Don't know the age of the core, but apparently made from older tooling, wound with what appears to be N74, (last years 400 speed ORWO MP film) in a cardboard can with Chinese lettering. No Idea what to make of it.
MY curious side now want sto get a prepacked roll to see if it looks like that is also the same film.
only thing That it sure is that it is very unlikly that this stuff has much to do with the OLD shanghai film factory.
FilmoTec (ORWO brand) has no own industrial scale coating facility. They never had. When they were founded about 20 years ago (by former ORWO employees) they installed emulsion making and cine film converting facilities. And coating was done at the Forte plant (Forte was also a shareholder at that time).
When Forte closed they switched to Harman technology as their coating partner at that time.
Sort of a side topic, but since it was brought up... are you sure about Harman doing the coating? I always understood that it was Inoviscoat in Germany who were coating ORWO films, since ages ago. Inoviscoat has also coated for Adox in the past (e.g. Silvermax was coated there AFAIK).
In any case I agree, the "produced by Orwo" thing with UN54 edge markings doesn't make sense. If they were going to the trouble of doing an entire run of a new emulsion, it would have its own edge markings. If it has UN54 or N74 edge markings, it's UN54 or N74.
On the other hand, ORWO *do* produce other emulsions for contract. It appears that Bergger's Pancro 400 is produced by ORWO and coated at Inoviscoat, for example. It is not one of the other ORWO emlusions currently in production under their own brand. Bergger's film has its own edge markings, as you'd expect.
Sort of a side topic, but since it was brought up... are you sure about Harman doing the coating? I always understood that it was Inoviscoat in Germany who were coating ORWO films, since ages ago.
Filmotec was founded in 1998, Inoviscoat only founded in 2005, and got their production coater only in 2009.
This already should answer your question.
Furthermore, film production, especially in these times is a complex business, where production partners may vary, and even multiple partner productions were done.
Filmotec was founded in 1998, Inoviscoat only founded in 2005, and got their production coater only in 2009.
This already should answer your question.
Furthermore, film production, especially in these times is a complex business, where production partners may vary, and even multiple partner productions were done.
If you read that more carefully you'll see that I was *not* questioning the Forte connection, I *was* questioning the Harman connection. And yes, your second statement is true, but do you have any specific evidence or information about this case? I'm saying Henning's statement questioned my knowledge and was looking for some information he might have. Your reply doesn't really further the conversation AFAICT.
Cool cool. So we're all on the same page that you brought to Forte and not me and the question about Harman, which was not addressed to you, remains outstanding.