Curious how Kodak manufactures its film? In this 8-minute video, Studio C-41 shows the process from making the original giant rolls of plastic that eventually becomes film, to the finished product found on store shelves around the world.
Despite the demand for film falling significantly over the last couple of decades, Kodak continues to produce it in large amounts from its factory in Rochester, New York.
The manufacture of film can be broken down into three main steps. The first step involves heating, stretching, and forming the film base into a large rolled sheet. Those rolls can be up to 12,000 feet long. The next step is to sensitize the film rolls to light. Emulsions and chemicals are added to the film base to prepare it for final finishing.
The final step sends the sensitized film to the film finishing department, where it is cut to size, perforated, labeled, and prepared for shipping.
Despite what Kodak as a business has gone through over the past ten years and despite a shift to producing pharmaceuticals, the company still continues to press on with film production. While not particularly detailed in what it shows, the video does still provide an interesting look inside a company that was instrumental in the revolutionary spread of photography. Without Kodak and what it has been doing in that same factory for decades, many events may never have been captured for the future to look back on
