Guest Posted January 11, 2016 Share #61 Posted January 11, 2016 Advertisement (gone after registration) I think questioning the viability of a digital hybrid use of Super8 has very little to nothing to do with the easthetic appreciation of film, nor with the sway of the tastes of the in-crowd. As it is, I agree with Alan and others that this concept appears to be less than viable. Now if they had tried to translate the present-day interest in 35 and 70 movie film into a 16 mm film system, that might have been another matter. Actually Jaapv as well as a small resurgence in major motion picture films being shot once again on film, 70mm as well as 35/s35 formats, there's also an awakening of interest in S16 film once again being used for theatrical film release. In the recent past to name a couple there was The Black Swan and The Hurt Locker, both shot S16, could you tell? I bet not. An internet search will find many more, and more recent too. It's not just the "look" of film that brings movie makers to use it, it's a weird filming discipline that goes with shooting on film that many directors and filmmakers like and appreciate. Hard to explain, you have to be there, or have been there in the days when everything was shot on film to know. I've never let go of my Aaton S16 equipment. still use and appreciate it and I for one am very happy that Kodak is beginning to see some financial daylight now and that there's more directors and cinematographers who are bucking the digital trend, at least sometimes anyway. This new Kodak 8mm camera? Hmmmm….Well that's another kettle of fish. I hope they don't sink too much re-discovered treasure into it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 11, 2016 Posted January 11, 2016 Hi Guest, Take a look here New Kodak Super8. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Michael Hiles Posted January 11, 2016 Share #62 Posted January 11, 2016 Like many people,I have many feet of 8mm home movies dating back to my childhood, with many memories included. I also have a projector with a burned out bulb and no prospect of getting a new one (at least my on line research results in nothing). So I have images on a technology that is not only out of date - it is apparently unreadable in the usual way at least by me. Like much older information on obsolete digital formats and platforms. I would be interested in a reasonable cost option to have my old films digitized. Digital formats are likely less permanent than film, but at least they can usually be copied and converted occasionally to an up-to-date format. But I don't want to start an argument. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 11, 2016 Share #63 Posted January 11, 2016 I found when one googles that there are plenty of services that will scan film (nearly all formats)to DVD. Prices range from 50 to 90 Eurocent/minute, quite reasonable, I think. If I read correctly Kodak is not offering such a service. What they are offering is : Use their new cassettes in the new camera they are selling, send it in and have the (negative!!) film digitized and uploaded into the cloud for download and processing, the film being returned as archival medium. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AAK Posted January 11, 2016 Share #64 Posted January 11, 2016 It seems like a strange venture to relaunch an 8 mm film system (albeit coupled with digital), but I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a cult thing. As someone who shoots film myself, I'm happy with anything that helps continue the manufacture of film. My sense is that there is a growing interest in film, but I haven't seen hard evidence to support that statement. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted January 11, 2016 Share #65 Posted January 11, 2016 Once upon a time Kodak went to market with a hybrid film/digital still camera... Advantix Preview. So considering that success I can't see why this hybrid video camera took so long. Will this company ever learn from its mistakes? Yes it looks like Kodak is offering a processing and scan service but it is not clear if Kodak will be running that service itself or if another party will do it for them. Likewise we really don't know if this new camera is developed by Kodak or part of a licensing/subcontracting deal. Kodak's name is licensed for various products by other companies. Kodak remains in the business of making and selling motion picture film. Kodak only manufactures still film on demand and does not market it. Whatever still film is produced and sold is up to Kodak Alaris... a separate company. Here is Etrade's overview description of Kodak. "Eastman Kodak Company is a technology company focused on imaging for business. The company operates in seven segments: Print Systems, Enterprise Inkjet Systems, Micro 3D Printing and Packaging, Software and Solutions, Consumer and Film, Intellectual Property Solutions and Eastman Business Park. The Print Systems segment comprises of Prepress Solutions and Electrophotographic Printing Solutions. The Enterprise Inkjet Systems segment includes commercial inkjet printing solutions and digital front-end controllers. Micro 3D Printing and Packaging segment includes Packaging and Functional Printing. Software and Solutions segment comprises of Kodak Technology Solutions. Consumer and Film segment includes Consumer Inkjet, Entertainment Imaging and Commercial Films, and Brand Licensing. Intellectual Property Solutions segment includes licensing and research and development activities not directly related to the other segments." S&P rates Kodak as "Strong Sell" with negative ratings for valuation, quality, growth, and price momentum. Shares are around $10 from a high of around $33 two years ago. And it lost $3.27 per share for the 12 months leading up to Sept 2015. The company is still downsizing its work force and the CEO (Jeff Clarke Earned $4.9M from Kodak in 2014 and lives in California not Rochester) told the employees he does not see an end in sight for the layoffs. Most of the stock is held by private investment firms that took over the company after its bankruptcy. Maybe they are patient and will keep covering the losses hoping that the company can turn things around. I read (NY Times) that Kodak's film sales declined 96% since 2007 and I don't know what percentage of Kodak's income is now derived from film but I think it is pretty low. E.g. Kodak is not banking on film for its future but what it is banking on has not paid off so far. So if film usage has stopped declining and Kodak's film manufacturing facility can be run profitably, Kodak film might have a future (sold off?) despite whatever else may be in store for the Kodak company. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted January 11, 2016 Share #66 Posted January 11, 2016 What they are offering is : Use their new cassettes in the new camera they are selling, send it in and have the (negative!!) film digitized and uploaded into the cloud for download and processing, the film being returned as archival medium. I'm not sure why you keep banging on about the fact that the film is a negative film? 'Real' motion picture film (the stuff that goes in the cameras rather than stuff used as projection prints) is negative film and if the target market for the new venture is the film student market (rather than the old 1950s amateur dabbler shooting home movies for home projection) it makes sense for the film to be a negative stock. As does the assumption that the film footage will need to be digitised (which is the way films have been edited for decades). If you think few people still use their Super 8 cameras, even fewer will be in a position to home project these films so the scanning service is essential in this day and age. You only have to look at the reaction in the forum linked to above to see how excited a number of people are with this new camera and service. I can easily imagine that quite a number of social and wedding videographers and photographers will also be looking at this development to see how they might integrate a bit of super 8 footage into their coverage. Complaining about the image quality (and comparing it to digital video) is IMO to entirely miss the point. There will be a whole bunch of talented film makers (and not all necessarily young) licking their lips at the prospect of a convenient film-to-scan package that they will be able to easily do some creative things with. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 11, 2016 Share #67 Posted January 11, 2016 Advertisement (gone after registration) Possibly - time will tell. I certainly hope so - if only for Kodak's sake.I just mentioned negative film here because I suppose your family movies are on positive film... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted January 11, 2016 Share #68 Posted January 11, 2016 There will be a whole bunch of talented film makers (and not all necessarily young) licking their lips at the prospect of a convenient film-to-scan package that they will be able to easily do some creative things with. Super 8 film scanning and digital editing has been around for some time. I looked on Youtube for "Super 8 Student Films" and looked at a few. I didn't see anything to get excited about. Are there good examples anywhere? Meanwhile, the DJI Osmo is one of the latest stabilized video cameras. It costs about $650 and can do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZCNJLp55ss You can also mount the more expensive M4/3rds X5 and X5R cameras on the stabilized handle which have interchangeable lenses and raw (X5R) 4K video. These are going to be extremely popular with amateurs and pros including social and wedding photographers. Why didn't Kodak come up with things like this? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted January 11, 2016 Share #69 Posted January 11, 2016 I looked on Youtube for "Super 8 Student Films" and looked at a few. I didn't see anything to get excited about. Are there good examples anywhere? I don't know and don't really care. And neither should you. Leave it to those who are interested in the medium. Meanwhile, the DJI Osmo is one of the latest video cameras. It costs about $550 and can do this: So, what of it? You'll be telling me next that your 5DS is better than Tri-X. Why not give it a rest and see how things pan out? What's it to you what other people (including those working at Kodak) are up to? You made your point much earlier in the thread, there is no need to keep reiterating it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted January 11, 2016 Share #70 Posted January 11, 2016 I don't know and don't really care. And neither should you. Leave it to those who are interested in the medium. OK, we'll await the future footage in Super 8. (Which has been around for 50 years incidentally.) Well I think it would be great to see some nice films shot on Super 8 if we expect to have a reasonable discussion about the viability of the format and camera technology. My point with Kodak is that various companies have been innovative in the photography field the past 10 years or so. DJI, GoPro, Lomo, Fuji instant, others. Even a nearly failing Leica has found ways to wisely use investments, partner up and re-invent itself in a great way. But Kodak has not been able to. They made a great start years ago with the DCS 460 and others then seemed to lose their way or nerve. I have no idea what a 5DS and Tri-X have to do with this. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasticman Posted January 11, 2016 Share #71 Posted January 11, 2016 I read (NY Times) that Kodak's film sales declined 96% since 2007 and I don't know what percentage of Kodak's income is now derived from film but I think it is pretty low. E.g. Kodak is not banking on film for its future but what it is banking on has not paid off so far. So if film usage has stopped declining and Kodak's film manufacturing facility can be run profitably, Kodak film might have a future (sold off?) despite whatever else may be in store for the Kodak company. You just never give up do you? I still don't understand why you have to bang on and on and on endlessly with this sort of thing - which has marginal relevance to the thread topic - in every single thread about Kodak for the last few years? And amazingly the mods don't care! I really can't fathom what drives your apparent obsession? edit: just noticed you're busy running Kodak down in another thread at the same time as this one! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted January 11, 2016 Share #72 Posted January 11, 2016 The market place will settle this whole thing. I am not optimistic, but have I ever been? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkP Posted January 11, 2016 Share #73 Posted January 11, 2016 The advantage of being a pessimist is that you're never disappointed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted January 12, 2016 Share #74 Posted January 12, 2016 edit: just noticed you're busy running Kodak down in another thread at the same time as this one! What did I write on that other thread that bothers you? I only quoted the article in question without comment to clarify where someone said that Kodak film manufacturing was always profitable. Hey Kodak is predicting profitability in 2016 for the film division thus it must not be profitable! And I made another post where I thought Kodak had a chance to keep its film production alive indefinitely. (Assuming the market responds as you suggest and does not decline further.) Plasticman, each time you post, you encourage me to clarify my points to you. And I am very patient and happy to take whatever time I can spare to fully and politely explain things to you. You can accept or reject the factual information I post along with my opinions. I would never tell you not to speak your mind even if I don't agree with you or don't understand the logic behind what you are saying. Kodak has been busy running itself down for decades. I'm just reporting the facts when people say things like their new management is getting things right. I really don't see this as a film issue, more just a bad idea. If some top Hollywood film makers love to use film, that is fine with me. Haven't I made it clear that I think the bad parts of Kodak are not in the film division? If Kodak had done things to keep the company solid... e.g. finding new "successful" business opportunities in digital photography or elsewhere, and simultaneously planned for a shrinking film market by developing smaller scale film manufacturing facilities, they would have made us all happy and the future of film would probably be more secure than it is. But they hung on to a fantasy that film would always be their main business until it was too late. And now the once great role that Kodak played in photography is gone along with most of their products that I liked and used since 1964. Yes they sorta did try some other things but never could get it right... Sterling Drugs acquisition, digital photography, consumer inkjet printers, etc. I had direct relationships with people in Kodak for about 40 years starting in 1968. I went to RIT and a lot of my classmates got jobs there. A good friend of mine was in the Kodak film testing division since about 1975 and some years ago he was recommending they find ways to reduce manufacturing scale but was ignored and eventually laid off. So I have no sympathy for the people who ran a great photographic company into the ground. Only two years since emerging from bankruptcy and offering new stock, its new shareholders have lost about 70% of their investment so far. Wouldn't it be nice to hear something more positive about the company's financial prospects than they are going to sell a Super 8 camera? I only wish I could report that news to you. This Super 8 camera stands as a symbol of their commitment to stupidity. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasticman Posted January 12, 2016 Share #75 Posted January 12, 2016 What did I write on that other thread that bothers you? I only quoted the article in question without comment to clarify where someone said that Kodak film manufacturing was always profitable.... Wouldn't it be nice to hear something more positive about the company's financial prospects than they are going to sell a Super 8 camera? I only wish I could report that news to you. What "bothers" me about the other concurrent thread where you are also busy running down Kodak, is that a quick Google search can find plentiful reports of profits for the film division over the last years. Even 2012 showed profits for the film division - when Kodak was filing for Chapter 11. What you always do is carefully cherry-pick the news - like a dog who won't let go of that bone, you go to incredible lengths to find some small detail, some mention in an obscure report, some mistaken statement (as I assume is the case in the single article you cited in that thread). If there's some article somewhere that says things are going badly for Kodak, I can GUARANTEE that you'll unearth it. The "$100 million loss" mentioned in that article? Well, I didn't follow the news so carefully in 2015, but like I said, you can google reports for 2012, 2013 and 2014 that showed (lower than boom-time obviously) profits for film. Maybe the inkjet print division (that is now bundled with the film division) is dragging it down? Who knows - I'm sure you'll enlighten us, if you find something negative to say. But that's what bothers me - you are ALWAYS, relentlessly, persistently, tiresomely negative about film. You never give up until you've worn enthusiasts down. You'll write great long expositions about how mistaken we are. Repeat it ad nauseam (and still get thanked by some of the members here - incredibly!) https://twitter.com/amyschumer/status/682405394933747713 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 12, 2016 Share #76 Posted January 12, 2016 Sorry guys, you are addressing two different things. Alan is talking about Kodak the whole company, Mani about the film division, making the whole debate pointless. So please stop this bickering. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 12, 2016 Share #77 Posted January 12, 2016 The message was that this aspect of this thread is closed. Posts deleted. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted January 14, 2016 Share #78 Posted January 14, 2016 Here is Kodak's video promo for this camera. I can't understand why they didn't shoot this with the actual Super 8 camera so that we could see what the footage looks like. https://youtu.be/EGCKRTWiiY4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasticman Posted January 14, 2016 Share #79 Posted January 14, 2016 Here is Kodak's video promo for this camera. I can't understand why they didn't shoot this with the actual Super 8 camera so that we could see what the footage looks like. https://youtu.be/EGCKRTWiiY4 maybe because: 1. casual, talking-head news interviews from a consumer electronics show are not an intended use-case 2. getting a video out on YouTube within a few hours of shooting isn't the intended use-case 3. the camera is still at the prototype stage 4. the processing service isn't in place yet 5. add any other reason to answer your absurd question Incidentally, as some of the other commenters under the linked video said, the digital footage was hilariously not de-interlaced correctly. Digital fail. Anyway, thanks for your tireless engagement in promoting these Kodak products. Interested to see that you were also criticizing them over on YouTube! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
earleygallery Posted January 14, 2016 Share #80 Posted January 14, 2016 Here is Kodak's video promo for this camera. I can't understand why they didn't shoot this with the actual Super 8 camera so that we could see what the footage looks like. https://youtu.be/EGCKRTWiiY4 Do you need to see any footage Alan? You are already certain that it'll be crap, and even if it's great it's not going to change your opinion of the idea. You know you can just ignore the film threads too. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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