Kodak has reopened its film manufacturing factory after a planned shutdown to improve its manufacturing equipment. Typically the word “shutdown” in a sentence on film cameras isn’t a good thing, but in this case, Kodak actually shut down in order to add more equipment and update the film sensitizing machine to meet rising demand for film. The reason? Kodak says that film demand has doubled in the last five years.
The shutdown, which began in November and finished in December, was needed because the updates to the film sensitizing machine needed to happen in the dark. Kodak Chief Technical Officer Terry Taber said that the upgrade had been in the plans for more than a year and the company had stockpiled film to cover the lapse in production while the upgrades were taking place.
Taber told a local Rochester, New York news station that consumer demand for film has doubled in the last five years. The CTO credited that growth to disposable film camera use by Millennials and Gen X. More Hollywood productions are also using film, Taber said.
The equipment upgrades aren’t the only changes over at Kodak driven by that demand. Taber also noted growth in Kodak’s employee numbers, with around half of the employees being added in the last three years.
For photographers however, the question is likely this: Will film prices ever go down? Rising demand has meant steeper film costs across the board. Kodak also recently stopped selling bulk film to resellers for respooling, which also increases the cost of film by limiting third-party sales.
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