For anyone wondering what the inside of the Kodak film factory looks like Bill Manning’s video tour of parts of the plant might offer a bit of an insight. Bill, from film-enthusiast website Studio C-41, was invited to see the film manufacturing process at the company’s Rochester headquarters and made a video that combines a little history of the Yellow Giant as well as some behind the scenes footage that shows some of the steps.
In the film a Kodak guide explains what is going on and what certain machines do, while cut-away footage introduces the Kodak founder as well as some of the company’s historic cameras. While obviously the emulsion coating is done in the dark and can’t be shown, we do get to see preparation of the film base, the film in its cut form and parts of the process for making the film canisters.
Studio C-41 also has a podcast interview with Kodak staff from 2018 that goes into more depth about how its film is made.
I remember touring Kodak when I was a college student in Rochester majoring in chemistry. One of the fascinating bits of trivia that I recall from the tour is that at the time, Kodak used more silver each year than any entity other than the US mint.
I worked as an engineering intern at Kodak park in the late 90's. It was an amazing place at that time. The scale was astounding. I wish I spent a little more time just exploring.
KODAK! I love you, please keep on rocking.... it's still a hard time, but it's getting stable like vinyl and TRIX should be there in 10 years, too. Thanks.
Thanks - I enjoyed this. I appreciate some of the comments below, but compliment the effort nonetheless. For those wanting a behind the scenes tour of film production, particularly applying light sensitive emulsions, that's probably not going to happen as Kodak was notorious for protecting its intellectual property. I'm surprised what was depicted.
And as an old industrial property insurance guy, I really enjoyed the old fire insurance map, done by Sanborn or the old IRI/FIA at about 1:57 into the video.
For watching the film , I figured what the heck because I’ve been shooting some Kodak film as of late . Then I watched whaaaaaaat? I still know nothing about how film is made and actually don’t understand the video at all . This was poorly made all the way around. I’d love to see Kodak make a big comeback!
All quite familiar to my family and friends. Worked there for a summer mowing lawns and gardening the grounds while going to college. I lived around the corner. Both my parents worked there. It was an excellent place to work that treated employees very well at the peak of success. Much like Google of today. It held up Rochester's economy very well and Rochester and surrounding communities thrived.
Today with Kodak's decline, Rochester has gone down right along with it. We don't even go into the city any longer, nothing there compelling enough apart from the Museums to bother going. The Museum of Play is worth the trip, especially with kids!
I'm sure the video was well intentioned, but as a former Kodak employee who worked in film manufacture, it barely scratched the surface of how film is made. If you really want to know how film is made, there is an excellent book by R. Shanebrook that tells you all you might want to know and more http://www.makingkodakfilm.com/
I heard Kodak was trying to bring back B&W CRT televisions, 8 tracks, and Reel-to-Reel Tape Recorders. I can't believe they are still in buisness, they remind my of Pentax.
The editing was a little clunky in spots.. the 'step one' and 'step two' text about the film making process appears several times and it seems like once would be enough.
The 60s/70s style over-filtered intro seemed.. unnecessary,
Plus I'm greatly amused the ending scene used a drone shot of the barn, something that's only really been possible with digital technology, developed in the last decade or so.
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