Can color film survive the rise of digital projection?

<p>There is still billions of feet of color film being manufactured each year but the vast majority of it is being produced for theatrical projection. It won't be too too long until most theaters have converted to digital projection. The projectors are dropping in price, a movie finished in 4K+ digital can be a wonderful looking thing (done right) and the industry wants it for ease of distribution.<br>

<br /> I don't know enough about the manufacturing of color film but I suspect it is a highly complex process in comparison to manufacturing a piece of B&W film. Is it easy enough to manufacture, that a company could do it producing a tiny fraction of the amount as is being produced today?<br>

<br /> Anyone out there know enough about manufacturing color film to say whether it is realistic to do on a small scale? I suspect yes but I also suspect a price more like 30 to 40 dollars per roll by the time you pay for film and processing.</p>

<p> </p>

The timing is unknown, but the trend is unstoppable.

 

My guess is that both color and B&W films will be with us for another 10 years.

 

It will depend mostly on the financial health of Kodak and Fuji.

 

The price will go up, maybe not quite to the level you suggest.

 

All of the above is just guesswork, of course.

<p>Big companies like Fuji and Kodak will give up on film when they think they can make more money spending their film budget on other things. Over time, film will become a smaller niche occupied by smaller companies like Ilford and Adox (though I'm not sure Adox actually makes film -- who's their supplier?) who aren't in a position to produce their own digital cameras. They'll stay with it as long as they can remain solvent doing so. As long as there is enough of a market to support a few small film manufacturers, film will still be around, though eventually you'll have to have your own darkroom or have your films processed by mail order due to the lack of local commercial labs.</p>

<p>There are one or two small companies that make color film, but to the best of my knowledge do not sell to the motion picture industry. So if they can survive by not relying on motion pictures, one would think that Kodak, with their superior print film technology, can survive. Or put in another way....their film will survive. If not made by them, then by some spin-out or other company that buys the technology. There intellectual property is just too valuable to go away. Provided there are enough buyers, some entity will make Kodak-like color print film. Same probably applies to Fujichrome.<br>

My two cents worth.</p>

<p>This question has been beaten around the internet for more than ten years and has been beaten to death.</p>

<p>Last time I checked (today) 127 rollfilm was still being made and sold.</p>

<p>If the demand for 35mm C41 color film drops by 99.9 percent, millions of rolls will still be made and used annually. I love digital and use it it regularly but there are still people using film, and even cyanotype, daguerre, and tintype. Polaroid has even been brought back from death. Don't make long term predictions based on short term fears.</p>

<p>Kodak has very high capital expenses, and rather ruinously high property taxes in Rochester, New York. The drop in "Eastman Color Print" film sales is hitting them very hard, it's the backbone of their operation (say 70-90% of production). It covers their fixed costs, if that goes away, their business model crumbles.<br>

(When Kodak shuts a facility, they don't just lock the doors. They scrap the equipment, tear down the building, and reduce it to a fenced vacant lot. Anything to stop paying those property taxes. Kodak Park is now full of vacant lots.)</p>

I don't know how big a threat digital projection is to color film in general or even slide film. I stopped projecting slides about 20 years ago (although I still have the projector, screen, and magazines) because I worried about the effects of heat on the film and I realized none of my friends or family liked being herded into a stuffy room to look at slides. I have bought several hand held slide viewers on Ebay and passing them around while I load, unload, and reload them allows each viewer to spend as much or as little time as they wish looking at them in a well lit room, out on the porch, or outdoors on the patio and is a more pleasant experience for everyone. IMHO. Similarly, I have no desire to digitally project images.

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<p>Kodak has very high capital expenses, and rather ruinously high property taxes in Rochester, New York. The drop in "Eastman Color Print" film sales is hitting them very hard, it's the backbone of their operation (say 70-90% of production). It covers their fixed costs, if that goes away, their business model crumbles.<br /> (When Kodak shuts a facility, they don't just lock the doors. They scrap the equipment, tear down the building, and reduce it to a fenced vacant lot. Anything to stop paying those property taxes. Kodak Park is now full of vacant lots.)</p>

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<p>That's speculation based on wild imagination. Film sales have actually stabilised recently, the first time they haven't dropped in over a decade. It's from last year, but <a href="http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/q-and-a/1735570/kodak-there-real-resurgence-film">this</a> still makes interesting reading. Many big name movies are still shot on 35mm film and ALL movies are still archived to film and often distributed on film. I would bet on still being able to buy rolls of 35mm in 50 years. When photography was first invented the world thought drawing and painting would end.</p>

<p>The dynamic range of film is still the last big hurdle digital needs to conquer and is another reason why it's preferred for movies. Here's another interesting <a href="http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion/Products/Customer_Testimonials/Wally_Pfister/index.htm">article</a>. The archival properties of digital are appalling. Left untouched for over 20 years, most digital stoarge options (HDD, CD, DVD, TAPE, CHIP) are toast. Throw a box of negatives in your attic and they'll most likely still be perfectly useable in 100 years time. Just imagine trying to extract data from a few of those old 5.25" floppy disks from the 1980's... you just know that most will be completely corrupt.</p>

<p>As Michael Linn says, even if film sales drop 99%, some small company in India will still be churning out millions of rolls of 35mm every year. China's already at it with their Shanghai brand etc.</p>

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<p> It won't be too too long until most theaters have converted to digital projection. </p>

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<p>Perhaps in the US where (I believe) the cinemas are owned by big corporations. Here in the UK and probably the rest of Europe, cinemas are owned privately or by smaller companies who are not so willing to pay huge sums for digital projectors which might be obsolete in a few years when instead, they could carry on using their optical projectors at no extra cost.</p>

<p>I think movie theater projection from film and the use of film in still photogrpahy are two very different markets from a business perspective. The two types of film might come out of the same Kodak factory but are different emulsions, different processes, sold in different quantities (massive sales of 2000-foot rolls to a handful of labs vs lots of relatively small sales of small-size rolls to lots of stores and mail-order camera shops), etc. But I think it's safe to say film use in theaters is going to way of film use in TV news and film use in newspaper photography. In other words, it's just a matter of time. My grandfather ran movie theaters all his life and some theaters still use 50-year-old-plus 35mm projectors (with obviously some extensive modifications over the years). But new installations are going mostly digital. One major supplier has a feature on its web site about a new 24-screen theater in Texas that is totally digital from the box office to the projection booth. The same central computer system not only supplies digital files to the digital projectors but counts ticket and concession stand sales, turns the lights on and off and the heat up and down, etc.</p>

<p><strong>Smooth Carrots</strong> nailed this one. Long after Fuji and Kodak have crashed (and I personally dont think they will) China will still be cranking out billions of rolls of film.</p>

<p>If you want to know about 35mm film viability just look at the prices of the devices that use them. Cameras that are 20 to 50 years old are commanding anywhere from healthy to ridiculous prices on auction sites and craiglist. And its not just collectors...people are using these cameras. Just look at the film groups recently on flickr. As an amateur photographer I started using digital several years back and the went on a hiatus because I disliked the digital workflow. Just this last February I picked up an old Mamiya Sekor DTL1000 and it rejuvinated my photography. Im now shooting old Minoltas and Canon FD's and loving every minute of it.</p>

<p>Film est mort. Viva la Film.</p>

<p>When was the last time major new advances were made in film technology, or the cameras that use it? One of the reasons I feel the movie industry still uses it is because digital still looks kind of "flat" (personal opinion), but that too will probably change in time. Most, if not all R&D dollars are being spent on the digital process.<br>

I grew up on film and shot it extensively, and cringed everytime I dropped off 25 or so rolls of Kodachrome for processing. Let's face it, the modern digital range blows it away as does the ease of conversion from capture to image. No more internegs and all of the associated headaches, increases in contrast etc when going from slide to prints.<br>

Sure, managing workflow can be a headache-but that's primarily due to the ability to shoot literally thousands of images vs what would've been a few hundred in film. It will be around for as long as companies can remain profitable manufacturing the chemistry, and no longer.</p>

<p>No one knows what will be in use 20 years from now, I wouldn't be surprised if digital as we know it transforms drastically, maybe even to the point we won't consider it the same. </p>

<p>Randall, Im glad you brought that up. I may post something soon in Classic Manual Cameras about this. I really believe that we will shortly(next couple of years) see a few new models of film cameras from one or more of the major manufacturers. They cant possibly be unaware of the recent continued interest in film and the old cameras that use them. The new Fuji X100 is a perfect example of a manufacturer that understands market trends and designs a product to fit. Its a metal bodied digital rangefinder (sorta) with an honest to god <em>aperture ring</em>. OMG, its about time. Somebody finally moved away from the traditional plastic craptastic bodies and menu driven buttons to bring us a slighty more traditional body design. This really matters to some people, myself included. Part of the allure for photography for me is using a wonderful tool to achieve my art.</p>

<p>Can you imagine if Canon would bring out a modern version for the F-1? A simple metal bodied 35mm camera with modern matrix metering then introduce a new line of autofocus lenses with aperture rings like back in the day. Hell, maybe even have some cheaper manual focus primes available. They wouldnt have to be metal bodies lenses either, they could design them to plastic FD specs to keep the cost down. My old FDn lenses still feel great to this day. Im sure you could sell a camera like this for close to the price of a new Rebel. Or they could control cost even more and go with a A-1 Mk II with a polycarb body but electroplated like the original A-1. Feels like metal to me.</p>

<p>Nikon could do this, Pentax could do this. I fully expect Fuji to do something like this soon. A revolution in film photography could spring from this when consumers see a retro classic body with modern specs sitting in a sea of 'me-to' digital cameras. Why pay so much for a full frame digital when you can have the original full frame camera? Would it be for everyone? No. But it would be for plenty of enough people to sell well.</p>

<p>Here's hoping.</p>

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<p>There is still billions of feet of color film being manufactured each year but the vast majority of it is being produced for theatrical projection. It won't be too too long until most theaters have converted to digital projection.</p>

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<p>In terms of numbers of showings and in terms of revenues, digital passed the half way point last year. So, digital has already eaten half the distribution business. In terms of total number of screens world wide, it was supposed to have hit the half way point in April, but the DCI hasn't released the latest figures yet.</p>

<p>I'm betting 100%, worldwide, by late 2013. AMC, the largest theater chain in the US, has said that they're going to be 100% digital by May, 2012. Marcus Theaters (the number 6 chain) made a similar announcement.</p>

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<p>Perhaps in the US where (I believe) the cinemas are owned by big corporations. Here in the UK and probably the rest of Europe, cinemas are owned privately or by smaller companies who are not so willing to pay huge sums for digital projectors</p>

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<p>Actually, you have a higher rate of conversion over there. Europe is already up over half. Announcements about yet another chain committing to be 100% digital within a year are common...<br>

http://dcinematoday.com/dc/pr.aspx?newsID=2406</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>I don't know enough about the manufacturing of color film but I suspect it is a highly complex process in comparison to manufacturing a piece of B&W film. Is it easy enough to manufacture, that a company could do it producing a tiny fraction of the amount as is being produced today?<br /> <br /> Anyone out there know enough about manufacturing color film to say whether it is realistic to do on a small scale?</p>

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<p>That depends on what sort of color film you want. I ran some projections on this a while back.</p>

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<p>The latest technology, like the new Ektar, will die in about 2 years, with the death of film cinema.<br>

The t-grain B&W and color films should die in about 5 years.<br>

Color emulsions that look like something from 20-30 years ago are sustainable in relatively small plants, maybe 50 people, and that level of quality will not sustain a market past 10 years.<br>

Older style B&W emulsions can be made by companies as small as 1-4 people, and the market is sustainable indefinitely.</p>

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<p>There's my best shot at a timeline...</p>

<p>okay, think about this...<br>

I have seen plastic kit cameras (ala. Gakkenflex) where you build your own machine from pre-molded parts.</p>

<p>I have also seen demonstrations of 3-D printers that can create wrenches from a scan.</p>

<p>Now, combine those thoughts to imagine creating new, sophisticated film cameras from our own designs or downloadable file shares. Printing a camera!</p>

<p>Pretty soon we will be able to build our own custom film cameras either one-off or in the millions. These cameras (like today's Holga/Diana trends) will also create more demand for photographic films.</p>

<p>If the big guys bail on film completely that will open opportunities for small boutique manufacturers to produce new films. I imagine we might see even more innovation from these new small players due to their flexibility.</p>

<p>Don't count out film just yet. The best may be yet to come.</p>

 

<p>I don't have a crystal ball...but there are only 2 labs in the US that still make theatrical motion picture prints. I believe motion picture film's days are coming to an end in the next few years.<br>

I do suspect that color print film will become increasingly difficult to buy and I'm not sure anyone will take up manufacturing it for the niche "art photographers" market. B&W is another thing though as it's easy to process at home. When the commercial color labs are almost all gone, that will be the end of color film I would guess.<br>

Also, look how difficult it is to buy a film scanner today. With no easy way to digitize film, it will also disappear from still photography usage.</p>

 

 

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<p>Also, look how difficult it is to buy a film scanner today. With no easy way to digitize film, it will also disappear from still photography usage.</p>

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<p><a name="pagebottom"></a></p>

<p>Some of us don't need scanners and computers to print from our negatives.</p>

<p>Sorry, hadn't realized that I screwed up the formatting. I think I hit "block quote" instead of "bullet list". It should look like this...</p>

<ul>

<li>The latest technology, like the new Ektar, will die in about 2 years, with the death of film cinema.</li>

<li>The t-grain B&W and color films should die in about 5 years.</li>

<li>Color emulsions that look like something from 20-30 years ago are sustainable in relatively small plants, maybe 50 people, and that level of quality will not sustain a market past 10 years.</li>

<li>Older style B&W emulsions can be made by companies as small as 1-4 people, and the market is sustainable indefinitely.</li>

</ul>

<p>My dear Curtis :)</p>

<p>Please see: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cinematographer-roger-deakins-switching-film-178661</p>

 

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<p>No motion picture worth it's weight is going to shoot with the RED camera or<br />the Arri Alexa. These cameras are good for commercials and tv shows. thats<br />about it.</p>

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<p>You know, <em><strong>all</strong></em> the 3d films (shot in 3d, not converted) shoot digitally. And that's most of the biggest budgeted movies being made today. Pirates of the Caribbean was shot with RED one MX cameras. Martin Scorsese's new movie, Arri Alexa.</p>

<p>I'm only pointing out the top guys here because I know you won't believe me from my personal experience anyway...but here goes :)</p>

<p>This past year I color graded a movie I shot with the RED mx camera (for those who don't know, "color grading" is Photoshop for movies) and right after that, a movie shot on 35mm film in Anamorphic format. There was no comparison in image quality. The Red camera made a far better image, much more detail and almost no grain/noise. And I'm not the biggest fan of this camera colorwise, but it was really no contest.</p>

<p>You know I wanted to shoot my next project on the Alexa this summer, but we can't. They are in such great demand, they're very hard to get.</p>

<p>And how many hollywood movies or tv use 65mm or IMAX film for even part of the project? Maybe less than 1/10 percent. Maybe 1 of 5000 projects.</p>

<p>And don't discount tv shows as part of the market. 5 years ago almost all tv (episodic, not American Idol type shows) was shot with 35mm or 16mm film in the US. Now, maybe none. And that was a big market for film and film cameras.<br>

I've got an Arri 35BL camera in the garage. You're welcome to make me an offer! Otherwise it's going into my camera museum...</p>

<p>Digital movies look fake and hurt my eyes.<br>

That's one reason I seldom go to the movies anymore. My wife, Jane, and I used to see 50 to 100 movies in the cinema a year and now less than 5.<br>

I also get severe headaches from digital/electronic music and prefer to listen to acoustic or electrified "analog" instruments. Natural organic arts for me.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>If the demand for 35mm C41 color film drops by 99.9 percent, millions of rolls will still be made and used annually.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Not quite. If demand drops by 99.9 percent from the peak, then there will be less than 2 million rolls of C-41 film used each year. </p>

<p>This...<br>

http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion/Products/Customer_Testimonials/Wally_Pfister/index.htm</p>

<p>Stuart, you do realize that your video is an advertisement from Kodak? Anyway, I'll take Roger over Wally on this one :)</p>

<p>I agree with a lot of what you estimate Joseph.....but color negative film vanishing from the majors in 2 years....not a chance!</p>