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

[Alan Edward Klein]

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.

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.

Now we burn our houses down with electric bicycles.

 

[bfilm]

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"

Yes, I agree.

I remember at least one director in the last couple years saying, "Today's 'films' are nothing of the sort -- so stop calling them that".

 

[mshchem]

OK, now getting back to Kodak Rochester upgrades. I wouldn't be surprised if they are trying to simply improve the process to remain competitive and to serve the growth in film.
Fujifilm may need to use Kodak for some films, just so Fuji can keep up with Instax business. Who knows, but what's good for Kodak is good for all of us

 

[bfilm]

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?

I have also questioned the usefulness of the larger VistaVision format since it was usually projected with the smaller (normal 35mm) release print. I suppose they thought that some of the increased quality did transfer to the release print. Or perhaps they originally envisioned more theaters equipping themselves to project contact prints from the original negative, with the horizontal "pulldown", which didn't end up happening.

This is probably part of the reason why the VistaVision format didn't last long-term (beyond the special effects use that cmacd123 has mentioned). And towards the end of VistaVision, the CinemaScope anamorphic format, with the increased quality that Panavision was bringing to that format, was more popular with the movie studios. That and, as mentioned earlier, that the quality of film stocks was good enough to usually just stick with the traditional 35mm vertical pulldown formats.

 

[bfilm]

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.

Yes, I wish people would use correct language and terminology. This is an interesting example that I hadn't known before.

 

[bfilm]

OK, now getting back to Kodak Rochester upgrades. I wouldn't be surprised if they are trying to simply improve the process to remain competitive and to serve the growth in film.

This seems possible. Although, in the transcript that originated all of our debate, there is mention of using an additional building right after the discussion of film, but it is not really clear if this building is for film or something else.

"We're also looking at, as we look at the park, the buildings and the infrastructure. We've invested heavily in the infrastructure. And I'm proud to say we just reopened another one of our buildings, and we have now moved into that building. So the park is really coming to life. It's one of our key assets and something we can't forget."

 

[mshchem]

This seems possible. Although, in the transcript that originated all of our debate, there is mention of using an additional building right after the discussion of film, but it is not really clear if this building is for film or something else.

"We're also looking at, as we look at the park, the buildings and the infrastructure. We've invested heavily in the infrastructure. And I'm proud to say we just reopened another one of our buildings, and we have now moved into that building. So the park is really coming to life. It's one of our key assets and something we can't forget."

Sounds good

 

[MattKing]

This seems possible. Although, in the transcript that originated all of our debate, there is mention of using an additional building right after the discussion of film, but it is not really clear if this building is for film or something else.

"We're also looking at, as we look at the park, the buildings and the infrastructure. We've invested heavily in the infrastructure. And I'm proud to say we just reopened another one of our buildings, and we have now moved into that building. So the park is really coming to life. It's one of our key assets and something we can't forget."

As an example, the finishing of the still film "bulk" rolls is spread amongst two or more buildings, because the antiquated equipment used for that is not dedicated to that process, and is normally used mostly for other things.
If volumes of any particular product - photographic or related to the other things they do - are picking up, it makes sense that they would put some of their mothballed and out of use space back into a production status.

 

[bfilm]

As an example, the finishing of the still film "bulk" rolls is spread amongst two or more buildings, because the antiquated equipment used for that is not dedicated to that process, and is normally used mostly for other things.
If volumes of any particular product - photographic or related to the other things they do - are picking up, it makes sense that they would put some of their mothballed and out of use space back into a production status.

Is the finishing equipment really so adaptable? I am thinking of that great look we got inside the Ilford factory with the short movie several years ago. The machines for finishing seemed incredibly specific, with totally different machines used for the various processes in finishing the 135 (35mm) and 120 film. It is possible Kodak has something different, but I assumed it would be of similar specialization.

 

[cmacd123]

Is the finishing equipment really so adaptable?

it proably depends on WHAT step you are thinking off. For example @laser is credited with the Rotary Perforators, that are now used in place of the older reciprocating B&H perforators which were the same principles of those sold in the 1920s. the rotary machines can crank out 35mm film at perhaps 10 times the speed of the older machines.

Now in the video tour of Kodaks Operations they showed a machine to put still film into cassettes, and if you look very closely, the operator was feeding the machine 1000 ft or so rolls of (I guess KS1870) perforated stock, but the spooling machine was credited with putting the markings on the film. as it was winding the roll and closing the Cassettes. Now if the making of those rolls was to transfer to one of the Rotary Processors rather than the older style, the overall effecency of the process would improve. Likewise if that rotary erf machine could have software written so that a machine that normally does KS1870 Print film, could instead do both the ID and frame numbers on bulk film, and the machine modified to be able to wind onto 1 inch cores as well as the 2 inch cores the movie folks use.....

moving some operations into a different Building might allow more room to install specialized machines, and the shut down would be a prime time to move machines out and across the Campus. hey you could perhaps find spot to try and get a 220 Spooling line back together

 

[Harry Callahan]

I don`t want to carry the thread away from its original topic, but i also don`t want to leave questions unanswered:

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.

There actually was an advantage in image quality. Print film has a smaller grain than camera/recording film - as print film musn`t be very fast. The slower the film the smaller the grain. If you shoot Vista Vision but copy to standard 35mm you can gain sharpness, as the print film has finer grain and by that can take up more sharpness than usual camera/recording film.
Also, if the camera negative is bigger than the frame of the final print you also can use a faster film - which therefore has a bigger grain - but end up with good sharpness on the standard print. Film speed was a real problem back then, they needed floodlights having several kW - in the early days of silent cinema actors suffered eye damage from the floodlights after some years.
I seen an old advertising for Vista Vision and they promised like 50% higher sharpness - and some other factors. It maybe was fewer distortion or better sharpness at the edges of the final (scope-)print or more even brightness across the image...
...there are several advantages of shooting horizontal and then print down on standard 35mm.

Now we burn our houses down with electric bicycles.

Yes, seems like we cannot let go this one... but maybe someone will invent an acetate-battery which will help us out... ( )

 

[bfilm]

Film speed was a real problem back then, they needed floodlights having several kW - in the early days of silent cinema actors suffered eye damage from the floodlights after some years.

I wonder if that has to do with the light source -- the carbon-arc lamps and mercury-vapor lamps. Because later with the tungsten incandescent lamps, 5,000 and 10,000 watts and even higher were and are common.

I fear we are going to be finding eye damage with the LED lamps, too, because it is such an unnatural and harsh light source.

In my opinion, incandescent is the only good form of electrical light. And just think of the beauty of so many movies in the 1930s-1990s period that used tungsten incandescent compared even to the movies on film today that often use HMI and LED.

 

[MattKing]

Is the finishing equipment really so adaptable? I am thinking of that great look we got inside the Ilford factory with the short movie several years ago. The machines for finishing seemed incredibly specific, with totally different machines used for the various processes in finishing the 135 (35mm) and 120 film. It is possible Kodak has something different, but I assumed it would be of similar specialization.

Not really.
It is just that the process used with the still film bulk rolls uses a portion of the finishing process for one product, then the film is removed manually and added to part of the process for another product, then removed manually and completed mostly manually on another piece of machinery left over from when bulk still rolls were high volume products, serving markets like school and ID photos. Even that last machine requires a lot of manual intervention.
All of that non-automatic/manual work is a major reason that Kodak still bulk rolls are as expensive as they are.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I wonder if that has to do with the light source -- the carbon-arc lamps and mercury-vapor lamps. Because later with the tungsten incandescent lamps, 5,000 and 10,000 watts and even higher were and are common.

I fear we are going to be finding eye damage with the LED lamps, too, because it is such an unnatural and harsh light source.

In my opinion, incandescent is the only good form of electrical light. And just think of the beauty of so many movies in the 1930s-1990s period that used tungsten incandescent compared even to the movies on film today that often use HMI and LED.

How does tungsten differ?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Not really.
It is just that the process used with the still film bulk rolls uses a portion of the finishing process for one product, then the film is removed manually and added to part of the process for another product, then removed manually and completed mostly manually on another piece of machinery left over from when bulk still rolls were high volume products, serving markets like school and ID photos. Even that last machine requires a lot of manual intervention.
All of that non-automatic/manual work is a major reason that Kodak still bulk rolls are as expensive as they are.

Could the new November expansion automate some of these processes lowering costs that could be passed on with lower prices to us?

 

[Harry Callahan]

I wonder if that has to do with the light source -- the carbon-arc lamps and mercury-vapor lamps. Because later with the tungsten incandescent lamps, 5,000 and 10,000 watts and even higher were and are common.

I fear we are going to be finding eye damage with the LED lamps, too, because it is such an unnatural and harsh light source.

In my opinion, incandescent is the only good form of electrical light. And just think of the beauty of so many movies in the 1930s-1990s period that used tungsten incandescent compared even to the movies on film today that often use HMI and LED.

If the light isn`t "warm" but "white" it can have higher UV-proportion, which could damage eyes faster.
But back in the silent era it probably just was the amount of light. About 1905 they decided to record a boxing match on film - probably the first boxing match being filmed at full length.
They were inside, had several cameras as a camera back then could not record very long - and they had a hell of floodlights, because film was that slow (and lenses too) - resulting in the boxers having to rest inbetween each round because the floodlights did produce that much heat. They paused for 5 or 10 minutes after each round.
In the silent era it rather was the vast amount of light needed than UV-proportion of an carbon-arc lamp - though UV-proportion surely didn`t help.

Today the problem also is that there is no standard for color-reproduction of digital sensors, as far as i know. In the days of analog film there were standards on how a film should reproduce certain colors (not every film did), but developing labs also had means to measure color reproduction of developed film. Sometimes a film director did use a certain faint color filter, so the scene did get a certain mood - but the lab considered this a film- or developing-mistake and did filter the copy to natural color by standard. Then the director had to contact the lab to tell them that he wanted this scene to be light-green, or light-red etc. - because there were standards for color film.

With digital sensors it at least was different. There at least was no standard on how this sensor does reproduce green or red etc. - and if you shoot the same subject with different digital (video) cameras you`ll end up having different color reproduction - i once did and had.

Meaning you can have the best (incandescent) light but still end up with a greenish or bluish shot.
And movies still shot on film today usually get scanned to make it on the screen and in the scanner there again is a digital sensor.
At least today there are LEDs having good color reproduction - but these of course are more expensive.

Also they started to use the possibilities of digital post-production, often resulting in awful colors - but they don`t care because they want to stand out from the crowd - or because this de-saturated colors somehow are in fashion now.
In the 80s and 90s colors in movies often were bright and cheerful, around 2000 these zombie and vampire movies came up and colors got darker - and for quite a while now colors are de-saturated. Not everywhere but i see a pattern there.

But now there is digital, new possibilities but also more competition - who really cares about colors, just make them current fashion or outstanding so we will have some success at least - on netflix or the internet where there is a hell of competition.
....

But on the other hand film manufacturers at least did strive for natural color reproduction when film was standard - and so did and still does Kodak. Their line of Kodak Vision is a color film which has very natural color reproduction - and this did improve from Vision1 to 3 as far as i know.
Also the revived Ektachrome had a little change in color reproduction, as the old version had a bit too much saturation for being natural color reproduction (by measurement, in a lab etc.).

So there is a mix of different light sources, digital sensors, post production, competition and different fashion...
...not really helping on the result.

 

[MattKing]

Could the new November expansion automate some of these processes lowering costs that could be passed on with lower prices to us?

Extremely unlikely - any such improvements are not going to be directed toward products with such low volumes of sale, because return on investment is paramount.

 

[cmacd123]

Extremely unlikely - any such improvements are not going to be directed toward products with such low volumes of sale, because return on investment is paramount.

unless the disruption in the workflow of the rest of the plant is such a pain point that they fix it just to avoid that Pain Point.

 

[Supercine]

So we know that the work to update the manufacturing has been completed. But what has actually been done? Have they added more coating facilities, increased confectioning capacity, adapted to make smaller/shorter runs, split the plant to dedicate lines to certain ‘film’ products…?
It would be interesting to see what has changed during the shutdown.

 

[koraks]

But what has actually been done?

Sorry, it goed snowed under a little. See here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...ufacturing-plant-nov-2024.210341/post-2852715
It's also a little vague, but it appears to boil down to mostly the 'film sensitization machine', which seems to be a rather confusing way to speak of the coating line. I don't think they installed any new/additional coating lines; that sort of endeavor would be kind challenging from an investment point of view. I also imagine it's not really necessary given the already massive capacity of a single coating line.

 

[cerber0s]

Could the new November expansion automate some of these processes lowering costs that could be passed on with lower prices to us?

Didn’t Kodak just announce a price increase for 2025? I think I read somewhere (will look for it) that prices on most films will increase. Something like 5% on Portra, 30% on Gold, something similar for TMax. But lower prices on TriX for some reason. I’ll get back when I find it.

Edit: I googled it and choose the first of several hits. https://kosmofoto.com/2024/11/kodak...or-january-2025-but-tri-x-is-getting-cheaper/

 

[brbo]

Didn’t Kodak just announce a price increase for 2025? I think I read somewhere (will look for it) that prices on most films will increase. Something like 5% on Portra, 30% on Gold, something similar for TMax. But lower prices on TriX for some reason. I’ll get back when I find it.

Edit: I googled it and choose the first of several hits. https://kosmofoto.com/2024/11/kodak...or-january-2025-but-tri-x-is-getting-cheaper/

Price increase - Kodak Alaris. Film production updates - Eastman Kodak.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Extremely unlikely - any such improvements are not going to be directed toward products with such low volumes of sale, because return on investment is paramount.

Including Ektachrome? How do you know that?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

No one invests in capital improvements and better manufacturing tools to raise costs.

 

[DREW WILEY]

That's not correct, Alan. The kind of films we use are now a niche category, and if we expect the same kind of high quality, something has to give. Pretty much everything else has gone up too, unless it's outsourced junk. Labor and materials have gone up; and in this case, the quality of machining has to be particularly high and last a long time. It's a long-term investment.
That's certainly a good sign; they're sinking deeper roots.

In the old days, Kodak had way more processing lines, some of them long dedicated, almost in an antique sense, to a single product like Super-XX sheet film or DT Matrix film. Now any such machinery has to be way more versatile.

But the whole question on this particular thread is a little more complicated, since different regions of distribution are involved at the marketing end; and that can be a significant factor in itself. And specific retail pricing is yet another variable.

The way I figure it, is that 4x5 is the new 8x10, price-wise. Yep, it's pretty much quadrupled in the last decade or so. Just a fact of life.