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 p.4 #15 · Kodak to continue making film! | |
The big problem with making film is that you make a lot of it all at once, and you need to do that to turn a profit. These numbers are not exact, so don't quote me, but it can take a day to produce 1 to 2 years worth of a type of film if that film isn't a big seller (Kodachrome at the end). So you have to maintain a giant film coating machine and all the associated equipment AND you have to maintain a full work force that can run do everything for on that one day a year that you need to coat Kodachrome. At some point the math just stops working and you cancel said product. Obviously, there is prep work needed for a product, so it takes longer than a day, but you get the point.
As far as I know, Kodak coats all of its film on one machine. All of it. Slide (no more), B&W, C-41, motion picture, everything. I think they were coating motion on one machine and stills on the another not too long ago, but they mothballed one of the machines and coat all of their products on just the one.
A single 'run' at Kodak is 54" wide and 6000' long. About 65,000 rolls of 35mm film. Less since I'm sure there is some waste involved. And according to a guy who used to be a film engineer at Kodak, you can coat that in an hour.
http://www.apug.org/forums/forum45/73975-clarification-kodak-coating-practice.html
Hypothetical scenario: you only coat once a year, and nothing else, and make 65,000 rolls of film. You sell those rolls for $5/roll, 100% profit (I know, not realistic at all). That's $325k. Per year. If it's all profit, which it's not. But you have to maintain equipment, maintain your workforce, buy raw goods, pay for electricity, etc. You better be making a lot more than 65,000 rolls per year to make it worthwhile.
It's obviously much more complicated than that. 35mm, 120, and large format film are all coated on different bases, so those are three different products. You also have to worry about packaging, inventory, promotion (or lack thereof), rising material costs (silver AND petroleum), and a host of other issues I'm sure I'm not aware of.
The troubling part is that even though a single product might be profitable in and of itself, at some point, if you aren't running your coating machine enough, you have to shut it all down, because a lot of the costs are probably fixed costs (salaries, benefits, machine maintenance).
I think film production in general is geared towards being profitable after making a certain (large) amount of product. Kodak even more so. They built their business and facilities around moving big numbers and it just might not scale down - depending on where 'down' is. They used to have coating machines all over the world, running 24/7. Now they have one. I'd be shocked if it runs 24/7 now.
Ilford is in a bit better shape. They've already reorganized for one. Ilford coats B&W film and B&W paper on the same machine, so not only are they utilizing their machine for multiple products, those products have some synergy. Also, B&W coating is not as complicated (and B&W film has been niche for much longer than color film has been). But still, a certain minimum amount of sales are required to stay profitable.
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just kidding......Film should never die!!!