffing of the Film making plants.
It is almost like Tri-x is run at the plant as a hobby on the lunch break.
This change will make it harder to keep that massive plant running I suspect.
One of my other hobbies is Old Electronics, and when I go to the stores I see "Emerson", Tung-Sol., Sylvania, Westinghouse, RCA and many other proud brand names that are now applied to products that have NOTHING to do with the firms that made these brands famous. Vacuum Tubes had a similar Decline in the Mid 1970's -- 1975 RCA made their last Tube TV set. (I think GE stuck it out to about 1982 on their Low end models) with no demand for tubes to build new sets, production levels fell and the major makers turned to imports to fill the replacement demand. {at least with Tubes they don't go bad in storage}
ILford and Foma don't have the MP Print film factor so they may be in better shape. Fuji has made themselves a niche in providing cated film products for Flat Screen displays from what I hear so they have a buffer. Kodak - the inventor of the OLED was too timid to jump on that advantage. With their Film making expertise they probaly could be cranking out TV displays with one hand behind their back..
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