Kodak film deal has died.

[supermag400_inventor]

Feedback from all of you has proven that I was waiting my time with this Kodak film deal. Kodak has their heads so far up their butts that it's going to take an act of God to get it out.

Why are their prices so high? There is not any reasoning behind it. If bulk film is suppose to be cheeper, then we should be getting a great deal on the price. NOPE! .... You know...they are stupid! They just killed a good sale and possibly damaged super 8.

Even thou you all did what you could, it's a lost cause. Even if they came down on the price now, it's too late to place an order. We'll have to wait a year.

Oh well.....so much for that!
Hmmm! There is FUJI?

[S8 Booster]

really sorry to hear that its screwed up once again.

only logical explanation i can think of is that they sell 8 50´s8 carts for each 400´they dont sell to supermag customers and get direct sales promo for free. maybe the calced it that way to keep profits on even basis - dont know.

regarding contacting fuji in japan; using a merchant house or retro in tokyo may be easier. try contact retro first.
http://film.club.ne.jp/english/single_8film.htm
mail@retro8.com

anyway, i have a direct mail to fuji motion devision in japan i can send to you but it has to be written in japanese. there is a few on this board which do japanese, you can ask them to help you or you can try out one of those auto translator jobs.

you have to be very very very precise in your description and explain everything down to the smallest detail.
this has to be handled very professionally from your side or else you are doomed. on the other hand if you get a go you can trust them but any inaccuracy or missing detail will easily hit back on you.

if you ever get to merchandise with them directly i recommend you to get this book about japanese customs in general and business in particular. "NIPPON THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE" released by Nippon Steel Cooperation, Personnel Development Division released in 1984.
theres a lot of dos and donts and is is good investment to level them out.
listen very carfully and never progress if you are not 100% sure you understand everything and also the other way around.

it will save you from some hidden traps.

anyway, japan is not so conservative as it was 20 years ago but there are still traps and avoiding them is very imortant.

guess you will be re-directed back to Fuji USA but it is still worth trying.

i will send you the direct mail link by pm when i find it.


Big

[S8 Booster]

pmd you the mail link

[mr8mm]

Fuji Velvia, 64T and 100D are available as unperfed 35mm. All you need is a slitter and perforator and you are set.

J.S.

[carlweston]

Feedback from all of you has proven that I was waiting my time with this Kodak film deal. Kodak has their heads so far up their butts that it's going to take an act of God to get it out.

Why are their prices so high? There is not any reasoning behind it. If bulk film is suppose to be cheeper, then we should be getting a great deal on the price. NOPE! .... You know...they are stupid! They just killed a good sale and possibly damaged super 8.

Even thou you all did what you could, it's a lost cause. Even if they came down on the price now, it's too late to place an order. We'll have to wait a year.

Oh well.....so much for that!
Hmmm! There is FUJI?

This must be the reason Pro8mm uses recans

[Alex]

I would spin this differently if I were you.

The biggest problem of all was the little time there was available to get the order together. Coming on the heels of the Kodachrome debacle, your claim that Kodak's slitting machine will be down for 10 months is very disconcerting.

I dare say that while everyone was preoccupied with the demise of Kodachrome (and rightly so) that may pale in comparison to Kodak not having the ability to provide a reasonable time-table for the slitting of Super-8 film. How can they generate revenue from the format if they have no machines available to slit Super-8 for 10 months?

If Kodak sees any value in expanding Super-8 sales, doing it via the Super-Mag is the most logical avenue. Less microproduction is required of Kodak to sell Bulk Super-8 versus the 50 foot loads.

You tend to ping-pong way too much with your topic title posts, you leave negative post titles up even after they are no longer true, then they become true again. Maybe some better PR is in order. Update your messages, especially the title of existing topics if they are no longer valid.

Also, I'm of the opinion you may have minimized the value of the daylight spools that you sell. I don't know if it's wise to offer a non-daylight spool option at all.

And rather than be myopic at this point in time, several people have asked you what does Kodak mean that they can't slit for 10 months. That is a big deal for all of Super-8, yet you appear to have ignored that question, that is troubling to me.

[supermag400_inventor]

Kodak is going to produce enough film for their own needs prior to shutting down the machine. It's simple. They need to make enough film for the entire year. So, in order to get my order in, I had to meet the deadline. Therefore, the price was a bit higher.

However, they didn't say positively, that the price was going to be any cheeper next year. She just suggested it may be.

That's not good enough for me. I want straight up answers.
There isn't any reason I can't go to FUJI and buy the full 5 inch wide production rolls of film from them and build a perforator/slitter to make my own films. Problem is money. It will cost thousands to do that. I'm not in any position to do it.

Spectra would like to, but the capitol isn't there.

[T-Scan]

Granted, you get twice the running time and half the film with S-8 than 16mm... a 400ft spool of 16mm would be about $25 less than a 400ft spool of S-8 at those prices. Where is Mr. Cotto at with with perforater? there are others besides pro8. Or Maybe you have already exausted looking for spliter/perf options, but you could probably get bulk orders of unperfed 16mm stock for half the cost on the S8 deal. go for some gems like 7201 and 85, then a 17, 18 or triX. good luck.

[Nigel]

For some reason all I can hear is Ralph..."Ha-Ha"

Good Luck

[Alex]

Pro-8mm is probably beating themselves against a wall for not thinking up your supermag idea 10 years ago. In my opinion they salivate and live for these kind of aftermarket products.

They probably count "money sheep" jumping over Super-8 cameras at night seeing all the money they could have made selling 400 foot super-8 loads to their customers. Pro-8mm could have Reduced their 50 foot cartridge loading quantites while increasing overall film sales and processing quantities. The ability to actually buy bulk from Kodak and NOT have to overhandle the film stock and perhaps even sell it less per foot than what the 50 foot cartridges sell for would have been a God Send for Pro-8mm.

You and Pro-8mm are not a good match because in my opinion being a team player with them means never admiting there's anything wrong with their product, even if a situation arises where it's completely their fault.

If I were you I'd hang on, be patient, start your film orders NOW for next year, ask Kodak for a committment to a lower price as the volume of film orders increases, it needs to be CHEAPER per foot than what 50 foot cartridges sell for, not a lot cheaper, even it it's just a few cents cheaper, it still suddenly makes it a great deal and the Super-8 Mag actually can pay for itself quickly, especially if as was suggest earlier, you use stocks that are not normally sold by Kodak.

Many many many many many many many many many times I have seen a product or video rushed to completion and then before anyone knew it, it was a year later and the product or service that absolutely had to be done a year earlier, is actually up and running, ready to go in what can be called, round two.

Get Kodak to commit to the 50 D negative stock and the 100 Daylight Ektachrome, (excellent suggestion by the way) start taking orders inow and by next March, you'll be sitting on a huge order and you will have more clout than you realize.

When it's all said and done, blame can be put anywhere and everywhere.
You can be blamed for only giving people a 72 hour window to order their film. But forget that, just get started on next year, NOW.

Keep a running tab of all film orders so as new people place an order on the website, they see the film order total rise. I'm not sure how to handle the issue of actually billing, you don't want to sit on people's money for more than 2 weeks, although perhaps a non-refundale deposit of 10% will do the trick.

And whatever you decide to do, please, please, please DO NOT GIVE PRO-8MM EXCLUSIVITY for your product IF they come a knockin. Expect to be lnitially lowballed and suddenly if you give them exclusivity they'll suddenly double or triple their offer to you.

[supermag400_inventor]

I'm not out of the game yet. I plan on looking more into the perforator idea. It's begining to look like that is the only logical way to make film cheep. I mean .15 cents per foot would be right on...don't you agree?

With the right films in 5 inch wide rolls, we could sell the films with a profit and still beat the daylights out of Pro 8's prices and all the others as well.

It's just the cost of doing it. Then the question...is it worth it?

[tlatosmd]

I suggest also approaching Wittner and GK Film that have their own slicing and perfing machines.

[supermag400_inventor]

Their machines don't do 5 wide rolls, only 16mm film. That's what they told me.

That is why their prices are so high.
If I build a machine that will take the wide production rolls of film, then I can produce far more film at much lower prices per foot than any one else. I can actually make cheeper film than it costs now to buy a cartridge.

[tlatosmd]

BTW, I also think your thread titles seem somewhat polarizing.

[S8 Booster]

Their machines don't do 5 wide rolls, only 16mm film. That's what they told me.

That is why their prices are so high.
If I build a machine that will take the wide production rolls of film, then I can produce far more film at much lower prices per foot than any one else. I can actually make cheeper film than it costs now to buy a cartridge.

why dont you check out wit retro or fuji in japan. you may get the film perfed in 8mm width - rather than bothering with the split and perf jor.

i mean i read from your post that film supply is crurial for the supermag future?