Filmmakers & Studios Join Forces to Ensure Kodak Continues Producing Film

This is great. I'd really like to shoot on film before it goes away forever. I'm not afraid of a light meter (I shoot stills on film all the time) and it just seems like part of my filmmaking education is missing without the experience.

Rather than killing it. Make it super affordable. Make it compete with today's 4k cameras. While there's no other way around the workflow, I'll just make sure it's convenient for the filmmaker. It's just ridiculous how pricey it is..buying film, renting a film camera, transferring it to digital, and etc. NLEs and Camera are almost 1/4 of the price of what they use to be 5 years back. Why not film?

is nice, but the reel film days are numbered. It is like a cult they will keep on using, just because only A FEW CAN AFFORT TO SHOOT WITH FILM. NORMAL PEOPLE DON'T EVEN SEE THE DIFFERENCE; ONLY SOME
A GOOD DIGITAL RIG IS JUST AS GOOD PERHAPS EVEN BETTER IS SOME RESPECTS. iTS LIKE THE DAYS OF THE TUBE AMPLIFIER AN THE TRANSISTOR; WHAT ARE WE ALL USING TODAY?

Now it's official, grandpa Kodak is on life support. Angels are waiting for him at the doorsteps.

The economics are not what they were. I use 16mm film 90% of the time. I can buy a really good camera for the equivalent of $100, get the stock I need, make a 30 minute film, get it processed, edited, scanned to digital and dubbed if I want to, or buy a Moviscope editor (my last one cost $15) and edit it, for less than the cost of the body of a Canon 5d Mk iii. Don't bother telling me I'm mad. I do it because I prefer it. Also, if something goes wrong with a Blackmagic on a shoot, there is probably nothing whatsoever you can do to fix it yourself. You shoot in a different way, you have to plan thoroughly, but the discipline is good for you. I for one am glad that they continue to make film. When they stop making it I will use digital, but while I can I will always use film.

if they wanna survive they should start making cheap (under 3k) fully electronic film cameras marketed towards the new digital crowd, and make the film stock cheaper (make it in china) and not charge stupidly high prices for processing and telecine costs. give people an affordable and sensible option to shoot film, and not just because of "nostalgia" or because some old ass hollywood director shoots with it. because right now, you can easily make RED footage look like film if not better than, with vintage lenses and filtration and a good colorist

It's true that film was/is an excellent recording medium but it has had it's time. It's has so many disadvantages (footage lost because bad development, accidental exposure, mechanical damage, etc) compared to digital recording which isn't better but certainly not worse than film. It's more than 120 years old, you can't say it's too soon. I'm beginning to wonder how film is an artistic choice? Is it the grain, you can simulate that. Is it the resolution? A 6K dragon can match that. It's like saying 'using diskettes is an artistic choice, CD's are too clean and convient'. It's just a medium and indeed most people don't see the difference. They can keep film around if they really, really want too for purists/elitetist like Nolan and Tarantino but for most people digital seems like a very logical and natural technological evolution. In history there are always people who love to keep the things they are for no reason than 'tradition' for lack of a better term.

The Alexa and the Red killed film collectively. The Alexa produces color so close to film (some say better) and it has essentially the latitude, the highlight roll off and similar skin tone quality to that of film that not just your average person can't tell the difference but experts in the field get stumped sometimes. This reminds me of Spielberg still cutting on a flatbed, does he do it because it's faster...no. Does he do it because it makes his post pipeline more efficient...no. Why does he do it, out of tradition...that's it. Does it work, obviously but is it as efficient as NLE's not by a long shot. Digital has come so far, so fast that in many ways it even bests film stocks on some fronts (even Nolan used the phantom flex on Inception because he can't shoot frame rates that high on film). Digital is in its infancy and the competition is so steep that each company is trying to out do each other. Even though Kodak will carry on, they most likely won't have the revenue for R and D, so film most likely has reached a pinnacle of quality and digital is just getting started. This announcement might as well be called Film is now on life support for the next few years because demand will continue to dwindle with future advancements.

in L.A. KODAK FILM is still the word when it comes to stunning unsurpassed image quality according to famous Cinematographers…and Directors…in advertising it is used heavily…according to post houses…and for someone in school it's the best way to make your show reel stand out

digital (video) companies honor Kodak by spending billions trying to emulate film and they still can't match the beauty and texture of Kodak..

if you know how to plan your shots..it's also cheaper than renting out an alexa

The free market has spoken. The small market that can afford it have decided to fund it themselves to keep it alive and I'm glad they are. I hope it stays an option for decades to come!

Film as a boutique format for a select few who can afford to subsidize it is a great idea. It should not be completely eliminated if possible.

film is primairy telling a story with pictures. if the pictures are nice it could contribute to the story, but is the story is bad and the pictures have great dynamic ranges, the movie sucks. it get the other award, forgot how they call it. rashberry or somethings like that. A very popular movie like avatar, was it a digital production or not

Kodak should have jumped into the digital game. This arrangement won't last long. Film is dead.

There will be enough film for the niche oriented upper crest directors like Spielberg, Nolan, and Tarantino. But, that will be it. If Kodak doesn't get involved in the digital era -- it's over for them.

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/18/entertainment/la-et-ct-paramount...

From David Mullen, ASC:

"Generally there is a principle that you should sample an image at a higher resolution than it contains. A 4K scan barely allows this; generally 35mm film seems to resolve around 3K in detail, which means it is best to scan it at 4K to 6K to avoid aliasing. Essentially you want to oversample it. Since the ARRISCANNER can do 6K, a lot of archival work is now done starting with 6K scans, which are then downsampled to 4K.

A number of D.I.'s involve a 4K scan that is downsampled to 2K for the rest of the work. The idea here is that even though the finished master is in 2K, a 4K scan insures that every bit of grain in the original is faithfully reproduced.

There was a even bigger reason to finish at 4K if one was going to film-out the results because there is some sharpness loss, especially if you were recording a 4K dupe negative but then striking an IP and then multiple IN's to make mass release prints, so if you had started with a 2K film-out and then went through multiple generations to release print, the results would be a bit softer (unfortunately a lot of movies did it this way.) But now most movies are released in a 2K DCP so the quality doesn't really drop further down.

And some studios (Warner Bros. mainly, perhaps Sony) are pushing more for a 4K finish because they want movies that went through a D.I. archived at 4K and there are plans for 4K distribution in the future.

Most D.I. facilities can work at 4K, it's just that it is 4X the data to handle, and they charge more for dealing with it. The other limitation has been that visual efx companies are adverse to doing the work at 4K, particularly if the movie is 3D because that's already 2X the work."

The word 'bailout' comes to mind.

I wonder how many of these great film aficionados will avoid the scan and digital intermediate process, and I wonder how many can insist on projecting film, when theatres all over the world have rapidly gone digital.

The speed at which digital cameras have evolved makes me think this is one last gasp attempt at assuaging a romantic obsession, postponing its death, or prolonging an indulgence not many can afford these days.

Commercially, celluloid acquisition won't make any more sense going into the future, but there are clearly some film makers who can operate without those constraints.

If I had this kind of clout, I'd be investing in new age companies that are doing amazing things in the digital domain, not chasing this notion of reviving film.

Film was great, but it's over. The big names you see trying to keep it alive are all from the old guard of Hollywood. It will eventually die. It's unfortunate, but unlike other legacy mediums, film requires a lot of expensive technology to keep it alive. It's also not ecologically friendly.

I would love to see film survive as a fine art medium, but I don't think it's going to happen.

I want to add that the digital age really brought not only photography - with its smartphones - but the cinematography down to the masses. The fact that one can take a $500 camera (BMPC), add a sub-$500 lens (plenty of MFT primes) with some inexpensive media and them shoot, edit and deliver breath taking footage will create a lot more Tarantinos and Spielbergs that currently exist.

Celluloid? Really? I'm not even in the business, but I know that celluloid hasn't been used for manufacturing film since the Fifties. It is highly flammable, and most film is now made with an acetate substrate.

This is fantastic, because let's be honest, if film ceased to be produced right now, little-to-none of the moviegoers would likely notice. So even if this is a minimalist extension to film's lifespan, it's far better than the alternative.

I have to wonder whether small guage film capture will increase in relevance as digital moves forward.
Higher res scans of 8mm, S8mm or 16mm will mean a more transparent snapshot of the film, highlighting
it's desirable limitations, while not adding its own.

Much like recording through a Studer 2" machine into 96kz Pro Tools, the digital is so transparent, it just
"gets out of the way.."

Pretty well all the Kodak digital (still) cameras I've used were poorly designed. Bad ergonomics mostly. Almost like they just threw it together and slapped their name on it thinking their brand name would make it sell on that alone.
If they could get some good industrial designers making something that went a step beyond anything else then they might have something to sell. Still cameras are still nifty but smart phones have taken over most of the snapshot market. Now it would be cinema and action cameras and they've have to have something unique and better than anything else. I don't know if they're that kind of company to think that way though.

The last gasping breath of a dying medium. Just let it die with some dignity.

I did some web search today and, while some of the scientific papers went way above my head, I was able to figure out that a digital sensor should be able to soon surpass the film not only on resolution (there are 16K, aka 133 megapixel, sensors out there already) but on the dynamic range as well. Some of the HDR capabilities come from new materials (purely organic sensors, graphene + metal sandwiches) and some from the better signal processing (superior forms of the exposure bracketing) . The argument at that point will surely become, "Sure, digital is better on specs but I still happen to like analog/film more". But then the studios will not be subsidizing Kodak - who helped create the digital revolution but then completely fumbled its foray into the market - and it will be left to wither and die.

Film is dying because producers can't tell the difference, or they don't think the difference is worth paying for. They also love sitting in front of a beautiful HD monitor in video village and I can't blame them.

Many DP's would love to shoot film but there are so many issues that it can come with now. Crazy to think there is only one lab left in LA and one in NYC.

Film is beautiful and gorgeous and blah blah blah, but I hope Kodak gets buried without their Luddite patrons.

I'm starting to believe the whole shooting on film thing is about exclusivity and quasi elitism. A Bugatti and a souped up old muscle car can go super fast, butPeople buy Bugatti's cause it's rare and expensive. Shooting on film especialy Panavision anamorphic or IMAX are so few available rentals only the top tier in budget and reputation filmmakers can have access to them. I think the idea of eglatarian cinema of equal quality being in the hands of independents and god forbid eventualy the general public bothers some.

Forgot to add. There is a difference between elitism and professionalism. The democratization of camera tech I think is great, but really, if everybody had an IMAX quality camcorder tomorrow. if you think about it, you'd still have kids and families shooting shaky hand held wobbly home video. The camera has in the end almost nothing to do with the quality of a film. The top writer, actors, crews and studio equipment make for a top quality movie people will pay to see first run in a cinema in the future even if their webcam got 16K res. In my own opinion, 35mm in 4k digital projection doesn't look as clear as 4k native digital. Directors shooting film ought to do 5 pref 65mm, I actualy think is the best current format.

To this day I still haven't seen anything from the digital world that would be "better" than analog. Yes on paper the dynamic range, color sensitivity and etc on digital can have greater values but when you look at the picture you immediately start noticing the magic of analog. I'd say analog is still 30% better than Alexa - if the next Alexa gets to 100% where Analog is, I say let the analog film die.. but until then.. please let it live.

I think what's probably going to kill film is not digital cameras, but cheap anamorphic lenses. There is a limited expensive availability of cine scope lenses, filmed in Panavision was sometiing reserved for a few tentpoles and prestige movies. There are lots of anamorphic adapters and even new lower cost cine glass available. When lots of people can shoot scope, I think many directors will switch because that look wont be special anymore.