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Thread: How capital ($) intensive to make color film?

  1. #1

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    How capital ($) intensive to make color film?

    All these recent "film" posts raised 2 film questions I have been curious about. It will also shed some light on how long film will continue when, eventually, smaller companies take over the niche market in the years ahead.

    Just how capital intensive is the investment for machinery to make color film? Is the machinery that makes color film so unique, that small companies will fear the risks to keep the equipment operational for many years to follow? Or is the process more labor intensive?

    Also, is there any relationship between color cinema film and color photographic film made by the big TWO? Do they share any of the same processes in manufacturing? If they do, this may be a feather in our cap that has been overlooked. I would think cinema film will be used for a long time, as we are far from seeing that technology to become digital friendly.

    Anyone have knowledge of these issues?

  2. #2

    How capital ($) intensive to make color film?

    Rowland (Ron) Mowery worked for Kodak and was very involved in the engineering of the C41 process and films. He is doing a seminar at Photographer's Formulary this year on making your own film emulsion. There have been some discussions on photo.net in the "Film and Processing" forum. Mr. Mowrey took part in many of them. I bet he could answer your questions.

  3. #3

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    How capital ($) intensive to make color film?

    Last year the major studios agreed on a standard for digital projection. Many major directors including George Lucas and James Cameron can hardly wait to go all digital. While the revenue stream from the film industry has meant a great deal to Kodak and Fuji over the years (helping to support color R&D generally and influencing still films), I do not think we can count on that particular boon to last much longer.

    See the following for a general discussion:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4681859.stm

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    tim atherton's Avatar
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    How capital ($) intensive to make color film?

    there are also major changes predicted in the "traditional" ways movies are distributed which would massively reduce the amount of film stock used in making prints for cinemas.

    The studios are already starting to see this happen
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

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    How capital ($) intensive to make color film?

    Jerry, Tim, not good news, arggggg....... more doom and gloom for photographic film....

    Based on your comments, I assume cinema film was closely related (or the same) as photographic chrome film?

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    Donald Qualls's Avatar
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    How capital ($) intensive to make color film?

    WG, cinema film is closely related to C-41 negative films. Unlike home movies, which are shot on chrome type film, professional motion picture is shot on negative stock, printed to a positive for "rush" viewing and preliminary editing, then the negative cut, printed to positive and back to negative to have splice-free negatives for high volume distribution printing. The original edited negative is archived, usually along with a positive print.

    I've heard that the "double electron sensitization" technology that's behind the newest Vision 2 cinema stocks is in process of filtering its way down to professional still films, potentially in both B&W and color -- but that will depend on how long Kodak continues to milk the cash cow. Since they've on record as intending to be a fully digital company by end of 2007, one wonders if they plan to sell or spin off the (still profitable, even as it shrinks) film business, or if they expect digital projection to destroy the cinema film market in another two years. I'd like to see the film business spun off, if they can shrink it without foundering; I still think Kodak films are the best available and would love to still have the opportunity to buy them in another 10 or 20 years (not to mention that amateur and indie filmmakers would like to be able to make their films on actual film, with a few thousand dollars in equipment, instead of having to spend five or ten times as much for digital recording, storage, and editing equipment).

    Realistically, however, I expect to be working on my improved Daguerreotype process by 2015, because I won't be able to buy film to feed my cameras.
    If a contact print at arm's length is too small to see, you need a bigger camera. :D

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    How capital ($) intensive to make color film?

    Don, i would have to say you are quite knowledgeable in this!

    So, the final cinema product being shipped to movie theaters is positive, or chrome type film, right? If so, that is the high volume portion of the film used after a motion picture has been shot, right? If so, this is a good thing, assuming that final positive film we see in the movie theater shares some characteristics with photographic film. ?

    Even though there is a rush to digital, I can see cinema film still being used by the smaller companies as the cost of digital gear most be huge vs. the photographic world.

  8. #8

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    How capital ($) intensive to make color film?

    Unless you're shooting 8x10 Chromes, or larger, I think that you're wasting your energy even worrying about it. Digital color is already better than the best of conventional color film. (No rotton tomatos, please.)
    Wilhelm (Sarasota)

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    Resident Heretic Bruce Watson's Avatar
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    How capital ($) intensive to make color film?

    Just how capital intensive is the investment for machinery to make color film? Is the machinery that makes color film so unique, that small companies will fear the risks to keep the equipment operational for many years to follow? Or is the process more labor intensive?

    The process as it exists today is extremely capital intensive. It's a highly automated process - all custom machines. There is little labor involved other than loading and unloading the machines.

    My understanding is that they typically run a web that's about 3 meters wide by a couple of kilometers long at a time. In other words, that much Tri-X at a time. Then load another roll of substrate, and run that much TMY. These "master rolls" are then taken to slitting and cutting lines to cut the film to size (rolls, sheets, whatever), and the packaging lines to box it up. Most of this in complete darkness, of course.

    The color films should be just that much worse - so many more layers, all of which have to be uniform within very small tolerances - you don't want refraction errors in your film!

    All that said, they picked these sizes when they designed the machines because of the volume they needed to manufacture at the time - just economics. And, the volume has changed. A lot. For the worse.

    If someone were to design a film coating line today, they would undoubtedly design for smaller runs, both in web width (probably down to about 60 cm from 300 cm) and web length. They would make a more modular line so that they could vary the number of coatings as required - maybe set it up to handle color and B&W on the same line. Probably not, but it would depend on the economics and the projected volumes.

    But no one is going to buy the factories from Kodak and continue to run the same high-volume machines in a low volume market. This Kodak knows, which is part of their problem with film - they can't sell it off.

    And what Jerry said about digital cinema distribution - cine film isn't going to save us. It's been supporting the color film lines for years, but this is now changing too.

    Bruce Watson

  10. #10

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    How capital ($) intensive to make color film?

    his is a post I made a few months ago when this came up. Some of this is already happening. Other parallel developments have also begun in the meantime:

    "Motion picture films may still be shot on film stock—for a while. And, remember, that advances for the motion picture industry and commercial photography have always given the fine art photographer and hobbyist many benefits. Soon, motion pictures will not be distributed by film but in digital format, transmitted to satellite right to the movie theater. It still hurts to see a company of the caliber that Kodak once was and still is suffer in the marketplace."
    They may remian shot on film for a while, but as you point out, distribution (where the huge bulk of film stock from Kodak etc is used) will be digital - but probably not to the theatres. The theatres (and blockbusters) are dying - witness the failure of Cinderella Man this summer as a prime example.

    cf this succinct recent description:

    "The MPAA and the studios have utterly, completely, dropped the ball on this and they do not seem to realize. The reason for their incredibly delayed entry into streaming movies is simply that they are waiting for Digital Rights Management to be acceptable to them. Intel is about to introduce chip-level DRM later this year, which will undoubtedly go into the intel Macs, at which point Steve Jobs (he runs Pixar, remember) will introduce some kind of streaming movie service modeled on and probably integrated with iTunes. This will be combined with a wireless video streaming box which will send HD pictures from your computer to your TV. This is why you should buy Apple stock now, or even better in six months when it tanks because of poor sales of the PowerPC macs.

    The studios are rightly terrified of what this will mean because their stranglehold on distribution will be largely gone. The only person who is ahead of the curve on this is Mark Cuban and his 2929 prodco (google for this and you'll see what I mean).....

    http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=21460472

    either way, big changes are already coming to the movie industry which will certainly lead to significantly less film used in distribution, whatever happens at the production end.

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