[Frameworks] Did Kodak almost stop making all film?

[Fred Smith]

I've always wondered just how movie film is made. I remember a letter on 
this site about a year ago where someone suggested building a smaller 
machine. Can anyone recomend a site that explains the process?
Respectfully,

F. Smith

On 7/31/2014 2:49 PM, Sean Weitzel wrote:
> The reason Kodak is so challenged to continue making film, is the 
> simple fact of the manufacturing process. Kodak has only manufactured 
> film on a massive scale. They don't have the means to produce small or 
> boutique runs of various stocks. (Side note: Did anyone see that Kodak 
> had some of their idled film coating lines up for sale on ebay 
> recently for basically scrap prices? the main coating wheel is 4 
> stories high). What is really going on is Kodak has to be able to 
> forecast how much film of a certain type will be sold. Once they have 
> that forecast, they manufacture and coat what is called a "master 
> roll" 54" wide and 5200 feet long. From that roll, all of the 
> individual gauges are cut and perforated and packaged, everything from 
> 70mm down to super-8.
>
> This is the reason you see so many stocks going into the discontinued 
> notices, or finish to order with absurd minimum quantities is because 
> of the need to be sure a master roll will be sold withing the 
> expiration period. What I believe has happened is the studios have 
> done just this, they've entered into a contract with Kodak to justify 
> Kodak coating more master rolls of the various color negative stocks. 
> Nothing has been said as to what the availability of other types of 
> stocks, such as black and white, recording film, print film, etc will 
> be. I fear some of these lower volume items will eventually go 
> discontinued as the prior master roll is used up.
>
> There's a good more detail about the whole process here: 
> http://silverbased.org/plus-x-kodak-woes/
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 4:48 PM, Fred Camper <f at fredcamper.com 
> <mailto:f at fredcamper.com>> wrote:
>
>     http://online.wsj.com/articles/kodak-movie-film-at-deaths-door-gets-a-reprieve-1406674752?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories
>
>     As I understand this, they were considering stopping all film
>     manufacturing, in all gagues, including of print stock. Does
>     anyone have more information?
>
>     Fred Camper
>     Chicago
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