Reflx Lab says their respooled films could be discontinued

[Lachlan Young]

Kodak Alaris' very agressive price policy, which is exploiting their de-facto monopoly for standard C-41 color negative film, has dramatic negative influence on the increasing film markets in the emerging countries

There was a major conversion capacity bottleneck. It couldn't be solved in a timely manner at the profit level at the time. Common sense would suggest that raising prices to the point that market demand adjusts to better match your available conversion capacity would have the effect of increasing your profitability to the point that rapidly investing in massively expensive conversion machinery becomes feasible. At that point your conversion capacity is now able to cope with increased demand, and you can either cut prices on some lines, or hold them as wages catch up. The advantage they have over Harman is that their bottleneck is conversion capacity (fixable fast, given enough money), not resolving complex organic synthesis & multilayer coating decisions for product building - they will have a rough idea of the timescale before Harman (and the others) produce a sufficient level of competition - and I think Phoenix gave them more of a fright than many are willing to let on.

 

[Don_ih]

I think Phoenix gave them more of a fright than many are willing to let on.

Maybe the excitement generated by it gave them more of a fright than the actual product did.

 

[Ben Hutcherson]

Maybe the excitement generated by it gave them more of a fright than the actual product did.

I know none of us will likely ever be privy to the kind of discussions EK and KA were having about products like Phoenix(and now Lucky C-41 assuming it actually materializes) but I'd agree at least at this point.

I have shot several rolls of Phoenix because I want to support Harman's color efforts and it's an interesting film, but when it actually counts I'm going to grab one of the Kodak products labeled for still photography or MAYBE a vision 3 product. Incidentally, I pretty much only shoot Vision3 films in 65mm and process myself, something capable of great results done right(my photographic skills, or lack thereof, not withstanding) but it's also not without its quirks including knowing that I'm losing a few millimeters of the 6x6 or 645 frame to sprocket holes.

So really, when it counts, Portra is probably going in my camera, or maybe Ektar if it suits the subject, or MAYBE Gold or one of the other "consumer" C-41 films. Kodak does get major bonus points from me for making Gold 200 available in 120, especially given that it's 2/3 the price of Portra.

Phoenix is fun to shoot, but at this point I'm still learning the film and I still never am quite sure how it's going to react in tricky light. For a hybrid shooter, which I'd go out on a limb and say 99%+ of people shooting color these days are, the sometimes unpredictable color and lack of an orange mask are eas(ier) to deal with than for someone printing optically. Still, though, it's clear that it's an experimental film...

The fact that Harman produced a color film is worth celebrating and supporting(for me), and I have no doubt that it's only going to get better, but at this point it's definitely not competitive in any way with Gold 200/Colorplus 200/Ultramax/etc, much less Portra or Ektar. The closest thing on the market to it is probably respooled Aerocolor, but that's a film with its own quirks for normal pictoral use.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I wasn't trying to stop anything, Alan. Currently I don't buy either film or any colour film. I was merely suggesting what Wolfram's argument led me to think about what degree of harm comes to KA or its new buyers if respooling were to continue. Based on Wolfram's posts it just seemed to me that KA or its new owners had exploited its monopolistic with little or no benefit to itself and some others at least seem to be saying similar things

The jury based on Photrio would seem to be very much still out as to whether respooling is adversely affecting trad non cine still film sales

It's not Hadleyville, Tex Ritter is not singing and High Noon is not approaching so ít's not a fight between us. We may have different viewpoints of course but that should not stop an interesting discussion between any of us on Photrio, should it?

pentaxuser

Sorry, I was so tough in my remarks. But the main (only) reason people want to re-spool is to cut corners to save money on more expensive normal photo-branded film. Let's be honest. That's what most people are complaining about here. Why should Alaris go along with other companies sabotaging their sales and profits with a knockoff and a bad one at that? Would Rolex put up with it? Calling it monopolistic is shame-baiting, and not a legal argument. I don't think that will work with the new owners of Alaris.

 

[koraks]

a knockoff and a bad one at that

These products aren't knockoffs, and they sure as heck aren't bad either.
Kodak Vision3 color negative films offer something very valuable that's not present in any other CN offering on the market - natural color rendition with moderate saturation, which makes it an excellent pairing with the higher-end Fuji papers for optical enlargement. 5222 Double X is a perfectly fine, high-quality moderately fast B&W negative film. And Ektachrome is Ektachrome regardless of the shape of the holes punched along the edges. Don't be so quick shooting down stuff you've not used.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I bet the jury within EK is still out on this one, too. Channel and portfolio conflicts like these are inherently (difficult) to disentangle, and decision-making relies more on argumentation/reasoning than on hard figures. Nobody has a crystal ball that actually works!

EK has nothing to say about it. It's Alaris that's stopping them from re-spooling sales.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

These products aren't knockoffs, and they sure as heck aren't bad either.
Kodak Vision3 color negative films offer something very valuable that's not present in any other CN offering on the market - natural color rendition with moderate saturation, which makes it an excellent pairing with the higher-end Fuji papers for optical enlargement. 5222 Double X is a perfectly fine, high-quality moderately fast B&W negative film. And Ektachrome is Ektachrome regardless of the shape of the holes punched along the edges. Don't be so quick shooting down stuff you've not used.

Fine. If they're so good and profitable, let Eastman issue them as photo films that are distributed by Alaris exclusively. No more cheap photo film made from cheaper stocks of movie film.

 

[MattKing]

The Vision films are only relatively cheap (per frame) from the still film perspective because the finishing procedures and distribution systems are set up for small numbers of purchasers, who purchase really big rolls - often lots of them - which are designed to be processed by relatively high volume labs.
The film business thinks in terms of price per roll, not price per frame. A 400 foot roll of 35mm Vision or 5222 film shot at 24 fps gets used up in 210 seconds! At $430.52 CDN per roll for 5222 (direct from Eastman Kodak), that is just over $2.00 CDN per second.
Eastman Kodak retained that relatively tiny (in terms of numbers) business, with mostly specialized and knowledgeable users, as their only involvement in distribution and marketing.
All the rest was bought and paid richly for by the original owners of Kodak Alaris.

 

[Wolfram Malukker]

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.

 

[Ben Hutcherson]

Kodak Vision3 color negative films offer something very valuable that's not present in any other CN offering on the market - natural color rendition with moderate saturation, which makes it an excellent pairing with the higher-end Fuji papers for optical enlargement. 5222 Double X is a perfectly fine, high-quality moderately fast B&W negative film. And Ektachrome is Ektachrome regardless of the shape of the holes punched along the edges. Don't be so quick shooting down stuff you've not used.

Agreed on this, although I don’t currently optically print.

250D processed in ECN2 is a lot like using a film with the saturation of the old portra “VC” films, the contrast of the “NC” films, and grain as fine if not finer than the last generation 160 speed films.

250D in C41 is a lot like the old 400VC but with finer grain.

50D is probably the finest grain color negative around, and gives me colors close to Ektar without dealing with the general cantankerousness of that film.

I prefer 500T to Portra 800 for a fast negative film…no particular reason but I just like its general feel and handling.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Maybe the excitement generated by it gave them more of a fright than the actual product did.

Nothing of the sort. It made clear that Harman are able to produce & working much more rapidly towards a fully functional CN material than Kodak might have historically assessed them to be - and are proceeding in a manner that will work linearly, rather than having to completely remake the product for each iteration (which is why Gen 1 Phoenix seems so weird in terms of curves etc as the masks etc will impact on these).

 

[MattKing]

The Kodak Alaris related bankruptcy settlement had to be made because the UK pension security legislation gave a super-priority interest over the assets of Kodak Limited in order to secure the very large actuarial estimate of pension obligation exposure of the Kodak Limited pension plan.
Those Kodak limited assets were some of the most valuable assets left in Eastman Kodak (and its subsidiaries) at the time of the bankruptcy. By making the deal they did, rather than first selling those assets off and devoting the funds resulting to the pension and current Kodak Limited obligations, it meant there was ~ $600,000,000.00 $US added to the Eastman Kodak bankruptcy trustee's fund. That sum permitted settlement of many other claims, and allowed Eastman Kodak to emerge from the bankruptcy as a viable business.
Kodak Limited itself was a huge operation at one time, it had a large number of employees over the years, their pensions were good ones, and those employees had/have the extremely inconvenient habit of outliving actuarial norms. It was that skewing from actuarial norms plus what turned out to be incorrect pension investment income projections and assumptions about the availability of continuing contributions to cover ongoing administrative costs that resulted in their being a projected shortfall - the hundreds of millions of pounds that were actually contributed to the plan were all made in accordance with the expected requirements.
As I understand it, those tendencies (of living longer than actuarially expected) are/were fairly common for Eastman Kodak and Eastman Kodak subsidiary employees.
I know my Dad - who died 32 years after he retired from Kodak Canada - collected his pension almost five years longer than he actually worked for the company, and there were several people who he knew from Kodak while working there who attended his celebration of life.
I attribute the longevity to providing a good working environment, and generous health related employee benefits .
FWIW, when my Dad died in 2016, the Kodak Canada pension plan had managed to get back into a small projected surplus position. At the time of the bankruptcy, it had a small projected shortfall. Since his passing, I no longer receive current information updates.

 

[Wolfram Malukker]

Agreed on this, although I don’t currently optically print.

250D processed in ECN2 is a lot like using a film with the saturation of the old portra “VC” films, the contrast of the “NC” films, and grain as fine if not finer than the last generation 160 speed films.

250D in C41 is a lot like the old 400VC but with finer grain.

50D is probably the finest grain color negative around, and gives me colors close to Ektar without dealing with the general cantankerousness of that film.

I prefer 500T to Portra 800 for a fast negative film…no particular reason but I just like its general feel and handling.

I've shot several rolls of 200T at EI320 with an 85C filter, when I was shooting indoors and outdoors on the same roll and developing in C41.

 

[Agulliver]

Maybe the excitement generated by it gave them more of a fright than the actual product did.

Phoenix certainly generated a lot of excitement. And since it's not cheap, one must conclude that the entrance into the market of any new CN film from a reliable source is something a lot of photographers want. I think it might also have caught EK and KA on the hop, because nobody seemed to know that Harman were about to launch a new CN film until it happened. Even with all the teasing via social media, nobody really guessed what they were doing and just a year or so before the people at KA believed that EK were "about the only people in the world coating colour".

But the main (only) reason people want to re-spool is to cut corners to save money on more expensive normal photo-branded film. Let's be honest. That's what most people are complaining about here. Why should Alaris go along with other companies sabotaging their sales and profits with a knockoff and a bad one at that? Would Rolex put up with it? Calling it monopolistic is shame-baiting, and not a legal argument. I don't think that will work with the new owners of Alaris.

Vision 3 derived stocks are not knock-offs. They're not pretending to be anything they aren't. And they are, along with the other EK products, the highest quality colour films ever made available. But there are plenty of reasons beyond price. It seems I am not the only one who prefers 500T for high speed CN photography than Portra 800. The two are very different animals in how they record colours and contrast. The other Vision stocks, though I've not used them in still photography, are different beasts to Color Plus, Gold, Ultramax, Ektar and to Portra. All fine products, all do things differently. In the same way that one cannot substitute Portra for Gold, Color Plus, Pro Image or Ektachrome. They're all 100-200 ISO colour films...all look different.

Currently, Kodak do not offer a CN stock at high speed which meets my needs through any of the official channels. Lomography CN800 would meet my needs but is ludicrously priced and often unavailable. And even if I did buy it, that wouldn't be taking any money away from KA because they don't offer that film for sale themselves. If they did, I'd certainly strongly consider buying it because the distribution would at least cut out Lomography's insane postage prices. Since there's no suitable KA-marketed product, I'd rather like the option of 500T derived films....and preferably not Cinestill because I have grave reservations about their business practises.

I can see KA being upset about respooling of Ektachrome because it's effectively the same product as their "official" Ektachrome, sometimes at half the price.

 

[brbo]

Currently, Kodak do not offer a CN stock at high speed which meets my needs through any of the official channels. Lomography CN800 would meet my needs but is ludicrously priced and often unavailable. And even if I did buy it, that wouldn't be taking any money away from KA because they don't offer that film for sale themselves.

Just because you buy respooled 500T (for your own perfectly valid reasons) doesn't mean that everybody else buys it for the same reasons. It's pretty easy to imagine that a lot of people buy this film more with price in mind than the special properties it brings. Such consumer behaviour will take away from KA's bottom line, so no surprise KA wants to stop direct sales to still photographers and respoolers.

 

[Don_ih]

Nothing of the sort. It made clear that Harman are able to produce & working much more rapidly towards a fully functional CN material than Kodak might have historically assessed them to be - and are proceeding in a manner that will work linearly, rather than having to completely remake the product for each iteration

I doubt Kodak was as surprised by the release of the colour film as it was by how much of the photographic world jumped up and down and through hoops to get some and use it. The hype (generated on a single month of teasing) was massively more than the hype for Kodak's re-release of Ektachrome.

 

[perkeleellinen]

Is the issue that low margin respooled movie film is eroding sales of higher margin still film?

E100 - 100D
Portra 800 - 500T
Ektar - 50D
Gold - 250D

 

[Film-Niko]

British-owned Kodak Alaris was bought out last summer by very smart and aggressive American investors in Los Angeles near Hollywood.

I fear you are falling into wishful thinking concerning the "smart and agressive American investors".
The film photography market is a very special market - a niche market for enthusiasts. Film Companies like Harman technology, Polaroid, Foma, Adox, Film Ferrania are lead and run by film enthusiasts. By people who use and enjoy film photography by themselves, who are film enthusiasts themselves.
Therfore they have a deep understanding of this very special market.

But the new American investors are neither enthusiast film shooters, nor do they have a deep understanding of that very special market.
Their only interest is to make money, as much as possible, and get a return on their investment as fast as possible.
The investors see a de-facto monopoly for color film and want to exploit that by monopoly prices.
That is the reason why just one month ago we have seen another significant price increase by Kodak Alaris (the last three price increasing rounds were driven by Alaris, not by EK, they were not driven by production costs).
That is the bitter reality, like it or not.
Color film photography is becoming too expensive for more and more groups of film shooters. This problem is most prominent in the emerging markets with their much lower income (see the explanation in my post above). But the demand from these markets have been huge before, and they very significantly contributed to the film revival we've seen until 2022.
But the new, "smart" investors don't care at all for these huge markets and the needs of the customers there, because their pressure on EK to stop sales of movie film to respoolers lead to another significant damage to film demand in these markets.

 

[Film-Niko]

There was a major conversion capacity bottleneck.

Yes, but that has been solved quite a while ago. And after the problem was solved we've seen more price increases done by Kodak Alaris (not by EK).

The advantage they have over Harman is that their bottleneck is conversion capacity (fixable fast, given enough money), not resolving complex organic synthesis & multilayer coating decisions for product building

1) EK's confectioning capacity problem has been solved.
2) Harman meanwhile also has got a confectioning capacity problem because of their success in BW, and their new route in color film. Therefore the huge new investments at Harman in more than doubling their confectioning capacity for 35mm film.
But despite these huge investments (the biggest in their history) Harman has not increased their prices as much as we've seen for Kodak films. Another proof that the Kodak price increases are to a significant part driven by Kodak Alaris to exploit their monopoly position on the color film market.

 

[Agulliver]

Harman had a big investment injection from Lloyds Bank, which is a long term plan worked out in details between both parties. Lloyds are in this for a 10 year slog I believe, so there's no need to rapidly recoup the investment.

Kodak funded the production capacity increase themselves, and not unreasonably had to hike prices to do so as they need to recoup the costs more quickly than Harman do.

Additionally, Harman have a brand new hit product on their hands in Phoenix, which must have swelled the coffers somewhat. We probably won't know until they file their 2024 accounts in October this year what effect that's had on their turnover and profit but it is likely to be significant.

Kodak currently has a de facto monopoly on CN film while Harman perfects Phoenix and Adox/Inoviscoat/Orwo/Whoever continue R&D towards getting a competitive CN product in regular production. And I am sure that KA want to benefit from that situation as much as they can. I guess there's nothing they can do about EK producing film for Fuji...so they go after the respoolers. I can see why in terms of Ektachrome, though I do wonder just how much business they're taking away from KA.

 

[pentaxuser]

I fear you are falling into wishful thinking concerning the "smart and agressive American investors".

But the new American investors are neither enthusiast film shooters, nor do they have a deep understanding of that very special market.
Their only interest is to make money, as much as possible, and get a return on their investment as fast as possible.

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

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

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.

You realize you're hoping that a worldwide company that monopolized the film industry for a century including digital sensors but went bankrupt anyway being able to make a coherent strategy for the future?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The Kodak Alaris related bankruptcy settlement had to be made because the UK pension security legislation gave a super-priority interest over the assets of Kodak Limited in order to secure the very large actuarial estimate of pension obligation exposure of the Kodak Limited pension plan.
Those Kodak limited assets were some of the most valuable assets left in Eastman Kodak (and its subsidiaries) at the time of the bankruptcy. By making the deal they did, rather than first selling those assets off and devoting the funds resulting to the pension and current Kodak Limited obligations, it meant there was ~ $600,000,000.00 $US added to the Eastman Kodak bankruptcy trustee's fund. That sum permitted settlement of many other claims, and allowed Eastman Kodak to emerge from the bankruptcy as a viable business.
Kodak Limited itself was a huge operation at one time, it had a large number of employees over the years, their pensions were good ones, and those employees had/have the extremely inconvenient habit of outliving actuarial norms. It was that skewing from actuarial norms plus what turned out to be incorrect pension investment income projections and assumptions about the availability of continuing contributions to cover ongoing administrative costs that resulted in their being a projected shortfall - the hundreds of millions of pounds that were actually contributed to the plan were all made in accordance with the expected requirements.
As I understand it, those tendencies (of living longer than actuarially expected) are/were fairly common for Eastman Kodak and Eastman Kodak subsidiary employees.
I know my Dad - who died 32 years after he retired from Kodak Canada - collected his pension almost five years longer than he actually worked for the company, and there were several people who he knew from Kodak while working there who attended his celebration of life.
I attribute the longevity to providing a good working environment, and generous health related employee benefits .
FWIW, when my Dad died in 2016, the Kodak Canada pension plan had managed to get back into a small projected surplus position. At the time of the bankruptcy, it had a small projected shortfall. Since his passing, I no longer receive current information updates.

Your dad must have been a great guy.

 

[JParker]

Concerning the consequences of EK's decision to follow the pressure of KA and terminate these film sales: I am convinced it will be counterproductive for both companies in the mid and long term:
Kodak Alaris' very agressive price policy, which is exploiting their de-facto monopoly for standard C-41 color negative film, has dramatic negative influence on the increasing film markets in the emerging countries (China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Mexico etc.). In these countries with their much much lower incomes Kodak Alaris price increases destroyed the film revival (the growth trend), which had been extremely strong in these markets.
The respooled Kodak movie film at lower prices was a possibility for many film enthusiasts in these markets to continue shooting film, because it was more affordable. If this possibility is now killed, too, the situation in these huge and very important markets will get even more problematic.

To keep the film revival running these markets are needed!! And these markets need film which is affordable for the customers in these markets. If EK and KA continue to ignore that fact, they both will loose these markets: Either because the film shooters there will switch to digital, or they will switch to future competitors which offer what these markets need (maybe Lucky will fill that market gap for CN film; Foma and Harman are already doing it with their BW offerings Fomapan and Kentmere).

I agree to 100%.
From my experience travelling especially in these SEA emerging markets, and talking there to film shooters, labs and film shops, the film revival has been really huge in these countries, with yearly growth rates for color film in the 20-40% range. And we are talking about markets with a total population of about 2 billion people.
This growth is now completely gone, killed by Kodak Alaris price increases. Even worse, the demand is declining now there.
Respooled film has been a way to at least attenuate the negative effects on demand in these markets. When this will not be possible anymore, too, the decrease in general film demand will be even more significant.
And both EK and KA will suffer from that in the mid- and long-term.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I fear you are falling into wishful thinking concerning the "smart and agressive American investors".
The film photography market is a very special market - a niche market for enthusiasts. Film Companies like Harman technology, Polaroid, Foma, Adox, Film Ferrania are lead and run by film enthusiasts. By people who use and enjoy film photography by themselves, who are film enthusiasts themselves.
Therfore they have a deep understanding of this very special market.

But the new American investors are neither enthusiast film shooters, nor do they have a deep understanding of that very special market.
Their only interest is to make money, as much as possible, and get a return on their investment as fast as possible.
The investors see a de-facto monopoly for color film and want to exploit that by monopoly prices.
That is the reason why just one month ago we have seen another significant price increase by Kodak Alaris (the last three price increasing rounds were driven by Alaris, not by EK, they were not driven by production costs).
That is the bitter reality, like it or not.
Color film photography is becoming too expensive for more and more groups of film shooters. This problem is most prominent in the emerging markets with their much lower income (see the explanation in my post above). But the demand from these markets have been huge before, and they very significantly contributed to the film revival we've seen until 2022.
But the new, "smart" investors don't care at all for these huge markets and the needs of the customers there, because their pressure on EK to stop sales of movie film to respoolers lead to another significant damage to film demand in these markets.

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. In any case, you can be a film enthusiast and a good businessman at the same time. Also, when companies like Fuji don't meet their demand requirements, it only invites others to raise their prices.