Fuji to stop making motion picture film

[Ian Vertovec]

http://www.deadline.com/2012/09/fuji-to-cease-motion-picture-film-manufacturing-by-end-of-the-year/

 

[Tom Gleeson]

If this is true then it is truly bad news although inevitable :-(

 

[Joshua Reis]

Its my understanding that they are only discontinuing a handful of still photography films.

 

[Mike P.]

Edit: if it's only stills film, it's no surprise... I actually thought they already discontinued it.

 

[Martin Stevens]

Not good news............sad.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

The article does specifically talk about motion picture film. Not to say they couldn't be wrong. :huh:

 

[Bob Gundu]

Wait... how am I going to get the film look then? :laugh:

 

[mikeburton]

So kodak and fuji are out? Is there even anyone else? That was a lot faster than the "5-10 years" that Speilberg was anticipating last year.

Edit: if it's only stills film, it's no surprise... I actually thought they already discontinued it.

Where did you get the idea Kodak was out? Kodak has recently signed deals with many Hollywood studios and makes up 80% of the film shot. Kodak's bankruptcy is just a restructuring. Motion picture film both archival print and negative stocks are still very alive

 

[Russ Fill]

Use the film look plug in Bob.:sarcasm:

 

[Mike P.]

Where did you get the idea Kodak was out? Kodak has recently signed deals with many Hollywood studios and makes up 80% of the film shot. Kodak's bankruptcy is just a restructuring. Motion picture film both archival print and negative stocks are still very alive

My mistake... complete brain-fart there... Yeah, I jumped to conclusions with the bankruptcy...

 

[adam mcclelland]

What's film?

 

[Robert Hart]

A sort of reverse evolution perhaps? I understand and please belt me over the ears ( gently ) if I am incorrect, --- that the original 35mm stills cameras were intended to take advantage of then available motion picture film as an existing product not needing special development. 35mm stills film and motion picture film diverged some. So in a sadly ironic way, stills stocks may go back to their roots, being short ends off 35mm manufacturing runs.

Another irony maybe is that original photography consisted of a solid glass plate and a photosensitive emulsion layer added to one surface. The modern digital cinema camera has a silicon wafer, doped on its front surface with incredible complexity.

Who knows what new generation of wonderful human ingenuity and contrivance shall spring forth in the imaging world, that is assuming we don't end up running around wastelands with sticks and clubs trying to eat each other. Eistein had a remarkable intelligence and equiring mind but in propagating nightmares he has a bit to answer for.

Sad that film is going but maybe there is some good in it if the human health risks in making, using and processing it are eliminated and not replaced with higher orders of hazard in making digital cinema devices and disposing of them when they wear out.

 

[Keith Walters]

A sort of reverse evolution perhaps? I understand and please belt me over the ears ( gently ) if I am incorrect, --- that the original 35mm stills cameras were intended to take advantage of then available motion picture film as an existing product not needing special development. 35mm stills film and motion picture film diverged some. .

35mm stills cameras were originally built for doing quick on-set lighting tests. Doing those with a movie camera inevitably involved several feet of film per test. That made them tricky to handle and process since you had to work out which frames were supposed to have the correct exposure and it also added up to quite a lot of film over the course of a day. Using stills meant you only had to process and print short lengths of film at a time, and you knew exactly which frame was the correct one.

Early commercial 35mm cameras specifically designed for stills photography used standard cinema film, and operators had to load their own cartridges. Later, still-specific films and processes were developed, which gave better picture quality, but required more care with maintenance of the chemical baths. Movie film chemistry is aimed more at high-speed bulk processing, and so the film formulation is designed to be more tolerant of chemical imbalances in the processing chemicals, but at the expense of image quality.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Damn, Ian beat me to it! My apologies for the other thread in the Cinematography section.

It is a sad day, though.

 

[Peter Moretti]

Yay, film is dead! Isn't this fucking awesome!!?

The world is a much better place now. Who gives a shit about Obama killing Bin Laden, we killed film. What an evil nemesis film was.