From: Jim Carlile (email suppressed)
Date: Mon May 12 2008 - 18:31:06 PDT
What I'm always struck by is the emotional responses, the sanctimoniousness
even, when people try to talk some sense into things like the fact that an
old film stock has been discontinued and that it was pretty overrated in the
first place.
Who cares if people loved Kodachrome? A lot of people didn't. They're
welcome to use it, magenta shift and all. But it was never all that to begin with.
There were a lot of problems with this 40-year old color reversal film-- you
couldn't get decent prints, for one.
This thread started with the ridiculous tale that Wittner was going to be
making Kodachrome again. They're not. That's not cynical, that's the truth. Then
the gushing began.
This same thing happens on both the APUG site and photo-net. Whenever the
topic comes up, and people who know more than I do about Kodachrome try to play
down the loss of the stock, all hell breaks loose.
Move on guys-- it's not coming back. There are more flexible stocks out
there. What I always see when Kodachrome gets discussed is not positive, it's
muddleheaded.
In a message dated 5/12/2008 6:11:11 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
email suppressed writes:
I don't know if this is what Fred meant or not but I
am always kind of amazed at the vehemence with which
arguments like this advance, the amazing rate at which
some extremely cynical arguments and negative
attitudes are introduced into these discussions which
use rationalist arguments to shout down some perfectly
innocent, even positive discussions. I mean,
Kodachrome film never really hurt anyone, and it had
some properties that some people liked a lot. Some
(arguably) great films have been created in
celebration its qualities. The derisive comparison of
Kodachrome to stocks which are objectively and
inarguably less grainy, lower contrast, easily
replicable, etc. does nothing to change the fact that
some have considered Kodachrome beautiful, a joy to
look at and work with, and that (arguably) some great
films have been made in celebration of its qualities.
And it's not the quality of the arguments (the
citation of resolution or contrast specs for example),
but the cynicism and negativity involved, the eager
diminishment of Kodachrome lovers (for example) with
facts and rationality that is always surprising.
(but it's not really all that surprising)
Steve Polta
--- Jim Carlile <email suppressed> wrote:
> In a message dated 5/12/2008 11:11:41 A.M. Pacific
> Daylight Time,
> email suppressed writes:
>
>
> Carlile's statements oppose the whole history and
> "ideology" of what it
> means to make experimental/avant-garde films
>
>
>
> I take that as kind of a compliment, actually.
>
> And it's completely false, too. The film world is
> full of lots of extreme
> orthodoxy-- like how about the folks who completely
> scorned color film to begin
> with? Or who condemned sound?
>
> Face it guys-- it's time to move on. Kodachrome is
> not coming back. No one's
> going to be manufacturing it again. It was a decent
> little slide film that
> Kodak kept porting over to amateur movie making and
> it served its purpose. It's
> cumbersome to make and even more cumbersome to
> process.
>
> The results people are getting nowadays with 64T and
> even Ektachrome 100D or
> the Velvia reversal is fantastic. And negative
> stocks have to be seen to be
> believed in the small gauges. There's so much you
> can do with it -- and yes--
> you can emulate a Kodachrome look if you want,
> whatever it is ( magenta, in
> my view.)
>
> No one's trying to force people away from
> Kodachrome, but it was highly
> overrated anyway and there are so many myths
> surrounding it that it's getting
> annoying hearing them all the time.
>
> That many people surround this film with excess
> emotion makes me wonder just
> what's going on. The hatred that Kodak had to deal
> with when they finally
> discontinued this film was pretty incredible to
> witness. It's not church, folks.
>
>
>
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.