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Topic: Kodak discontinues Kodachrome
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John Whittle
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 791
From: Northridge, CA USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted June 24, 2009 03:07 PM
The original Kodachrome processing machines were very long devices running mostly in the dark (due to the process). I saw the machines at Palo Alto back in the late 1960s and they were thrity or forty feed long and the chemical mix was a thousand gallons. The super 8 machines ran that single width at high speed for the time for a couple hundred feet per minute (today eastman color positive machines routinely run 1000 feet per minutes).
The other machine I saw was at Technicolor when they were in the color print and process business in Seattle during the World's Fair and it was a Pako machine, slower than the Kodak machine but still requiring a lot of chemistry and men to run it.
In the 1980s or 1990s, Kodak came out with a "baby" Kodachrome machine which was much smaller and slower than the machines at CP&P (color print and process) and I would guess that's what's running at Dwayne's.
This decision was made some time ago and since we know very little of when and how Kodak makes film, I'd bet that they have carefully allocated film and chemistry to time out with this announcement. No other company every made the color developer or coupling agents used in Kodachrome. No doubt the patents have expired, but the costs of the chemicals for the coupling agents back in the 1960-70 was around $2,500 for five pounds of the magenta coupler. Now that lasted a long time in the tank, but you can't expect anyone to manufacture more of these complicated organic compounds.
As for Leopold & Leopold, their first color process used honey and carefully timing viscous soultion treating the film to get to the various layers--that was all changed with the coupling agents and the individual re-exposure lamps for each color going through the process. Kodachrome is a fascinating process and once you study it you can understand why bees can fly inspite of the laws of physics!
Even when 3m bought the old patents for Kodachrome 1, they still had to buy all their chemistry from Kodak and when Technicolor had the 35mm monopac negative back in the 1940s, they had Kodak develop the film since it was in short Kodachrome. (This gets into a long patent/licensing agreement between Technicolor and Kodak on the width of film and who could make and market the material for motion picture use).
John
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Lars Pettersson
Master Film Handler
Posts: 282
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Registered: Jan 2007
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posted June 25, 2009 02:35 AM
Yes I agree, thanks john for another terrific post! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
As to the Kodachrome processes, I´ve had a lot of personal experience with them since I worked at Kodak here in Stockholm a couple of summers when I was still in school. Back then (early eighties) Kodak had a huge plant here and processed enormous amounts of stills film, along with super 8 and 16mm. To a movie-struck kid it was heaven, as you (as employee) could buy Kodak products at a discount in the in-house shop. I bought so much I pretty much wound up working for free ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
We had the big, older Kodachrome machines, and they were in total darkness -in fact it was pretty depressing to go to work on a beautiful summer morning, spend the whole day in total darkness, and then go home in the evening dusk
Anyway, this whole shut-down process has been an ongoing affair during the last 25 years or so; First a couple of the Kodachrome machines were shut down, as super8, 35mm and 16mm could be run in the same machine. Next Kodak shut down Kodachrome processing in scandinavia, focusing everything to the german/swiss(?) lab that shut down a few years ago. Then Kodak stopped developing altogether in scandinavia, merely stocking and selling product from this plant, that continued roughly until the mid-nineties. Now Kodak merely has a sales orginization here in Stockholm, stocking some product and importing the rest within a few days if you ask for anything less common. Obviously this only requires a couple of office suites.
The huge Kodak plant still stands, but it´s an empty shell, a ghostly abandoned building. I´m sure the building itself or the real estate has some value or it would have been torn down years ago.
Cheers
Lars
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