Kodak on twitter: "We're hiring to keep up with demand for 35mm film"

[Sal Santamaura]

Missed the point, Alan. Bottom line: reported "productivity" is measured by how much "output" an employer gets from an employee for each paid hour of employment. Employers don't pay for time traveling to and from the office or the cost of doing so. Employees do. Thus, from an employee's perspective, "productivity" is how much money they get minus the dollar + time cost of commuting. Working from home cannot help but radically increase productivity for the employee. And those employees' calculations are now manifesting in fewer of them willing to accept a "return to the office" dictate.

Commute time is not included in the GDP or productivity figures nor can you take it off your taxes. When my commute driving time was less than thirty minutes, I use to enjoy it. I could turn on the music, enjoy my Dunkin' donut and chill out before getting to stress out at work. Same thing on the way home before facing the stress of family life.

Of course, when I spent 1 1/2 hours one way on NYC subway trains standing up in crowds, that did wear me down a lot. That's why I got a job where I could drive.

Still not getting it, Alan. "Productivity" is the economic term for employees' efficiency. Efficiency is output divided by input. Economists perceive this the way you do, namely, solely from an employer's perspective. Since there has been a surplus in the labor market for many decades, that calculation dominated.

Post-pandemic, there's a shortage in the labor market, which will likely continue until the Fed succeeds at causing a recession. As a result, those who perform labor are now performing their own efficiency/productivity calculation, one defined by money earned divided by the costs (dollar as well as time, both working and commuting) of being employed. Under this calculation, especially considering that employees have learned employers generally have no loyalty to them whatsoever, when directed to return to the office many are simply quitting and being hired by other employers who permit working from home. There's not the slightest doubt that working from home results in higher personal productivity (dollars earned per cost of being an employee) for individuals performing labor. Until conditions change, that productivity calculation will predominate in the minds of workers.

It's only those jobs for which working from home isn't viable, like the ones Kodak is attempting to fill, where the traditional productivity calculation still controls. Of course, Kodak must now compete for employees with other employers that do allow working from home, so it too feels fallout from the new job market.

 

[koraks]

The discussion now starts to tend towards the political. Let's not go there.

Thank you for your consideration.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The cost for film determined by manufacturers includes the cost of materials, chemicals, overhead, etc and the cost of labor which includes salary, social security, vacations, health benefits, and associate costs but not the commute expenses, haircuts, clothes, lunches, or babysitters the employees needs to pay for. Those things aren't included in productivity figures.

Now the employee may decide on the job he likes based on the benefits an employer gives him such as working from home. But those benefits are not figured in the cost of film production unless they have a direct cost factor. As an aside, I can't imagine Kodak hiring production employees who don't have to show up at the factory daily to do their work. Of course, if Kodak has to pay more to get people who could take other jobs where they can work at home, then it's true the cost of labor goes up and subsequent film costs.

 

[MattKing]

As an aside, I can't imagine Kodak hiring production employees who don't have to show up at the factory daily to do their work.

Eastman Kodak is actively involved in modernizing their production systems, and a lot of that work involves - wait for it - updating computers and software.
So don't discount the possibility of off-site employees.

 

[mshchem]

I think this is all great. It's awesome that EK has the equipment to expand the converting and finishing side of the business by simply adding shifts. May not be great for the existing employees, to start in rotating shifts, I have no idea if there's a labor contract involved.

As far as professional, engineering and the like, I imagine EK is always open to the right people. Manufacturing engineering is always cycling through folks as it can be 60 hour a week job.

I retired a couple years ago, I really don't miss it anymore.

I Kodak Film!

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Eastman Kodak is actively involved in modernizing their production systems, and a lot of that work involves - wait for it - updating computers and software.
So don't discount the possibility of off-site employees.

Maybe they'll come out with a scanner and software too.

 

[MattKing]

Maybe they'll come out with a scanner and software too.

One part of the Eastman Kodak business that was transferred to Kodak Alaris in the bankruptcy was related to office document scanning and organization technology. Kodak Alaris has rebranded that business - under the Alaris (not Kodak) name IIRC - and it is my understanding that that business is growing and profitable for the pension plan.
Eastman Kodak had and sold film scanners and software in the divisions that supported photo labs - the Kodak HR500 Plus scanner comes to mind - but that part of the business was shut down in 2010.
The HR500 cost several thousand dollars when it was current. Here is a link to a brochure: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.ansystem.com/GlobPDF/hr500SS.pdf
My reference to computers and software was in respect to the production control systems in the manufacturing. If you have seen any of the recent Smarter Every Day YouTube videos about the manufacturing done by Eastman Kodak, you might have noticed that a lot of the control equipment was not exactly "cutting edge" electronics - that is part of what they are trying to update.

 

[cmacd123]

And of course, Eastman Kodak is limited to a single customer, so they too are in a similar position, because Kodak Alaris has the same control over what they will pay as any single customer does.
Their best interests are tied to each other.

if course Eastman can sell film under a different brand name to someone else.

 

[MattKing]

if course Eastman can sell film under a different brand name to someone else.

Eastman Kodak has been willing to and has toll coated photographic film products for others for years. If you have a big chunk of cash, and are happy to accept film that is made to different specifications than the Kodak branded ones, just step right up with your money and they will make some for you.
And not just photographic films - their coating technology has been applied to a lot of things, like circuit boards that they make for others.
But Film labelled "cmad123" panchromatic is a lot harder to sell than film labelled "Kodak Tri-X", so your custom coated product isn't the same thing really, price and market-wise.
In fact, the disruptions caused by Covid 19 caused so many problems for the photographic industry that Kodak Alaris was forced to re-negotiate the contract with Eastman Kodak. As a result, Eastman Kodak now has a slight bit more access to the still film market. It is because of that that you now see Cinestill films which have been identified explicitly as manufactured by Eastman Kodak to Cinestill's specifications - i.e. still ECN based, but no remjet applied at the time of manufacture.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

One part of the Eastman Kodak business that was transferred to Kodak Alaris in the bankruptcy was related to office document scanning and organization technology. Kodak Alaris has rebranded that business - under the Alaris (not Kodak) name IIRC - and it is my understanding that that business is growing and profitable for the pension plan.
Eastman Kodak had and sold film scanners and software in the divisions that supported photo labs - the Kodak HR500 Plus scanner comes to mind - but that part of the business was shut down in 2010.
The HR500 cost several thousand dollars when it was current. Here is a link to a brochure: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.ansystem.com/GlobPDF/hr500SS.pdf
My reference to computers and software was in respect to the production control systems in the manufacturing. If you have seen any of the recent Smarter Every Day YouTube videos about the manufacturing done by Eastman Kodak, you might have noticed that a lot of the control equipment was not exactly "cutting edge" electronics - that is part of what they are trying to update.

If Kodak is going to work with state-of-the-art production equipment, won't the programmers have to be in the factory most of the time if not all the time watching how their program works rather than working at home? If there's a glitch they need to address, they would want to see the results in real-time and not calling in from their Florida vacation home asking operators if the software patch works.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Eastman Kodak has been willing to and has toll coated photographic film products for others for years. If you have a big chunk of cash, and are happy to accept film that is made to different specifications than the Kodak branded ones, just step right up with your money and they will make some for you.
And not just photographic films - their coating technology has been applied to a lot of things, like circuit boards that they make for others.
But Film labelled "cmad123" panchromatic is a lot harder to sell than film labelled "Kodak Tri-X", so your custom coated product isn't the same thing really, price and market-wise.
In fact, the disruptions caused by Covid 19 caused so many problems for the photographic industry that Kodak Alaris was forced to re-negotiate the contract with Eastman Kodak. As a result, Eastman Kodak now has a slight bit more access to the still film market. It is because of that that you now see Cinestill films which have been identified explicitly as manufactured by Eastman Kodak to Cinestill's specifications - i.e. still ECN based, but no remjet applied at the time of manufacture.

I'm not familiar with new contracts between Kodak ALaris and Eastman Kodak (EK). But isn't Cinestill basically movie film which EK kept in the bankruptcy decision to supply Hollywood? Its market is different than consumer-grade still films like Portra and Ektachrome supplied to the general public.

As an aside, why would the bankruptcy court and Alaris accept EK from selling competitive films to others? That could destroy the very settlement issues decided during the bankruptcy.

I still wonder how the EK pricing is determined by what Alaris pays EK?

 

[BrianShaw]

If Kodak is going to work with state-of-the-art production equipment, won't the programmers have to be in the factory most of the time if not all the time watching how their program works rather than working at home? If there's a glitch they need to address, they would want to see the results in real-time and not calling in from their Florida vacation home asking operators if the software patch works.

The actual programming is likely done offshore. Off shore programming and support is extremely common. Have you called any help desk or customer service number lately… they don’t need to be near the problem to work the issue. To solve the issue “someone” needs to know what’s happening on the factory floor and keeping it running but not necessarily the engineering staff.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The actual programming is likely done offshore. Off shore programming and support is extremely common. Have you called any help desk or customer service number lately… they don’t need to be near the problem to work the issue. To solve the issue “someone” needs to know what’s happening on the factory floor and keeping it running but not necessarily the engineering staff.

Maybe it's jealousy. But if I was the boss I wouldn't want my staff working from a beach house in Florida. If I have to commute to work, so will they.

 

[MattKing]

I'm not familiar with new contracts between Kodak ALaris and Eastman Kodak (EK). But isn't Cinestill basically movie film which EK kept in the bankruptcy decision to supply Hollywood? Its market is different than consumer-grade still films like Portra and Ektachrome supplied to the general public.

As an aside, why would the bankruptcy court and Alaris accept EK from selling competitive films to others? That could destroy the very settlement issues decided during the bankruptcy.

I still wonder how the EK pricing is determined by what Alaris pays EK?

The bankruptcy decision is complete - Eastman Kodak has been out of bankruptcy for several years, and the Court no longer has any role in the matter. The settlement resulted in assets being exchanged, and contracts being entered into. Since then, the contracts between the entities were "stressed" by the realities of the world - Covid 19 and as a result the parties have negotiated a change. No assets have changed hands though.
While Cinestill is a movie stock, it is being sold as still film and identified as being manufactured by Eastman Kodak for Cinestill - before the contract changes, that identification wasn't permitted.

EK pricing is determined, like all pricing, by what the customer is willing and able to pay, and what EK needs in order to be able to produce the product and make a profit. Kodak Alaris is constrained as to what it is willing and able to pay, by what its overhead is, what its need for profit is, and for what amount it can sell the product for. There is nothing unusual about this - in any market, it is the intervening wholesalers and distributors who control the price charged by the manufacturer by buying, or not buying.

 

[Mike Lopez]

The actual programming is likely done offshore. Off shore programming and support is extremely common. Have you called any help desk or customer service number lately… they don’t need to be near the problem to work the issue. To solve the issue “someone” needs to know what’s happening on the factory floor and keeping it running but not necessarily the engineering staff.

Exactly. I'm an engineer (not software), and I haven't had any local IT support in years. It all occurs overseas, on their schedule. Globalization really is a thing!

 

[markjwyatt]

Exactly. I'm an engineer (not software), and I haven't had any local IT support in years. It all occurs overseas, on their schedule. Globalization really is a thing!

It is, and has been. Right now, it is slowly starting to reverse itself in the US at least. I am not sure it will last or even work, but there are some attempts to bring things back to the USA and/or North America or a least allies. This is because the current supply chain issues are highlighting what many people have been warning about during the years of globalization.

 

[Huss]

Exactly. I'm an engineer (not software), and I haven't had any local IT support in years. It all occurs overseas, on their schedule. Globalization really is a thing!

Yah, at the beginning they at least pretended they were in the US. And tried fake accents, called themselves "Brett" etc. Now they don't care, and when I send out a request I don't get a response until 10 hours later.
In my previous job we had an in house IT dept so we could get issues addressed rapidly.

 

[MattKing]

I'm going to be bad here.
When I stopped practicing law, one of the trends developing for a lot of the corporate and commercial work that forms the backbone of most regular paying legal work was that the really big firms in North America were contracting with really big firms in India to do much of the hard document creation and review work. Clients would give a task to their North American lawyer, that lawyer would send the requirements over to the firm in India, that firm would spend a few hours on it during their workday (which coincided with nighttime in North America), then the North American lawyer would arrive back at the office the next morning to review the work and the bill from the firm in India. The work product would be adapted and then presented to the client along with the bill - which covered the North American lawyer's work as well as a nicely marked up fee for the contractor's work. And the North American lawyer got to go home and have dinner with the family.
India has a huge number of well trained lawyers whose English language skills are excellent.
OK, I'll go back to behaving better.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The bankruptcy decision is complete - Eastman Kodak has been out of bankruptcy for several years, and the Court no longer has any role in the matter. The settlement resulted in assets being exchanged, and contracts being entered into. Since then, the contracts between the entities were "stressed" by the realities of the world - Covid 19 and as a result the parties have negotiated a change. No assets have changed hands though.
While Cinestill is a movie stock, it is being sold as still film and identified as being manufactured by Eastman Kodak for Cinestill - before the contract changes, that identification wasn't permitted.

EK pricing is determined, like all pricing, by what the customer is willing and able to pay, and what EK needs in order to be able to produce the product and make a profit. Kodak Alaris is constrained as to what it is willing and able to pay, by what its overhead is, what its need for profit is, and for what amount it can sell the product for. There is nothing unusual about this - in any market, it is the intervening wholesalers and distributors who control the price charged by the manufacturer by buying, or not buying.

What you're describing is a free market. There isn't a free market in the arrangement between EK and Alaris. They're attached at the hip. Ek sells to Alaris and Alaris must buy from EK. If EK raises their prices to whatever, Alaris can't go anywhere else. It forces them to raise their prices to make a profit. This may account for the reason Kodak films are higher than other brands.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Also, the fact that there are two levels of Kodak film pricing means that there are two companies applying markups for profits. with other films like Ilford, only one markup is applied before distribution. There's no extra markup. This could be the reason Kodak's film prices are higher.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I'm going to be bad here.
When I stopped practicing law, one of the trends developing for a lot of the corporate and commercial work that forms the backbone of most regular paying legal work was that the really big firms in North America were contracting with really big firms in India to do much of the hard document creation and review work. Clients would give a task to their North American lawyer, that lawyer would send the requirements over to the firm in India, that firm would spend a few hours on it during their workday (which coincided with nighttime in North America), then the North American lawyer would arrive back at the office the next morning to review the work and the bill from the firm in India. The work product would be adapted and then presented to the client along with the bill - which covered the North American lawyer's work as well as a nicely marked up fee for the contractor's work. And the North American lawyer got to go home and have dinner with the family.
India has a huge number of well trained lawyers whose English language skills are excellent.
OK, I'll go back to behaving better.

If lower charges were assessed to the client for the Indian work hours and no charges while the regular lawyer was home eating dinner, that would be fine.

 

[MattKing]

Alan - there are tied marketing arrangements everywhere. Look at Apple, and the companies that do most of the manufacturing for them. Or "Kirkland" products sold by Costco. Or Fuji products sold by Fuji USA - also a tied marketing relationship.
Eastman Kodak has no worldwide marketing and distribution infrastructure that could come close to replacing what Kodak Alaris does. It was the costs involved with that infrastructure which, to a very great extent, drove Eastman Kodak into bankruptcy in the first place. With the settlement, Kodak Alaris hired most of the Eastman Kodak (and Eastman Kodak subsidiary) employees, thus relieving Eastman Kodak of a huge percentage of its costs.
Someone has to do the work, and someone has to pay them.

 

[MattKing]

If lower charges were assessed to the client for the Indian work hours and no charges while the regular lawyer was home eating dinner, that would be fine.

The charges were marked up nicely of course. The final cost was what the North American lawyer quoted in the first place, so the client agreed to it ahead of time. And the North American lawyer was ultimately responsible for the work product. Free market you know. Essentially, the industry was replacing more expensive local lawyer work with less expensive offshore work, and keeping the difference.

 

[mshchem]

The bankruptcy decision is complete - Eastman Kodak has been out of bankruptcy for several years, and the Court no longer has any role in the matter. The settlement resulted in assets being exchanged, and contracts being entered into. Since then, the contracts between the entities were "stressed" by the realities of the world - Covid 19 and as a result the parties have negotiated a change. No assets have changed hands though.
While Cinestill is a movie stock, it is being sold as still film and identified as being manufactured by Eastman Kodak for Cinestill - before the contract changes, that identification wasn't permitted.

EK pricing is determined, like all pricing, by what the customer is willing and able to pay, and what EK needs in order to be able to produce the product and make a profit. Kodak Alaris is constrained as to what it is willing and able to pay, by what its overhead is, what its need for profit is, and for what amount it can sell the product for. There is nothing unusual about this - in any market, it is the intervening wholesalers and distributors who control the price charged by the manufacturer by buying, or not buying.

Matt, is this the issue with Kodak film "shortages"?? Is Rochester supplying finished film in cassettes to Cinestill?? May be a trade secret as to exactly what EK Rochester does for Cinestill?

I can't believe that Cinestill has finishing equipment that can run as quickly as EK Rochester.

I'm a diehard Kodak color negative loyalist, I like everything that is sold by Alaris for still photography. I've never bothered with the Cinestill, or similar negative or reversal films.

I still make color enlargements, and there's nothing, like Kodak Portra and Ektar, truly amazing.

My theory is use the film for it's original intended purpose for the best results.

As to India's top talent, I had a PhD engineer (metallurgy) that worked for me, brilliant person, he could teach masters level English. Amazing. Darn fine engineer too.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Alan - there are tied marketing arrangements everywhere. Look at Apple, and the companies that do most of the manufacturing for them. Or "Kirkland" products sold by Costco. Or Fuji products sold by Fuji USA - also a tied marketing relationship.
Eastman Kodak has no worldwide marketing and distribution infrastructure that could come close to replacing what Kodak Alaris does. It was the costs involved with that infrastructure which, to a very great extent, drove Eastman Kodak into bankruptcy in the first place. With the settlement, Kodak Alaris hired most of the Eastman Kodak (and Eastman Kodak subsidiary) employees, thus relieving Eastman Kodak of a huge percentage of its costs.
Someone has to do the work, and someone has to pay them.

Apple and Costco can replace their subcontractors if they get greedy. Alaris has nowhere else to go if Kodak charges too much for their film.