8mm Forum: No Ferrania refund

This is topic No Ferrania refund in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on August 17, 2018, 06:48 PM:

It seems that enough people asked for a refund to make a reaction from Ferrania : (to summarize it's no and then bla bla) "To be perfectly clear, there are no refunds available. With that said, we *will* offer other ways to end your participation in this project. We did it last year when we announced P30, but only a tiny number of people chose to switch their reward. We will offer a more permanent solution when we are able - but the goal, as it has always been, will be to deliver color reversal film to your mailbox.
We perfectly understand that some Backers feel intense frustration. We understand that not all Backers care to read our updates. We understand that this project is way overdue. We understand that some people see Kickstarter as a store, even though Kickstarter makes it pretty clear that they are not.
None of these things are really under our direct control. We can only keep moving forward with our vision and do everything in our power to honor the contribution that our Backers have made to our company. Despite some opinions to the contrary, this is exactly what we have been doing so far - but we agree with those of you who say that regular communications (with less speculation) are critical.
We have just published a new update only for Backers. Notices about this are emailed by Kickstarter, not by us, so please check your inbox. If you don't find the email, please check your spam folder. If you find it there, please add the sender to your address book, and mark the email as Not Spam. This should prevent future updates from being lost.
We have published a separate public update on our website. We urge everyone to read both." https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/filmferrania/100-more-years-of-analog-film/comments

Posted by Nantawat Kittiwarakul (Member # 6050) on August 17, 2018, 08:55 PM:

With Kodak's announcement of Ektachrome re-production alone would be enough to shake loose of their "promise". And the actual release of Ektachrome will be sure as hell the final nail to Ferrania's coffin. [Frown]

Posted by Simon McConway (Member # 219) on August 18, 2018, 01:04 AM:

If enough of the backers got together, we could take them to court.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on August 18, 2018, 04:02 AM:

I assume from what has been said that the backers had to contribute some form of financial payment/s in advance of the colour film being available.
Am I correct?
How much are backers now out of pocket with very little hope of receiving the proposed film?

Posted by Graham Sinden (Member # 431) on August 18, 2018, 05:02 AM:

Ive never used Ferrania before or seen it. How different would it be to Ektachrome in terms of colour, sharpness, grain etc. if it was worth waiting for.

Graham S

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on August 20, 2018, 02:23 PM:

Maurice, I don't know how many people paid for a project that seems "uncertain".
Graham, the new Ferrania would have been (or will be if you're an optimistic) different from the one that was on the market before due to environment regulations that prohibes some chemicals.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on August 20, 2018, 11:22 PM:

I wonder how many people were actually working this Ferrania project. Seems to me that it would need dozens of highly technical people working full time just to get it off the ground. Reading the above, I think we can all forget about super 8mm Ferrania film -it ain't going to happen. If and when Kodak Ektachrome super 8mm ever hits the market, no one would be using Ferrania film anyway.

Posted by Greg Perry (Member # 5177) on August 21, 2018, 08:23 AM:

Dominique,

FYI, from the kickstarter Ferrania page linked to in your initial post:

5,582 backers pledged $322,420 to help bring this project to life.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on August 21, 2018, 11:19 AM:

What is Ferrania? [Confused]

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on August 21, 2018, 01:50 PM:

Ferrania was an Italian film stock manufacturer, which made everything from the film base onward in the same plant. It was taken over by 3M before the 1970's, when I started using and processing it at home. The plant was later closed and is supposedly going to be revived to produce B&W negative, and colour reversal film. So fad only a B&W negative has seen limited production.

Surely that has all been on here before.

Posted by Nantawat Kittiwarakul (Member # 6050) on August 21, 2018, 10:06 PM:

Simply put -today's "Ferrania" has nothing to do with yesteryear's "Ferrania" except the production plant. [Confused]

A bit over exaggerated,but all of this sounded like attempting to re-launch a space shuttle by only a dozen of ex-NASA employee,go figure...

(hey,that sounds like a potentially good plot for the next Hollywood blockbuster! [Big Grin]

)

Posted by Graham Sinden (Member # 431) on August 22, 2018, 04:59 PM:

So has the old Ferrania still held colours well or has many films faded in time?

Im also guessing that the new Ferrania (if it comes [Roll Eyes]

) will look the same as Ektachrome 100d ?? or will it have stronger reds, blues etc. I have no idea, does anyone know??

Graham S

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on August 22, 2018, 05:13 PM:

I think Ferrania has only made B/W stock films.

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on August 22, 2018, 06:05 PM:

35mm & standard 8 Ferrania reversal film had good colours and kept them well, it was rather high contrast at its rated speed though. Push processing reduced the contrast but distorted colour - you had to juggle increases in both first and colour developer to get the best results.

3M colour print film from the Ferrrania factory was varied in quality, later stock was quite good.

Posted by Graham Sinden (Member # 431) on August 22, 2018, 06:55 PM:

Many thanks for that reply Brian.

I guess I will never use Ferrania anyway as I still have several cartridges of E100d still left in the fridge, and as Kodak will be selling it soon I will stick with the Ektachrome [Smile]

.

Graham S

Posted by Mark Todd (Member # 96) on August 23, 2018, 03:41 AM:

Can they just not give back any money etc.

I suppose that amount of initial money was probably never anywhere nearly enough to get things moving properly these days.

I wonder if all the people on board worked for free and just used the cash for set up or took a wage or living costs.

Its a shame and was never likely to get off the ground.

But I wonder why Kodak are taking so long about it too as they have all the infrastucture etc etc.

Its sort of let the surge in interest ebb somewhat.

Best Mark.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on August 23, 2018, 04:22 AM:

Greg, that's the total of backers but it's not easy to know how many among them backed for movie filmstock. Following the messages on Ferrania's pages, it seems that some people are satisfayied with the black and white still stock. Whatever Ferrania does from now, they clearly missed the train.

Posted by Simon McConway (Member # 219) on August 23, 2018, 05:39 AM:

Kodak have done much better time-wise actually. They mentioned Ektachrome about a year ago, and from what I read, several hundred finished rolls are now being tested by a variety of people worldwide. They promised this autumn that the film would appear on the shelves. Let us see, but I'm hopeful. So they have not taken too long.

Ferannia took backers' money in Oct 2014, on the other hand. A thundering disgrace.

I have spoken to a friend in the legal profession. Ferannia do have an accountabiity to show us how the money was spent, in detail. If quite a few backers joined together, then legal action could be justifiable as a group.

Posted by Mark Todd (Member # 96) on August 23, 2018, 05:56 AM:

I wonder what the cost will be for kodak, any ideas anyone.

It sounds quite good going then Simon, lets hope it works out.

Best Mark.

Posted by Simon McConway (Member # 219) on August 23, 2018, 07:07 AM:

No idea yet Mark. I don't think anyone has. But, if it's like the original 100D Super 8, I think it'll be well worth it. We'll be appreciating the quality, long after we've forgotten the cost.

Posted by Ken Finch (Member # 2768) on August 23, 2018, 03:32 PM:

I used the 9.5mm Ferrania colour when it was sold by Pathescope as Pathecolour or PCF. It has still retained its colour. The later MC25 stock was even better but results depended on who processed it. Most of the stock I purchased via Larry Pearce and the processing was always good being done by our friend in Wales who has also been processing the Fuji stock. I have also used Gevacolour but the Ferrania was better but not as good as Kodachrome which was always much more expensive and had to be sent to France for processing. I gave up filming and moved to video when stock became difficult to obtain and too expensive. What I have seen of the Fuji stock has been comparable to Kodachrome in colour and to me better than the Ecktachrome that was available on 9.5 for a while. I must add that none of the makes I have used have deteriorated in colour. Ken Finch.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on August 24, 2018, 02:38 AM:

When I got married in 1959 I saved a bit of money by buying Gevacolor instead of the dearer Kodachrome for my standard 8 camera to be used by my friend to film the wedding.
Now, it's just pink. [Embarrassed]

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on August 24, 2018, 09:39 AM:

Same here Maurice. All my Gevacolor from the 1950's are now totally pink. All my Kodachrome from the same period is perfect.
Fortunately I did not shoot much Gevacolor, much preferring the brilliant look of Kodachrome.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on August 24, 2018, 12:46 PM:

It seems that in the '50's, in France, the 35 mm Gevacolor copies were guaranteed only three or four years as it was known (at least by the manufactor) that colours would not hold [Mad]

Posted by Maurizio Di Cintio (Member # 144) on August 28, 2018, 08:21 AM:

This comes from Kickstarter "Aknowledgeability" page:

The creator is solely responsible for fulfilling the promises made in their project. If they’re unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by backers.

Check it out at: https://www.kickstarter.com/section4?ref=faq-basics_creatoroblig

So the platform has foreseen the possibility for backers to go after the backed entity if the latter fails to deliver what they have promised. Now the point is: given a set timespan (which is already largely overdue according to FilmFerrania themselves), how long a delay is considered reasonable in terms of waiting before a project can be deemed officially unsuccessful? In fact they claim they've never stopped and keep working towards the original goal.... BUT in the original project's description, they claimed they were actually ready to produce film and they only needed Trixie Pixie or whatever to start production of real film: so much so they set a deadline of less than a year. Now if this is not an apparent misrepresentation of the project (which is against Kickstater's rules), it must at least be considered as gross underestimation of what really goes into raw film stock production. Either way I think there are grounds to go after them but it would be nice to hear a professional about this. Also, since KS is not an Italian entity, what type of laws should be applied? Italian laws or KS's Country' laws?

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on August 29, 2018, 06:35 AM:

Latest update from Ferrania web site http://www.filmferrania.it/news-articles/2018/the-lrf-is-ours-again

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