Eastman Kodak temporarily paused all film production - to upgrade manufacturing plant (Nov 2024)

[mshchem]

oh and Noticed today that one of Kodak's Bigest movie film customers has been Knighted for his contributions to "Film" and will now be Sir Christopher Nolan. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowb...estitures-Hollywood-blockbusters-success.html

Well done Charles III.

 

[bfilm]

when a movie is made on 35mm film, the camera cranks through 24 "half frame" size images each second, so the film travels at 90 feet a minute. the Negative comes as 400ft or 1000 ft rolls. a 400ft roll is good for under 4 minutes of shooting

Actually, on a 400 ft reel using 24 fps 4-perf pulldown, you get 4 minutes 26 seconds.

But a lot of movies now, because they intend to use digital editing, will record 24 fps 3-perf pulldown in a wide screen ratio and get 5 minutes 55 seconds on the 400 ft reel.

But I still prefer the traditional 4-perf pulldown in 1.37:1 "Academy" ratio or 1.85:1 "Wide Screen" ratio.

 

[warden]

Actually, on a 400 ft reel using 24 fps 4-perf pulldown, you get 4 minutes 26 seconds.

But a lot of movies now, because they intend to use digital editing, will record 24 fps 3-perf pulldown in a wide screen ratio and get 5 minutes 55 seconds on the 400 ft reel.

But I still prefer the traditional 4-perf pulldown in 1.37:1 "Academy" ratio or 1.85:1 "Wide Screen" ratio.

View attachment 385902 View attachment 385903

Thanks for sharing that pic. It’s a whole ‘nother world I know nothing about, and it’s cool.

 

[koraks]

Thanks for sharing that pic. It’s a whole ‘nother world I know nothing about, and it’s cool.

In that case, you might find this useful:

Negative pulldown - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Full frame (cinematography) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Academy ratio - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There's a whole slew of other Wiki entries related to this; it's all quite interesting.

 

[bfilm]

Thanks for sharing that pic. It’s a whole ‘nother world I know nothing about, and it’s cool.

It is cool. As a further point, you will notice on those above pictures that the projector aperture size is given. That is traditionally how the "wide screen" aspect ratio would be achieved. You would often still record the full "Academy" aperture in the camera and the ground glass has frame lines for guidance on the final format you want to show -- kind of like how you would use frame lines in a rangefinder camera.

Here is the ground glass for the Panavision Millennium 35mm cameras for the full "Academy" aperture with frame lines for 1.85:1 "wide screen". One of about 10 standard ground glass options for those cameras.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Actually, on a 400 ft reel using 24 fps 4-perf pulldown, you get 4 minutes 26 seconds.

But a lot of movies now, because they intend to use digital editing, will record 24 fps 3-perf pulldown in a wide screen ratio and get 5 minutes 55 seconds on the 400 ft reel.

But I still prefer the traditional 4-perf pulldown in 1.37:1 "Academy" ratio or 1.85:1 "Wide Screen" ratio.

View attachment 385902 View attachment 385903

What's interesting, just like selecting portions of digital sensors to get a different format (ie 16:9 vs 4:3 vs 3:2) , only a part of the same film frame is used. You don't get more resolution because the format is wider either with digital or with film. I always assumed that wide screen like Panavision means more film. I suppose there's more film used with IMAX.

 

[mshchem]

Kodak better start churning out film. The Reformed Film Lab folks imported direct from Japan some ordinary Fujicolor 100 ISO print film that they're selling for $25 US .

Genuine all Japanese language packaging, must be special, right?

 

[bfilm]

What's interesting, just like selecting portions of digital sensors to get a different format (ie 16:9 vs 4:3 vs 3:2) , only a part of the same film frame is used. You don't get more resolution because the format is wider either with digital or with film. I always assumed that wide screen like Panavision means more film. I suppose there's more film used with IMAX.

Right, this is how it works with traditional spherical lenses and formats.

But the one exception to this is using the anamorphic lenses and format to achieve "wide screen". And this is something for which Panavision is quite famous. The first Academy Scientific or Technical Award for Panavision was in 1958 "For the design and development of the Auto Panatar anamorphic photographic lens for 35mm CinemaScope photography."

For 35mm 2x Anamorphic, you use a comparatively large camera aperture and film area compared to the spherical "wide screen" formats, that once projected for a correct look is around 2.35:1 aspect ratio, but usually shown with a projector aperture that gives 2.40:1 aspect ratio.

 

[bfilm]

Here is the ground glass for the Panavision Millennium 35mm cameras for the 2x Anamorphic format. Excuse the two-tone background -- that is how it was shown in the manual.

 

[brbo]

Kodak better start churning out film. The Reformed Film Lab folks imported direct from Japan some ordinary Fujicolor 100 ISO print film that they're selling for $25 US .

Which Kodak film do you find in short supply?

 

[cmacd123]

I always assumed that wide screen like Panavision means more film. I suppose there's more film used with IMAX.

bfilm showed the Anamorphic format, (their have been a few variations. that actually does use a bit more film area per frame whicl sticking to 4 Perf Pulldown. the reason is that when Sound was added, the entire frame shrunk to keep the same aspect ratio and so the unused area between images was incresed. Anamorphic can allow the frames to have the interframe spacing that existed in the days before Soundtracks as the image is stretched vertically on the film, and then stretched back horizontaly to make for a wider screen. The first Process using the method was CinemaScope. exclusive to 20th Century Fox. CinemaScope used print film with special smaller perforations (called CS Perfs) which becase the process was exclusive to fox were sometimes Dubbed "Fox Holes" this allowed room for a sound track. The Robe in September of 1953 was the first CinemaScope release.

the one that still folks might relate to is VistaVison (tm) Motion Picture High Fidelity.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VistaVision

the format transports the film Horizontally like IMAX, with a Pull down of 8 Perfs, the same as our still cameras. While only a few full movies were released in VistaVision, it is relevant in Special effects like the early Star wars Movies.

the next step before IMAX is 5 Perf 65/70 mm (65mm Negative printed on 70mm perfed to match 65mm stock) again to allow for stereo sound.

IMAX uses 65mm/70mm with 15 perf Pulldown, and to get that to work there was a LOT of shredded film until they came up with a working transport.

at the other end of the film format scale, the wikipedia article on 16mm film still shows this picture of three of my dogs who have sadly passed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_mm_film#/media/File:16mmBWrevDP.png

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

bfilm showed the Anamorphic format, (their have been a few variations. that actually does use a bit more film area per frame whicl sticking to 4 Perf Pulldown. the reason is that when Sound was added, the entire frame shrunk to keep the same aspect ratio and so the unused area between images was incresed. Anamorphic can allow the frames to have the interframe spacing that existed in the days before Soundtracks as the image is stretched vertically on the film, and then stretched back horizontaly to make for a wider screen. The first Process using the method was CinemaScope. exclusive to 20th Century Fox. CinemaScope used print film with special smaller perforations (called CS Perfs) which becase the process was exclusive to fox were sometimes Dubbed "Fox Holes" this allowed room for a sound track. The Robe in September of 1953 was the first CinemaScope release.

the one that still folks might relate to is VistaVison (tm) Motion Picture High Fidelity.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VistaVision

the format transports the film Horizontally like IMAX, with a Pull down of 8 Perfs, the same as our still cameras. While only a few full movies were released in VistaVision, it is relevant in Special effects like the early Star wars Movies.

the next step before IMAX is 5 Perf 65/70 mm (65mm Negative printed on 70mm perfed to match 65mm stock) again to allow for stereo sound.

IMAX uses 65mm/70mm with 15 perf Pulldown, and to get that to work there was a LOT of shredded film until they came up with a working transport.

at the other end of the film format scale, the wikipedia article on 16mm film still shows this picture of three of my dogs who have sadly passed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_mm_film#/media/File:16mmBWrevDP.png

Thanks for the info. As a kid growing up in the 1950s, I was always impressed when a film was shot in Technicolor, although that had to do with color rather than format. MAybe that's why I like Velvia 50 today.

 

[Alessandro Serrao]

Can you say what you believe to be the reasons why the shutdown gíves you hope that it will result in a price cut on all films?

Increase availability

 

[Alessandro Serrao]

Investment costs don't necessarily mean higher prices. They can now produce more film and subsequently increase sales while the cost per unit goes down.

Exactly what I meant.

 

[bfilm]

the one that still folks might relate to is VistaVison

the format transports the film Horizontally

with a Pull down of 8 Perfs, the same as our still cameras

I have always thought VistaVision interesting for this reason, as it is a very similar film area to that used by our 35mm still photography cameras. Some movies recorded on VistaVision are White Christmas, To Catch a Thief, High Society, and North by Northwest.

But it was very rarely projected in the original recording format, because very few places had the capability to project the horizontal "pulldown" film. It was usually made to a 35mm release print that used the standard vertical pulldown in the same format as the Academy "Wide Screen" 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

Paramount suggested 2.00:1 as the largest aspect ratio that should be used, but 1.85:1 was the most used, as it made good use of the original film area and also matched a standard format on the release print. The 1.33:1 ratio was only used for television. The recording was always done with spherical lenses, but it was also possible to make an anamorphic "squeeze" print for projection with anamorphic lenses -- but a normal release print was more common.

VistaVision was a fairly short-lived format. Between the higher cost because of using a larger quantity of film and the improving quality of the film stocks making larger film area not particularly necessary, the 35mm vertical pulldown formats were still the choice for most movies.

 

[cmacd123]

and the improving quality of the film stocks making larger film area not particularly necessary, the 35mm vertical pulldown formats were still the choice for most movies.

the only real stonghold was in special effects, where the bigger negative gave more room to get everything lined up. the Wikipedia article talks about one of the Two VistaVison High speed Cameras ending up at Industrial Light and Magic.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Alan and Alessandro - the fact of that's there's still going to be a quite limited number of machines or coating lines doing a wide variety of products means that repetitive setup start/stop overhead will itself remain a significant factor in the cost of production, so don't expect overall price break in terms of hypothetical greater quantities of manufacture. That issue is in addition to the general inflation of ingredients themselves. Maybe if a particular party orders and pays for a massive quantity of something specific in advance, they might get a break on that. Dunno. But the days of fresh inexpensive Kodak film are long gone.

 

[cmacd123]

Thanks for the info. As a kid growing up in the 1950s, I was always impressed when a film was shot in Technicolor, although that had to do with color rather than format. MAybe that's why I like Velvia 50 today.

the name Techicolour has meant differnt things at different times. the Older technicolor used a camera with Three different rolls of film, and some filters and prisims, much like an early colour TV camera. Kodak made three speific camera stocks and the result was three strips of black and white film each with the record of One of the three primary colours.

they were used to produce a set of three "matrixs" which would be pressed into the filmal print, transfering the three colours to each strip of film. the Matrices could be used to make hundreeds of prints, and so the process was actually slightly cheaper than the later Eastman Color process.

once Eastman color Negative was available, technicolor was able to come up with a process to make the Matrices from the colour negative. (this was "color by Tecnicolor") Later they just became a convetional lab using the Eastman Colour process.

the older technicolor process produced prints that did not fade, unlike many of the early and middle Generations of Eastman Color... BUT back in the 1930s, they were often made on Nitrate Stock.

 

[bfilm]

BUT back in the 1930s, they were often made on Nitrate Stock.

Being something of a perfectionist, one of the things that bugs me about the modern motion picture industry, even Eastman Kodak themselves, is their continued use of the term celluloid to refer to film. Celluloid hasn't been used for film since the 1950s, when they changed to acetate "safety" film.

I don't approve of the misuse of the word as a generic reference to film. Celluloid is a very specific and neat material. Even if it was decided to not be the ideal material for a film base, it is still sometimes used for things like fountain pens or small boxes, where its unique properties and nice camphor smell can be enjoyed.

celluloid
n.
1. A colorless flammable material made from nitrocellulose and camphor and used to make photographic film.

 

[cmacd123]

I don't approve of the misuse of the word as a generic reference to film. Celluloid is a very specific and neat material. Even if it was decided to not be the ideal material for a film base, it is still sometimes used for things

for that mater, I somehow am grated by something produced with a glorified Video Camera and projected in a theater with a fancy Video Projector as a "film" (even if said fancy Projector is designed in Kitchener Ontario https://www.christiedigital.com/about/ )

 

[Harry Callahan]

Being something of a perfectionist, one of the things that bugs me about the modern motion picture industry, even Eastman Kodak themselves, is their continued use of the term celluloid to refer to film. Celluloid hasn't been used for film since the 1950s, when they changed to acetate "safety" film.

...

Yes, this also bugs me, but such things seem to happen once again. For example, cylinders for phonographs only were made of wax for about two years in the very early days of phonographs - until they found out that a rather soap-like material was better suited to make cylinders from. Though, cylinders were referred to as "wax cylinders" for decades - i think the word "wax" was even put on the boxes of cylinders, though it wasn`t made of wax any more.
Probably people got used to the term "wax cylinder" very quickly, so they decided to stick to this term though the material was changed after about two years.

The change to safety film happened earlier, it was the 30s i think, but during wartime they sometimes again did use celluloid as it apparently is cheaper in production.

 

[cmacd123]

The change to safety film happened earlier, it was the 30s i think, but during wartime they sometimes again did use celluloid as it apparently is cheaper in production.

I think Nitrate was finally phased out about 1951. Nitrate held on as it was considered to have better physical properties when New, and the tendency was to destroy the prints after the movie had finished playing in Theaters.

polyester gradually replaced Acetate in theater prints. around the 1980 /1990 period.

 

[Harry Callahan]

I think safety film also came up as in the 30s home movies (on smaller formats) started to become popular and it would have been problematic if every second user burnt down his home while trying to show some fun movies to his family.
I think i heard of PET coming to the theaters in the 70s - Single-8 from Fuji was on PET right from the start i think and the Single-8 system started in the 60s. Without PET the IMAX 65/70mm 15-Perf probably would not have been possible - i mean when taking the shot with the camera.

 

[Kino]

Acetate "Safety base" for motion picture film was produced by Kodak as early as 1911, but was abandoned due to it's poor wear characteristics. This did not stop development of said base and it was produced on and off by Kodak and Pathe for home cinema use in the 22mm Edison Home Projecting Kinetoscope and 28mm Pathe KOK projectors. These early bases were respectively mono acetate, diacetate and triacetate coming into play in the mid-1950's when Nitrate was phased-out.

The first two acetate variants were strong enough for casual, non-commercial projection but it would take the strength of triacetate to finally conquer Nitrate base as the preferred support for commercial release printing.

People just don't realize how motion pictures dominated the profits of Kodak and directed their research and development, as this was the market where they made their fortune for almost a century.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I have always thought VistaVision interesting for this reason, as it is a very similar film area to that used by our 35mm still photography cameras. Some movies recorded on VistaVision are White Christmas, To Catch a Thief, High Society, and North by Northwest.

But it was very rarely projected in the original recording format, because very few places had the capability to project the horizontal "pulldown" film. It was usually made to a 35mm release print that used the standard vertical pulldown in the same format as the Academy "Wide Screen" 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

View attachment 386011 View attachment 386012

View attachment 386013

Paramount suggested 2.00:1 as the largest aspect ratio that should be used, but 1.85:1 was the most used, as it made good use of the original film area and also matched a standard format on the release print. The 1.33:1 ratio was only used for television. The recording was always done with spherical lenses, but it was also possible to make an anamorphic "squeeze" print for projection with anamorphic lenses -- but a normal release print was more common.

View attachment 386014 View attachment 386027

VistaVision was a fairly short-lived format. Between the higher cost because of using a larger quantity of film and the improving quality of the film stocks making larger film area not particularly necessary, the 35mm vertical pulldown formats were still the choice for most movies.

Why bother filming in the larger horizontal if they converted to a smaller verticle resolution? Were the verticles better because the original horizontal was better? This reminds me of theaters advertising IMAX but it is really 2K resolution digital converted from the original IMAX size. Only a few special theaters projected the original-size IMAX onto a huge screen.