From: david tetzlaff (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Mar 04 2006 - 12:19:09 PST
So Kodak is selling more 16mm camera stock now than ever, says Sam.
That does not stand as evidence that this business is or will remain
profitable enough for them to continue it. Kodak has big modern
buildings in Rochester that look like ghost towns, and when no-one is
looking all the Kodak film reps I meet lapse into a 100 yard stare
that betrays a fear of losing their jobs...
I could go on, but this all MISSES THE POINT. Let's just say for sake
of argument that 16mm acquisition will last forever. That's not the
issue....
Take the total paying audience for every work that has been shot on
16mm in the last two years. What percentage of that audiece do you
think has seen these images without them having been entirely
digitized at some point? Digital intermediates... Digital projectors
in commercial cinemas... DVDs... My understanding is that the largest
consumers of 16mm stock are people shooitng music videos.
Thus, commercially, the very existence of 16mm camera stock would
seem to depend exactly on the various forms of digital distribution
that get people in a snit here.
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