robotsound
Well-known member
The trees outlived the car!
This whole situation makes me think about similar changes that have happened in the music industry (on the recording side).
You can't buy a new reel to reel tape machine anymore. Tape stock is harder and harder to come by. The recording community has responded with a mix of keeping their old machines on life support, and a stronger interest in high end mic preamps and analog output summing busses, as a way of imparting a little analog magic onto the signal.
The best guitar amps use tubes, but tubes are obsolete technology for anything but guitars. Most of the tubes today are NOS (new old stock; old but never used) from America or manufactured more recently in countries like China and Russia.
There is also The Impossible Project, where the old Polaroid factory workers bought the factory and started making Polaroid instant film again on their own as a new company.
It's worth noting that both Arri and Panavision have stopped making film cameras entirely in the last year or so.
Kodak (and Fuji) sold a lot more film for release prints than they ever did for the camera negative. Theaters have been adopting digital projection at a pretty rapid pace, and the combination of release prints and camera negative brought a certain economy of scale.
I think the future looks pretty digital, although I suspect there will always be at least a small fringe element that uses film, possibly sourced from small boutique companies at extremely high prices.
This whole situation makes me think about similar changes that have happened in the music industry (on the recording side).
You can't buy a new reel to reel tape machine anymore. Tape stock is harder and harder to come by. The recording community has responded with a mix of keeping their old machines on life support, and a stronger interest in high end mic preamps and analog output summing busses, as a way of imparting a little analog magic onto the signal.
The best guitar amps use tubes, but tubes are obsolete technology for anything but guitars. Most of the tubes today are NOS (new old stock; old but never used) from America or manufactured more recently in countries like China and Russia.
There is also The Impossible Project, where the old Polaroid factory workers bought the factory and started making Polaroid instant film again on their own as a new company.
It's worth noting that both Arri and Panavision have stopped making film cameras entirely in the last year or so.
Kodak (and Fuji) sold a lot more film for release prints than they ever did for the camera negative. Theaters have been adopting digital projection at a pretty rapid pace, and the combination of release prints and camera negative brought a certain economy of scale.
I think the future looks pretty digital, although I suspect there will always be at least a small fringe element that uses film, possibly sourced from small boutique companies at extremely high prices.
