Kodak Retires Kodachrome Film

[Sirius Glass]

I have to admit that I get a kick out of people who, at best with a Business 101 course, think they know how to turn Kodak back into a film producing juggernaut.

Amen, amen, a-a-amen.
Amen, amen ... [Lilies of the Field, starring Sidney Porter]

Steve

[Photo Engineer]

Well, here it is, time for my lack of business degrees to be killing me.

I may put my foot in it but......

Kodak makes a ton of profit from film and they need that capital to keep going in the digital arena.

I would earmark a small portion of that capital each year to rebuild a small pilot and a small paper facility. I would then begin re-creating some of the classic films from the past and classic papers such as SuperXX and Opal and Medalist (if possible). I would earmark some R&D dollars for this project.

I would make small runs and do just as suggested here, by making small custom runs of other items such as Azo paper and Panataomic X.

I would custom cut by preorder, LF and ULF runs of films that were readily available.

This would reduce the digital capital crossover from analog by about 10 - 20% maybe more. IDK how much the Kodak digital effort could stand WRT the stockholders. But, it would be slow and not ready for about 5 years minimum. It would use some older facility such as perhaps the abandoned J9 research coater where Kodak could make 11" wide films and papers.

Then, we might have something.

But, in the current market or even in a recovered market, IDK how feasible it would be to do this and IDK how badly it would hurt the Kodak digital effort. Heavens knows, they have a great work going in large size sensors and the OLED systems. I just hope they pan out.

At least that is my current thinking. It does not include bringing back Kodachrome, but it does include encouraging home processing of C41, RA and E6.

PE

[wogster]

Terry;

Imagine miles of thermally wrapped color coded stainless steel pipes. Now imagine how long it takes to fill and temper them. When empty and refilled imagine entrapped bubbles from air in the water. Imagine all sorts of problems like that.

Just recharging the lines takes the use of deaerated hot DI water and a lot of it! When not in use, the hopper is kept at 100F (38C) with DI water. The water is flushing down into a receptacle at the head of the machine. All drying cabinets are pressurized to prevent dust intrusion. An air bubble or dust particle is a real pain.

If the gelatin sets up in 1/2" or 1/4" pipe, you cannot ream it out. This is passivated SS pipe that should not be scrubbed with abrasive or scratched. It uses special connections with no screws so that the passivation is not disturbed and the joints are all compression "O" rings.

Since movie film encompasses both camera original and print film plus intermediate print films, this is a lot of film, especially with 70mm stock.

Yes, the machine gets shut down for routine maintenance, but only on a regular schedule (see other posts) and only in a precise sequence. You don't just pull the plug, you click on shutdown. Not really, but a bad shutdown is a disaster and I have seen them happen in person, nearly having been glued to the wall or sawed in half by skeins of torn off coating that was still wet. I have also spent an evening with a putty knife helping the crew clean up one of my own messes due to a bad chill point / viscosity setting when coating a Fischer type imaging component in an experiment. So, I know coating machines from the inside out you might say.

So, believe me, this is a carefully orchestrated operation that is ongoing. I seem to be hitting your shields and rebounding with all of this information though. To grab some names.. Too much impervium, arenak or inoson in the hull plates? No offence intended Terry, it just seems to me that you want to believe what you want to believe, not what is so.

I hope some of you get those old references. Terry, I hope you begin to see the scope of what you are addressing from an engineering or at least more practical POV rather than idealistic.

PE

So, film coating lines are beasts and replacing one would be akin to replacing a nuclear power plant.... Lots of specially equipment and custom made parts, which means a copious amount of cash is required. Building a big one that runs fast and a small one that runs more slowly, wouldn't mean a very similar cost.

[Photo Engineer]

Well, Paul, first off all Kodak machines are custom built in-house by engineering.

Second, coating speed is NOT a function of machine size, only width is. The coating METHOD is more important and governs speed.

Here is a rough guideline.

In the Dutch movie made by EK, the Trough coating ran at about 10 ft / min with a max of about 100.

The Extrusion method shown here in some examples upped this from about 100 - 500 ft / min.

The Slide Hopper increased this to 500 ft / min minimum and upward.

The minimum speed for the Curtain Coater is the maximum speed for the Slide Hopper.

This is due to the viscosity effects and method of coating and not by coating width and so Kodak could build a 1" wide slide coater for example, but to work it would have to run at close to the same speed as a 42" machine. Do you get the picture?

As speed goes down with any of these, defects and difficulty go up quite rapidly. So, to slow down, you would have to change the coating method.

PE

[wogster]

Well, here it is, time for my lack of business degrees to be killing me.

I may put my foot in it but......

Kodak makes a ton of profit from film and they need that capital to keep going in the digital arena.

I would earmark a small portion of that capital each year to rebuild a small pilot and a small paper facility. I would then begin re-creating some of the classic films from the past and classic papers such as SuperXX and Opal and Medalist (if possible). I would earmark some R&D dollars for this project.

I would make small runs and do just as suggested here, by making small custom runs of other items such as Azo paper and Panataomic X.

I would custom cut by preorder, LF and ULF runs of films that were readily available.

This would reduce the digital capital crossover from analog by about 10 - 20% maybe more. IDK how much the Kodak digital effort could stand WRT the stockholders. But, it would be slow and not ready for about 5 years minimum. It would use some older facility such as perhaps the abandoned J9 research coater where Kodak could make 11" wide films and papers.

Then, we might have something.

But, in the current market or even in a recovered market, IDK how feasible it would be to do this and IDK how badly it would hurt the Kodak digital effort. Heavens knows, they have a great work going in large size sensors and the OLED systems. I just hope they pan out.

At least that is my current thinking. It does not include bringing back Kodachrome, but it does include encouraging home processing of C41, RA and E6.

PE

Here is where the real problem lies, the film division makes a ton of profit, and is subsidizing the digital effort to the point that the company is losing money. So here is what I would do, I don't have a business degree either, I don't think you need one, when the real issue is so simple.

Spin off a separate company, for want of a name, call it Kodak Digital Imaging, the pieces of the digital empire that do or may eventually make money, you put under the KDI banner. This would include the motion picture digital projectors, the sensors development business. Parts of the digital business that, never have a hope in hades of making money, you wind up. I would think that Inkjet printers and Ink would fall into this category as would digital cameras. With KDI, you sell off a part interest, or maybe even the whole thing, this would give EK some much needed capital.

Capital that you put into the film business, which has always made money. Plus you start a new venture, custom coating and confectioning film. This could be your own films, like K64, or their own film, like an emulsion they developed, licenced or bought. It could also mean that someone could supply a master roll, that you confection for them.

Let me explain that last paragraph. Joe wants Kodachrome, he made $500,000,000,000, in the computer business, back when it was possible to actually make $500,000,000,000 in it computer business, it isn't any more, and hasn't been possible in over a decade. He likes to shoot K64, enough that he is willing to buy the entire master roll, so you name a price, he agrees and you make it, slit it, confection it, and ship it. Using it by the expiry date and getting it processed are his problem, not yours.

An eastern European company, has developed a new colour film, the problem is, they don't have the equipment to coat it, so they ring you up, you name a price, and using their recipe you make the film which you supply as master rolls, they then finish the manufacturing themselves.

Another manufacturer wants to supply their film in 220 size, except they don't have the equipment to confection 220 film, they supply the film and backing paper, you confection it, and put the finished rolls in a light tight crate, that you ship back to them, they then put it in foil and boxes.

The idea is that the machinery and people are kept busy, to reduce costs, and continue making money. Few American companies realise that their biggest asset is the knowledge that is between the ears of the "slaves" that work in the trenches.

[JBrunner]

You give me a call when you find Joe.

[cmacd123]

PE has made some very interesting posts about the complexity of making film, particularly Kodachrome.

He mentioned having to make the base for Kodachrome as one of the steps. Is the base really different for Kodachrome than say the base for VISION 500T? I understand that it is different than the base for tri-x as it does not need or want the grey dye, instead having the famous REM_JET coating on the back. But would a film making firm not have film base as a more of less stocked item ready to be used for any compatible product?

Second question is that since the speed of the machine is fixed by the physics of the coating process, would it make sense to coat on a narower support to keep the machine running longer, even though that would require changes in teh machinery elsewhere to handle the now narrower master rolls.

[Steve Smith]

On the Online Photographer site: http://theonlinephotographer.typepad...2f04970b-800wi


Steve.

[AgX]

Paul,

Kodak is not the last company left. There are already companies offering custom halide film coating including their expertise. I don't have the impression people are queueing for such services...

[railwayman3]

Just a random thought....with the demise of Kodachrome, the only reversal films now sold in the UK at a price including processing (AFAIK) are the three speeds of Fuji Sensia and the Boots Colorslide (a version of 200ASA Fuji). These are sent to the Fuji lab in Leeds...not, I believe, actually owned by Fuji but under contract (and a very good service).

I recall my Dad reminiscing about the 1950's and 1960's when almost every reversal film box contained little mailers to send back to the relevent manufacturers lab (Kodak used a fabric mailer, machine stitched...wish I still had one. ). He could remember Ferrania introducing a home-processed slide film, using chemical kits by Johnsons of Hendon, which apparently was regarded as a great innovation by amateur enthusiasts.