Fuji announces film stock production to end in 2013

But I've never got to shoot on any film except that 1 roll of super 8 D:


Might hav to buy a 16mm camera soon while I still can shoot on it.
 
From the acticle: "From 2007 to 2011, however, worldwide demand fell 70%."

Exactly when the RED revolution started! Coincidence?
 
starcentral said:
From the acticle: "From 2007 to 2011, however, worldwide demand fell 70%."

Exactly when the RED revolution started! Coincidence?
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Aptly timed.

The 'Red revolution' started when the technology was available to do so. Technology available to create lower cost digital cameras. The market was already headed in favor of digital aquisition, Red joined late in the game in those regards. In fact, the short-lived but wildly popular Panavision Genesis camera was first being used in 2005! Superman Returns was released in 2006... a year or two before working prototypes of Red1's were even at NAB. Red has been a great player in offering different tools for digital capture, and as a digital camera manufacturer, they have contributed to the allure of decline in film stock, but I'd never give them credit nor allude to credit on the death of film. They're just another thug kicking and punching film in a dark back ally.

I just got back from watching TDKR in 70mm... and I did tear up watching those beautiful projected images. Before film is gone, I will shoot 70mm, 35mm, 16mm and 8mm. It saddens me deeply because there is such a tactile and grounded sense of purpose when you shoot film. The smell of it, the feel of it, the purr in your ear as you shoot it. It is a beautiful process of light being captured in upon the film and later shining light back through it to see it once again. The texture is beautiful, soft, and slightly flawed. There is something truly magical about film and I think it also demands an unspoken respect and due attention from the cinematographer. It demands we be more careful in our exposures, more aware of our actions. It demands we make bold decisions and stick with them. It demands rehearsal and careful thought before action. It forces our hand and mind to be prepared and exacting. These are disciplines that may be applied to digital, but not necessarily enforced by the medium.

I hope future generations find the discipline film has provided the generations before them and will use that with digital. Otherwise I think many young filmmakers, directors and cinematographers, will find themselves lost, in bad habit and company.
 
Sad news, but I did suspect this might be coming. Fuji have had some crazy deals on discount stock in the UK recently. But I'm probably guilty as everyone else for not supporting it. I've shot very little film over the past few years, with most of that being S8 family stuff.
 
Wow, this is super sad. If the colors of digital were anywhere near as good as film it wouldn't be as much of a tragedy.

At the last Cinegear, where I saw an excellent shootout of Fuji vs Alexa vs RED... Fuji won by a mile.

Personally I like working with actors across ethnic backgrounds and Fuji was always wonderful for making diverse skin tones work within a shot.

This really sucks.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
SOMEBODY will keep producing it. I mean they still make 1" analog tape for analog music studio recording. It just got way more expensive as a small niche market.
 
The saddest thing is that many of us younger filmmakers will probably never have the opportunity to shoot film. As the digital generation, it feels like there will be a little something lost when it comes to powering up the ARRI and REDs and pushing the little record button.
 
"The King is dead. Long live the King".

Film died along time ago in the professional stills world, & has only held on due to the consumer market in parts of the world that lack reliable, or any, electricity. But the adoption of Internet connected phones is quickly changing the world, & their inclusion of built-in cameras is the nail in the coffin for film. It's just not economically feasible for the motion industry to support film manufacturing on it's own.

The big push by Canon, & Sony, into motion cameras is a direct response to the disruptive innovation of cell phones, as the sale of compact digitals is dying too.

As a friend is fond of saying, "The tooth paste is out of the tube, & there's no gettin' it back in".
 
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kylevant said:
The saddest thing is that many of us younger filmmakers will probably never have the opportunity to shoot film.
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I agree. I'm still pretty young and hoping to eventually be able to shoot on something like the Panaflex Millenniums. I may try to rent some 16 like the ARRI SR-II or something soon.

All of us know this has been happening for the last few years now. It's just sad for those who may never be able to shoot on film.
 
kylevant said:
The saddest thing is that many of us younger filmmakers will probably never have the opportunity to shoot film. As the digital generation, it feels like there will be a little something lost when it comes to powering up the ARRI and REDs and pushing the little record button.
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I never did shoot with an 8x10 camera to make 'truly wonderful 8x10 contact prints'... like Edward Weston... Ansel Adams, and similar... by the time I tuned into photography 8x10 was far to expensive to shoot and process... but life goes on...

Then again... Ansel Adams did a book on how to use the Polaroid SX-70 for 'art'... so... one has to wonder if he had lived to the digital age... whether he would have not taken that on as well...
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
SOMEBODY will keep producing it. I mean they still make 1" analog tape for analog music studio recording. It just got way more expensive as a small niche market.
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I can only hope you are right, but unless another corporation or group of investors buy Fuji or Kodak, as they are, and continue production, this is a dream that shall never be realized.

The first and main reason is the cost to manufacture the film. It is not easy to make film stock. Film stock is a confoundedly complex and exacting feat in chemical engineering. Additionally, film stock must be made with an incredible consistency, quality, and in a quantity that is almost unthinkable. Twenty-four frames per-second, hundreds of minutes per film. Regarding Eastman Kodak, the quality of Vision III motion picture film is astounding. Vision II as well. The technology and craftsmanship to make film stock is well beyond things like analog tape, Polaroid film, and etc. It will be an expensive purchase to acquire this knowledge, patents, and equipment.

But, in the case of Kodak and Fuji, the unthinkable quantity I mentioned above is actually a reason we can expect film stock in the future to be more expensive! As demand drops, and it surely will if Kodak and Fuji leave the scene, the remaining film manufacturers expected to arise from the ashes will have a pricing quandary that will prove to be quite dissatisfying. They will not have the demand Kodak and Fuji had, which is good, because they will surely not be able to fulfill such orders... however, it was this higher demand which made the film affordable as it is today! Making any product in large batches means savings you can offer in the price of the product. We can expect lower demands to make the future manufacturing much more costly and thus the price will be hard to wrangle down to even the levels of today... which many consider high already.

It is easy to hope someone will come along and effortlessly pick-up where giant corporations with a millennium of experience have failed or abandoned ship, but we must be serious and realize that this dream is unlike other failed technologies in the past. Take Polaroid for example... when they went under, a group came together and formed the 'Impossible Project', aptly named for the difficulty of their mission; a mission that I would predict would be 1,000x greater for film stock. They(impossible project) only succeeded because they courted the remains of Polaroid and simply bought out one of their factories in Europe. They didn't reinvent the wheel and start from scratch, they did what the only sensible option was, and acquired the already established production line. This could be accomplished with Kodak and Fuji, but it is doubtful if anyone could afford to. I am sure the price tag difference between buying up the technology of a Polaroid factory and a Kodak motion picture film factory is about the same as the cost between a Polaroid camera and an Arriflex. Kodak and Fuji are major corporations, we'll see what they decide to do, and if anyone is willing to step up to pay the bill.

As I mentioned above, the only way film shall survive is if another corporation or group of investors purchases the experience, facilities, and patents of either Kodak or Fuji. Anyone starting out without that advantage is doomed to fail because of the quality demanded by the populace.

Again, to reflect on the precedent case of Polaroid.... Polaroid is a toy; a novelty. It's cheap, fun, dirty, and the quality is supposed to be low-fi. Eastman Kodak Vision III is not. We expect it to be very consistent and of the highest quality and reliability. The impossible project for motion picture film, is truly impossible unless with the aid of Kodak/Fuji. Do you think any startup can operate at the same level of Kodak?! Fuji? Those corporations have 100+ years of experience and over billions of dollars in infrastructure, R&D, and personnel. In research and development alone, Kodak has invested hundreds of millions, if not a billion+ dollars. In fact from 2008-2010 during the worst of the recession and recovery, Kodak spent $101,000,000 in R&D. $101 million!

For any start-up who may try to navigate the seas without the assistance of Kodak or Fuji's prior knowledge and experience, ambitious as they may be, will not be able to sail their product to the level we expect or want and their efforts will be doomed to result in a motion picture film flawed with poor consistency and quality. The professional use of the tool will remain lost and film will simply be a toy; a novelty. Nothing more than a cheap thrill and results that look like a lomography camera or some instagram filter.

Now we get to the after thought. The workflow so many of the digital kids forget even exists. Developing the negative. As it stands now, if you shoot Kodak 5222, only 20 labs can process it. Black and white reversal? There are only 11 labs in the entire united states that can do it. How many do you think will remain open after Fuji and Kodak are gone? After NFL films and all major studios go digital? Who do you think is going to run these labs? Maintain the equipment? Change the chemical baths? Who can ensure the quality of these services? It's a good question to think about as we very well cannot develop our motion picture film in a dark room.

I must also ask about printing. Will these third party companies also provide us with the contrasty and tight grained printing stocks for the release of our films? Will a film print never be an option? Will we only be able to watch through the negative? Will printing an interpositive, internegatives or prints be an option? Or will we have to scan it all? Will anyone maintain or keep building film scanners like the ArriScans? Will they be available in a post Fuji/Kodak world, 10 years from now?






Ok, I am done ranting, but I hope I made a point.

Although Kodak is not done yet, nor Fuji. I can clearly see in my mind the obstacles that await anyone who tries to revive the medium of film without the assistance or resources of either of these two giants. Should they both fade into the night without passing on their knowledge, resources and technology, we will never again see a film stock as we know them today. You can bet any substitute we are offered will just be a shadow of a ghost's reflection of what quality, integrity and beauty film used to be.

-ryan
 
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Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
Now we get to the after thought. The workflow so many of the digital kids forget even exists. Developing the negative. As it stands now, if you shoot Kodak 5222, only 20 labs can process it. Black and white reversal? There are only 11 labs in the entire united states that can do it. How many do you think will remain open after Fuji and Kodak are gone? After NFL films and all major studios go digital? Who do you think is going to run these labs? Maintain the equipment? Change the chemical baths? Who can ensure the quality of these services? It's a good question to think about as we very well cannot develop our motion picture film in a dark room.
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When the Wife's wedding photo business was at its highest, we had locally about 3 labs to process film, and a 'communial darkroom' for her B&W processing. We 'streamlined' by going with one of the local labs for processing B&W negatives, but she still printed them by hand...

About 3 years ago, an old wedding customer came back and said, 'we've finally gotten to the point we want to 'order' the wedding album'... like 12 years later... in any case, we could not 1) find any of the local labs left... the communial darkroom had closed down, although the proprietor still had his own personal equipment setup, and would have let the Wife print... in any case... we just could not really print out an album (we would have charged a fee for such along time anyway)... but we would have had to have scanned all the negatives at some cost + profit... printed out the Photoshop manipulated final prints with a lab we had been using in Minnesota, which we had used for weddings that were shot all digital...

During the transition period, I think around 2001-2003, we did give quite a bit of business to local labs for scanning negatives for digital output. But even that lab had disappeared by a few years ago...

Oh, yeah... we have about 4 enlargers in our garage which we debate about getting rid of... well except for one.. the Bessler... that will be for the Daughter to dispose of when we die...

Speaking of the Daughter, she tells us that San Francisco has some a mount of support for processing and printing B&W negs to prints... sort of a novo chic sort of thing... perhaps for Film film that will happen as well... we will watch 10 minute short films in Real(tm) Film...
 
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I hope I'm right too, though you paint a very valid (and scary ) scenario.
My DP gets work a few times a year for NFL films when they are here for the local team. He's one of the few guys in town with a lot of Panaflex experience. I'd hate to see it end before I ever got to shoot on film.
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
SOMEBODY will keep producing it. I mean they still make 1" analog tape for analog music studio recording. It just got way more expensive as a small niche market.
Click to expand...

Ain't nobody going to be making color film when Fuji and Kodak quit. No color negative films, no color positive films, no color still photography films (they're all made on the same production line). Making color films is three+ orders of magnitude more difficult than making analog audio tape.

Making photographic film requires a huge facility, stuffed with expensive custom machinery, and lots of people. It comes down to money -- can you keep paying people a weekly paycheck to run the equipment one or two shifts a week? And if you could, would the workers be wiling to do it? People don't like being bored. And equipment doesn't like sitting -- the less it's worked, the more it has to be maintained. And the customers have already stated, emphatically, that they won't pay for it. So kiss film goodbye. It's too late to do anything else.

You want to know more about what it takes to make photographic film? There's a book out, called Making Kodak Film, by Robert Shanebrook. Shows you the exact equipment Kodak uses to make cine film (same production line as color still films). You'll be amazed at the complexity, the inventiveness, and the sheer chutzpah (if you're an engineer and read this book, you'll be gobsmacked at how Kodak coats the web). U.S. Chemical Engineering writ large and glorious.

Kodak only allowed this book (it's copyrighted 2010) when they were sure there would be no future competitors, so their trade secrets have limited value. It's more like documenting the state of the art for future historians.
 
8x10" was a glorious thing. Even the Polaroids were gorgeous.

The current digital backs can't compare to the look, & the largest are only 645, which was always the bastard child of medium format.

If some company can pickup the reigns I hope they can do better than Impossible Film, which is apply named as it's almost impossible to work with, particularly in professional environments, & doesn't compare to either Polaroid's, or Fuji's, instant films.
 
I shoot a Mamiya 645 on occasion though I haven't sent anything to Dwaynes in probably 9 months. I hope they hang around a while (Dwaynes) I have a few rolls of medium format in the fridge..
 
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