Kodak Canada Sales Numbers from 2010

[woods01]

Back in 2011, when we were looking into whether or not to revive a Pako multi-guage film processor we had been given, we had talks with the local Kodak rep about stock sales. I recently stumbled upon this information and in light of the recent stock discontinuations, Kodak's bankruptcy issues and the Ferrania project, I think you will find the numbers interesting.

Note this is for Western Canada only, which Kodak defined as the provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, which is about 10 million people.

For Super8.. the sales for 2010 follow this order:
1. Extachrome with 240,000ft
2. B/W Reversal with 230,000ft
3. Color Negative Stocks with approx. 75,000ft

For 16mm.. the sales for 2010 follow this order:
1. Color Negative with 1.2 million feet!
2. Extachrome with 80,000ft
3. B/W Negative & Reversal (50/50split) with 37,000

[Tscan]

Very interesting because most time i feel that us guys on the forums are the only ones left in the world still shooting this stuff. Also it looks like color reversal was out selling color neg 3 to 1.

[aj]

Very interesting because most time i feel that us guys on the forums are the only ones left in the world still shooting this stuff. Also it looks like color reversal was out selling color neg 3 to 1.

Some 10.000 cartridges in that area alone. Clearly most users there rather shoot than yap
Where did all these films go for processing?

The question is of course how many are shot in North-America and Europe. And does that make enough for a production site to remain in business.

[john59]

(Where did all these films go for processing?)


Thats a very good Q.

I wonder if Ferrania know about these figures?

And are there any more figures to be had?

[woods01]

These are just what the Kodak rep told us at Cineworks, so its not like an official document we were given. The machine we had was optimized for E-6 but could do B&W reversal and we primarily wanted those numbers.

The large 16mm colour negative numbers reflect industry use, primarily based out of Vancouver, which had 2 labs at the time both are now closed. Back then in Canada you could send your Super 8s to Toronto or the U.S. I mainly sent my Ektachrome to Dwaynes which was cheapest and occasionally to Alphacine in Seattle.

When the last Vancouver lab closed, the manager said that they needed around a million feet a month of 35mm to stay in business. Which was viable when all the tv shows were shot on 35mm and the features distributed on 35mm.

[aj]

TV shows were shot on 35mm? I always thought they used 16mm up to not too long ago.

I would assume these 10.000 S8 cartridges would make a nice year amount for current S8 labs. 200 a week is really a lot to handle without the large robots of yesteryear. And then there are the other quarts of North America.

Dwayne's should really get into the S8 color neg business. They have a good reputation and the means to handle large amounts. I would use them from Europe if they would not insist on these crazy USPS shipping envelopes

[woods01]

Beginning with I Love Lucy, pretty much all American tv series were shot on 35mm. There was the odd series that was shot on 16mm, and even the odd multi-cam sitcom shot on 35mm. Where 16mm was common were the lower budgeted shows of Europe. In Canada our shows were on 16mm and were quick to switch to digital systems like RED.

About 5 years ago, the series started to switch to digital. I recall one of the reasons for this push was that shows shot on film were SAG and those shot on video were a different actors union. Around 2009-2010 (I forget exactly) there was threats of a SAG strike and the shows switched to digital and threatened to use the other union. The two actor unions are now merged.

There are still high end cable shows shooting on 35mm. Breaking Bad, Mad Men and True Detective for example are all shot on 35mm.