You realize you're hoping that a worldwide company that monopolized the film industry for a century including digital sensors ........
Perhaps Alan meant smart and aggressive in the sense of your definition above i.e. " quick buck" and the short-term approach exploiting the moment rather than reasonable revenue generated looking after colour film's longer term health?
pentaxuser
That's why I mentioned that the new company is in LA near Hollywood. I suspect some of the owners have connections with movie producers who use film.
From that standpoint, it could only benefit Eastman Kodak to continue selling to resellers. Resellers would generally represent a relatively constant purchase volume on a repeating basis, which would (according to all the arguments so far presented) make for a much more consistent product, with more ready availability all round.
I will never understand why a company who made an agreement with their former employees to maintain their pension program after bankruptcy proceedings (the entire reason for the Alaris agreement, IIRC) is maintaining that agreement after the pension program has sold off the company. That would have been the ideal time to renegotiate any exclusivity agreement, and to take advantage of the sea of resellers/distributors that either Kodak does not have to maintain/control/administer, and thus does not share the cost of.
That is pure speculation. AFAIK the investment corporation has not had so far any investments in that industry.
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Just a thought but it might be helpful if we adopted this title as the "new" KA rather than referring to it as KA
beofre Fuji existed the Movie Film Business they did make a 500D. { Fuji Reala 500D 8692 } (which would make sense now that studios tend to have "daylight" LED lighting.There was a rumour about new Kodak cine emulsion a while back. It's hard to imagine it would be anything other than ISO 400-800 daylight balanced.
the distribution company was and is a Business that was suposed to pay the frieght as an asset of the Pension Plan. when the british government bailed out the Pension Plan, that asset was sold to the bidder who offered the best return to the Board that Bailed out the pension Plan. It was originally owned by the Pension Plan and not by the pensioners..I will never understand why a company who made an agreement with their former employees to maintain their pension program after bankruptcy proceedings (the entire reason for the Alaris agreement, IIRC) is maintaining that agreement after the pension program has sold off the company.
Labs set up to process cine film with remjet aren't setup to process 5 foot lengths of film.
back when there were small Labs repacking Short ends, they just spliced all those 5 foot rolls together, whith either a Heat Splicer like some large photofinishing labs use to make rolls ofC-41 film, (brown Paper splices that work simalar to slide mounts) or just used splicing tape of various kinds. (some even used a plain cement splice, But that wuld be only 75% safe.)
major difference with ECN2 is that if they used Twin Checks they had to go on the emusion side, as they would wash off with the rem jet. that Thremal spicer would have a twin check number on the splice itself.
And back in those days a "rush" or "work print" was normally made of every roll of Negative, (at least the "circled Takes") so the labs were set up to make a print. the negs often came back with a notch used to set the printer lights depending of the Still Photographer followed advice and used an 85 filter, or not. (I always found that the shots looked much better when I used the 85)
I'm a fan of Reflx mostly - they make some neat products and I've got a few rolls of 800T on the way in the mail - but I think they might be drawing a long bow here.
That said, most of the issue would go away if Kodak (presumably K-Alaris, though I don't care who) would just sell 100ft bulk load rolls of their colour films - photography and motion films ideally - to retail customers for those who are wanting and willing to bulk roll. Clearly there's a market for it. Ilford have after all sold bulk rolls of basically everything they make since when the dinosaurs roamed, and it doesn't seem to have prevented them from making a quid.
Kodak do seem to have a pathological ability to not give their customers what they actually want a good couple of decades now. Rapidly shrinking availability of reliable Super 8 cameras on the secondhand market? Ohh let's take eight years to produce an utterly overkill camera that costs US$5000 that'll sell maybe hundred or so *facepalm* Jeez, just make a modern plastic M2 replica with a less crap viewfinder and a C-mount lens for a few hundred and actually make some money guys...
(rant over)
IIRC some labs, Kodak??? used some sort of fancy punch to punch codes in the film ends. I maybe am just imaging this
Kodak can and do make the 100 foot bulk rolls.
It is just that the left over finishing and packaging line/machinery for them is pretty well their oldest and most inefficient and most labour intensive of anything they use - which means high cost/roll, leading to high prices for the consumer. That historical remnant dates back to the days when those film loads were used by high volume users who employed them in ID photo systems and school photography, and who bought the rolls in quantities that resembled the quantities that motion picture productions used. When that market disappeared, most of the manufacturing capacity dedicated to it was scrapped.
For that cost/price reason, colour film hasn't been considered practical for the 100 foot loads, and the expensive black and white 100 foot loads are probably only made infrequently.
It would cost a lot of money to modernize that line - even if only to the vintage that Harman is using - and any such expenditure needs to be extensively justified before such decisions are made. This is the reality of the modern film business, with its tight controls on available capital.
Yes - Kodachrome and Ektachrome processed by Kodak.
The customer films were all spliced together in one long roll, run through a movie film processing line, and then separated at the end for return to the customer. The holes helped ensure that the right customer got the right film.
No no- no one needs yet another Kodak....
For me it still boils down to the fact that I find it hard to reconcile the idea that KA is losing money to these respoolers when the market they serve seems to be very small.
As far as I understand (from some official and not so official sources), what is really happening is that Kodak sells their motion picture films in two general ways: people that can prove they are indeed making motion pictures and then for everyone else (like spoolers).
Since Eastman wants to keep their motion picture film business going, they film sell to motion picture producers with some concessions that won't seems like good business practice otherwise (like quantity and lower margins), otherwise those who consume motion picture film for their intended use may be tempted to go digital and crack the motion picture film business.
And there is everyone else, who purchase motion picture for experimental/respooling/you name it purpose. They charge a different price to that market, so they can recover some of what they lose on the film makers market. You can still buy the stuff but at a different price range, which may not be as attractive for business like Reflx.
If you can't prove that you are actually using Eastman film on a motion picture production, you are denied to buy the film at the motion picture price (like Reflx seems to be doing). You need to make an agreement on how much you will be buying and estimate the price (which may be higher quantities and higher prices that respoolers can use and still make a profit). This would definitely impact prices of respooled film and affect prices for business like Reflx.
So, what I think it is really happening is that Reflex is buying their film stock saying it is using for a motion picture project but using it for respooling and making a profit, and Eastman is trying to stop that to keep their business going.
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