The film photography community was in a very different place to the one it is today six years ago. Kodak had filed for bankruptcy 3 years prior and although it had been saved, Kodak Alaris was only in the early stages of formation. Analogue Wonderland a dedicated online platform and community for purchasing film, wasn't a thing yet, Lomography was perhaps the only dedicated place you could get film but was very much funneled to their own products, and speaking mostly from personal experience, film photographers picked up stock from them or from local dedicated photography shops, or online retailers such as 7dayshop, Amazon or eBay. Or from supermarkets... So in September 2014 it was a bit of big deal when a team calling themselves FILM Ferrania announced they intended to revive the redundant Ferrania Technologies film production plant with an aim to build a factory capable of making film for the next 100 years. They had a simple goal: to be entirely self contained, producing new film from raw materials only. FILM Ferrania was initially founders Nicola Baldini and Marco Pagni, who in 2012 visited the Ferrania Technologies campus with a view to purchasing motion picture film perforating machines, planning to start their own small scale business selling motion picture film produced using stock purchased from other sources. It was only when visiting the campus that they realized the opportunity available to them: the potential to create a film production plant that could produce film from start to finish using only raw materials and be viable in the long term. Believing, or at worst hoping, that the dream was achievable they set about putting in the ground work, employing a team of six others, some former Ferrania Technologies employees, as a core Research & Development and Production team, and establishing a base of operations in Ferrania Technlogies's former Photographic Research & Development building; the LRF. A very large building of some 54,000 sq. ft. internal floor space spread over 5 floors with over 100 different rooms. Throughout late 2013 into 2014 they began to refurbish the building whilst rescuing tons upon tons, literally buildings full, of old equipment from the old Ferrania Technologies buildings. By late 2014 they could already produce small batches of film but at a high cost and not economically viable in the current, or indeed any future market. That being said, the groundwork had been put in, but they were running out of time. The buildings on the rest of the campus were going to be demolished as part of prior planned demolition works and FILM Ferrania had 3 vital pieces of equipment they needed to rescue, 2 of which so large they were essentially buildings themselves;
FILM Ferrania simply did not have the resources to purchase Trixie, Walter and Big Boy and produce it's first batch of film. Without those 3 pieces of machinery, at best, they could produce a limited batch of film before running out of money and vanishing. So Nicola and Marco turned to Kickstarter. Offering a selection of rewards in return for funding, the pair hoped to raise $250,000 to purchase the 3 machines. Amongst the rewards on offer was the chance to be the first to use the first batch of 35mm, 120, 16mm and Super 8 film types in differing quantities, the opportunity to have naming rights for one of the rooms within the potential future factory, or to have your event filmed by Nicola Baldini himself on Super 8 film! Unfortunately nobody backed that last pledge... but everybody who pledged did get a "Postcard from Italy" and to have their name included on the Founders Wall; a monument on the new campus. I personally pledged $35 to get x1 roll of 35mm film, x1 roll of 120 film, some groovy stickers, a postcard, and my name on the Founders Wall. Within 72 hours of the launch, the campaign was already 67% funded; "We put our faith in the analog film community - and it looks like we made the right choice." FILM Ferrania's campaign lead Dave Bias reported. 9 days in it was 95% funded, and on the 15th October the campaign hit it's goal and FILM Ferrania reported that they were “able to purchase Trixie, Walter and Big Boy.” By the campaigns close on 29th October 2014 the campaign was fully funded and 28% over the original estimate. Me and 5,581 other backers had pledged $322,420 to "(help realize the) dream of creating a modern-day film factory”.
IT ALL WENT WRONG FROM THERE. Although at this point I want to point out before moving on with the story, that this is not in anyway intended to be a take down piece, or anything similar, of FILM Ferrania's efforts, and I still fully 100% support this campaign and continue to have faith in Nicola and Marco to deliver what they originally promised in their Kickstarter campaign. So what went wrong? Well it didn't go wrong immediately. On the 26th November 2014, FILM Ferrania reported that they were "hard at work behind the scenes of the factory" moving components and conducting chemical tests. The campus basically consisted of the LRF, the room housing Trixie, and an aircraft hanger sized storage shed containing "hundreds of tons of equipment and parts and tools, as well as nearly 70 shrink-wrapped pallets of documents, and tens of tons of chemical components". There was nothing small about the magnitude of the various tasks that lay ahead before colour film production could even begin to be thought about...
On the 2nd December 2014 the 'Effe' line of merchandise was launched, based on the original Ferrania technologies mascot. Things like shirts and tote bags e.t.c, presumably as a secondary means to try and raise some money:
I'll be honest, this mostly passed me by at the time. I don't know how long the store was live for but retrospectively searching it appeared to be live right up until about October 2016 although by December 2015 it seems all stock was on sale at a discounted price. Presumably anybody who ordered a t-shirt actually got one? I've not seen anything online to suggest otherwise?
Rolling back to the 16th December 2014 FILM Ferrania began the task of drawing up the names for the Founders Wall prior to inviting backers to fill in a survey launched after the conclusion of the Kickstarter, and invited the 622 missing names to submit their details. Three days later they were still 500+ short but advised that the Founders Wall would go live on the 22nd January 2015 and that “things (were) kicking into gear in Jan and Feb” and it was going to be a “very busy 2015”. Oh boy did they have no idea was 2015 would bring... On the 12th January 2015 the Founders Wall; 5,457 peoples names... or erm... 4,489 names... depending on which update you believe to be correct, went live on the website, and although as of time of writing it is no longer live, thanks to the magic of the Internet you can see it here. CTRL + F "Johnny Wilson" to find me, I'm on there somewhere! I've asked the question as to why it's currently missing from the website but at time of publishing nobody from FILM Ferrania has come back to me. The 12th January update also promised the "Postcards from Italy" would ship to all backers of the campaign tomorrow. I don't remember ever receiving mine... and the update also advised: “Our factory team is back at work and last week spent some time moving essential documentation (manuals, blueprints and microfilms) from the former Engineering Department to a new home in the L.R.F. Building.” This feels like a nice place to put another video:
Very cool! Everything was proceeding lovely, and according to plan so far, but unfortunately this is the part of the story where it all goes terribly wrong. I'm going to take a moment to explain just exactly what went wrong, why it matters, and at the end of this post I will explain why I haven't gone postal and "INVOKE MEH RIGHTS UNDER KICKSTARTERS TERM OF USES" although on a few occasions I've been close...
On the 24th February 2015 FILM Ferannia posted an update informing backers that asbestos had been discovered in the ground floor of the LRF whilst refurbishing works were being carried out and that the building was suffering from substantial roof leaks. “We had planned for a number of "unplanned" delays when mapping out our timeline back in October. We remain on schedule for delivering rewards in April!” was the promise which in hindsight was maybe a bad idea. The February update also began to share info on "Little Boy" - the precision coater, decommissioned by Ferrania Technologies in 2006, it had sat unused until 2012 and needed a thorough deep cleaning from top to bottom by the team before it could be made operational; “The cleaning has been problematic because the current lack of heat inside the L.R.F. means that we have to use portable heaters to reach temperatures a few degrees above zero. Cleaning is also complicated by the size of the Drying Tunnel”.
The actual asbestos issues were not elaborated on at this point in the timeline, but a following post on the 13th March shared some further info and subsequent updates have helped to piece together what happened. My job-that-actually-pays-me is in Properties & Facilities Management so it is with understanding and experience that I can explain the following: asbestos cladding had been discovered on pipework between the ground floor and the basement of the building, most likely following investigation after a substantial flooding of water into the basement from freezing and thawing cracked pipes. It wasn't realized at the time, but later discovered that the pipes were "longer than expected", their words, and my reading between the lines is that remedial works to remove the asbestos cladding were undertaken before this was discovered, potentially even before the asbestos was identified, and as a result an "asbestos leak" occurred. My understanding of "asbestos leak" is that the works being undertaken released asbestos fibres into the air either unknowingly and unintentionally. This would have put an immediate stop of any further works happening and the entire area sealed and made inaccessible. Indeed the team were then locked out of sealed areas of the building; "two floors of the building" they share in a later update, likely being the ground and first floors, that and "the process of finding, bidding and scheduling remediators took several weeks, and it was more weeks until the crew arrived (to remove it)" suggests to me that the prior contractors undertaken to remove the asbestos cladding either hadn't understood the scope of the operation, or misidentified something and made a mistake and were not qualified to handle asbestos contamination and removal. "The actual work (to remove the asbestos) only lasted a few days" FILM Ferrania shared. The team were unable to access the ground and first floors, likely the base of their operations, for over 8 weeks, and this is a long time.
Aside from the asbestos issues, Northern Italy had a particularly bad winter; the wettest, coldest Winter on record, and freezing heavy snow on an aged roof had damaged the roof construction significantly and subsequently melted and leaked into the building. "(we) had to wrap machines in plastic to keep them dry." the team shared, and “Inside the LRF, we were forced to use portable heaters in an attempt to keep the temperatures above freezing." A further problem developed after demolition work on the greater Ferrania Technologies campus accidentally cracked a pipe that fed de-mineralized water to the LRF; “The pipe cracked and created another small flood and led to much haggling over who needed to fix the problem. Everything used in the creation of film must be purified and free of any contaminants. This single cracked pipe halted production for a more than a week while the pipe was replaced and properly sanitized.”
As a result of the above mentioned catastrophes, the 13th March update advised: "The timeline has changed...” and that “(we must) adjust our target for reward shipments (Kickstarter Backers rewards) to the end of May, but perhaps stretching into early June”.“the delivery of the first batch has been delayed by 4-6 weeks. For all of you out there waiting to purchase film, our current plan is to launch the same 35mm, 120, Super 8 and 16mm 100 ASA color reversal products - in limited quantities - here in our shop within 3-5 weeks after our Kickstarter fulfillment is complete.” and the below timeline was shared.
Which of course, if you've gotten this far, know that that didn't happen. You would have thought an asbestos contamination would be the worst possible thing that could go wrong with any building project right? Well unfortunately for Team FILM Ferrania they still had a whole mountain of challenges to overcome yet...
THE 14th MAY 2015 was not the date the film rewards were shipped, instead we were blessed with another update advising that asbestos abatement works had been completed and the work in the LRF could resume but there was another swerve to progress in the form of the water supply to the campus: "A new road is under construction, connecting the local highway to the campus. In order to build this road, the “umbilical” that carries steam and demineralized water to the LRF Building from the Ferrania power station will be severed tomorrow - May 15th. To coat film, we need this steam power. Our original Kickstarter schedule was designed to use steam from Ferrania prior to the removal of the umbilical. Once our connection to the Ferrania power station is severed we will have to use self-produced steam. This has been the long-term plan all along, but because of the asbestos delay, our new steam generator is not yet installed." Understandably a delay of some 8 weeks, potentially longer is going to really put a spanner in the works of any short to medium term planning, but that's only a slight delay to the installation of a steam generator, couldn't possibly have long term knock on effects right?... right?... "The other component needed to coat film is cold water (at 6°C). To create this water, we need two specialized "chillers” one small and one large. The small one is for winter, when the outside temperatures are cooler. The larger one (or the combination of the two) is used during the warmer summer months. Regrettably, we have only the small chiller installed. We are being told that the big chiller should arrive in 4-6 weeks, but this remains to be seen." Ok, so that's a bit of a delay but that's fine, maybe have a go with just the small chiller? That would work right? ”our current plan is to wait for new steam generator to be installed (probably by the end of May) and run tests using just the small chiller to see if we can, under some conditions, go ahead with coating. If not, we will have to wait for the big chiller to arrive.” Yeah see, exactly! That's the kind of optimism us backers want to see! Ok, so I'm maybe being facetious, because this was a really big deal for the FILM Ferrania team. They were about to lose their source of water and steam power and they only had one chiller in place that wasn't enough to produce to film on an industrial scale. At this point it would have been easy for any other company to throw their hands in the air, give up and walk away. But too much hard work had been put in at this point and FILM Ferrania pressed on:“once the new chiller arrives, we’ll have everything we need to get back on schedule.”. It's worth noting at this point, that long before the May 2015 update a good circle of Kickstarter backers were either losing patience, suspected a scam as Kickstarter is so rife with this kind of thing, or were just otherwise unconvinced and there was a lot of ill will and "invoke rights" comments peppering the comments sections on Facebook, the Campaign page and on FILM Ferrania's own website. And the May '15 update certainly did nothing to put the minds of those people at ease. I don't know if this is because there was a lot of fair weather backers, or whether people were just not reading and understanding what was happening, or just pure didn't get it? There was still support though, and still a dedicated handful of people wishing them the best and keeping the faith, but the swelling of unrest prompted a lengthy explanation in the next update that was posted on 22nd June 2015: "our schedule was halted in March when asbestos was found in the coater room. The removal continued through April and into May. In mid-May, the asbestos remediation was finished, but then our main source of power was demolished, causing another several weeks of delay. The final blow to our schedule was discovering this month that our "Little Chiller" simply cannot produce the necessary conditions in the factory for testing or production - and we must now await the arrival of the "Big Chiller" before we can resume our schedule." Unfortunately the tests with the Little Chiller had just not worked out, thanks in part to an unseasonably hot April and May, and it would be a further (spoiler) THREE MONTHS before the Big Chiller actually arrives. "after some quick calculations and tests, we discovered that during the summer there is no possible way to use just the little chiller - even if we run it at night only. It simply cannot produce the proper climatic conditions necessary for coating. We now have no choice but to wait for the big chiller, expected to be completed, delivered and installed by the end of August." It actually gets delivered towards the end of September. It's like at this point, just suggesting any timescale for anything puts a curse on it... The update also elaborated on the umbilical issues: "The LRF received filtered water and steam through a simple overhead delivery conduit that ran from our neighbor, Ferrania Technologies to our building. We have been aware for a long time that this lifeline would eventually be removed. For many years, the government has planned to create an connection between two well travelled, but disconnected, highways. This connecting road goes right through the center of the old Ferrania campus." "As we said, we knew the umbilical was going to be cut, so we long ago ordered our own steam generator, and installation has been ongoing since it arrived. Unfortunately, the original schedule for installation fell during the asbestos lockout. Installation is now complete." suggesting that the campus at least now had it's own steam power generators in place! If only they could produce electricity and... oh hang on that's a problem for later... as you were... Sorry, yup there are still yet more problems to come in this saga, but this has been a lot of text since the last pretty picture, so here is something nice to look at:
Lovely! Look how nice the campus looks during unseasonably hot weather in Northern Italy! ok, so where are we? Going back to the May update, the team were at least frank and honest about the situation "The initial two-month delay caused by the asbestos started a domino effect that set our production schedule back at least six months. Primary production schedule will not resume until later this year." and it was 3 months before we were given further clarity on the situation. An update on the 23rd September 2015 advised that the Big Chiller had finally been delivered, just inside some 2 months later than originally planned and contractors were planned to arrive in the following week to install the chiller and move the Small Chiller. Let's hope they don't find any more asbestos! No they err... actually didn't... but at this point they could have shared an update about accidentally awakening the dark lord Cthulhu and to be honest we wouldn't have been surprised. "Once installed, we will enter a phase of testing to receive official accreditation of the building's services, overseen by the Italian government... the engine we call FILM Ferrania has officially restarted!" the team shared, and this was the first mention of government accreditation being a milestone. Presumably a requirement from the beginning but at the time not envisioned to be one that would factor in to any delays? "unfortunately other surprises can come" I think is the quote shared in this update that just underpins the whole FILM Ferrania story and they should have this emblazoned as the company catchphrase in my opinion.
A further November update, 8th November, advised that the Big Chiller was fully installed, only 2 months after originally planned, and also that a "new transformer is being installed in LRF to utilize power from public grid as Ferrania’s old power station is being shut down", which was fresh news. There was also an update that a lift had been installed and cameras to watch the perimeter fence, both requirements to get accreditation from the Italian government, "After a few other small projects are complete, we will move into a phase where the government will go over all the work, test all of the new installations, as well as the existing machinery, and give their assessment." This bought to an end an extremely trying and testing year for FILM Ferrania where, on more than one occasion, the whole project could have grounded to a halt and failed if not for the persistence of all involved. "From any perspective, 2015 was terrible. We didn't make film, plain and simple. But we enter 2016 in a much better position than if everything had gone to the original plan."
And there was indeed confident speculation from the FILM Ferrania team heading into 2016; "We spent the month of January finalizing all of the paperwork for FILM Ferrania and now our operations and staff are fully ready to begin the Production Phase." and certainly 2016 brings to an end the chaotic disasters that have plagued FILM Ferrania up until this point, although they are still in store for some further challenges yet. No tangible update on progress came from FILM Ferrania until the 19th February 2016 where they reported that the core team had re-entered the LRF on the 11th February to begin the next steps to restarting production. The LRF now had it's own dedicated power plants (I presume this is onsite diesel power generators?), which will be a temporary measure until mains power is connected, and the decision had been made to use entirely new materials and methods optimized for the current state of the LRF and film coater. All of the work that had been done prior to now was effectively gone. FILM Ferrania we're starting from almost day one again.
A further update some months later in April 2016 shared slightly more positive news; "As of April 1st, 2016, FILM Ferrania s.r.l. became an officially certified manufacturer. This distinction is incredibly important. Before, in the eyes of the government, we were simply a research and development team granted special access to the Ferrania buildings and the L.R.F. in particular. Now we are an official Factory, with all of the safety, legal and regulatory requirements of any Italian manufacturer." which was at least one milestone passed, out of the way, done, no longer a problem! The team also shared a brief update suggesting testing for Little Boy, the precision coater, was under way for production of colour film. Again things were quiet for the next few months until an update in June shed some light on the logistical issues that the team were facing; there was some 52 metres of pipework missing between the public outlet and the LRF building to supply the LRF with water. Up until this moment, any facilities requiring water (toilets, sinks e.t.c) were sourcing water from giant industrial water filled bins with any other functions requiring water were sourcing it direct from the river and undergoing internal treatment before being used. The external gas supply to the LRF was piped through pipework intended for low pressure use only, and the LRF required a high pressure supply. At present they were 'borrowing' a gas supply from neighboring Ferrania Technologies. The electrical supply fell short of some several metres from the public outlet to the LRF and required a tunnel to be dug under public streets to bridge some of the gap together with copper wire conduits to bridge the rest of the gap. Because of these issues the team were unable to install the new slitter device they had sourced prior to the issues in 2015; a device used to cut huge bulk rolls of film into smaller rolls, and for testing purposes were relying on refurbishing an old 1920's antique slitter that they literally only rescued because they thought it might be a museum piece! A further update on the 11th August confirmed the LRF was now connected to the primary power supply, and updates in September shared the progress that was being made with the Little Boy colour film tests. Let's have a video shall we?
Very nice! More info was shared in October 2016, where the team reported that the testing phase had moved on to preparing the base materials for the first production runs. The 1920's antique slitter was capable of cutting jumbo rolls (a huge film roll with a capacity of some 46,500 equivalent rolls of 35mm film!!) down to mini jumbos (a slightly more manageable 960 equivalent rolls of 35mm film) to be fed into Little Boy as Little Boy was unable to manage full size jumbo rolls. An update on the 4th November 2016 advised that work was completed to set up a small scale chemical synthesis operation inside the LRF. Plan A had always been to rely on the existing chemical stock but the team discovered some of the chemicals in the stock were scarce, enough for at most 2 batches of film and would never be enough to facilitate a large scale operation. And a gentlemans agreement with Ferrania Technologies to produce chemicals for them had broken down, so Plan B was to use the old chemicals for analysis and comparison and produce their own. First tests with a silver based emultion we're carried out later in the month on the 13th November and the rest of November was spent carrying out total darkness tests. 2016 had been a much more productive year for FILM Ferrania in comparison to the disaster that was 2015. And in December the team took a moment to reflect on that, 112 weeks since the Kickstarter campaign ended; "Two years ago, when we launched our Kickstarter campaign, we had everything in place to produce film from the previously existing materials and methods. The delays that started in late-March 2015 closed our window to make film in this manner." 80% of what should be FILM Ferrania is in storage at this point, the remaining 20% "is the stuff that is absolutely essential to making miniJumbos of film - and absolutely nothing more". There are 6 people working on the project, "6 people spent 3 ½ years restoring the LRF, returning the Precision Coater to working order, and preparing all of the chemistry necessary to make film.". But the December update also came with some very positive news. A mini-slitter had been installed to cut mini jumbos down to x5 35mm cassette bands, and a perforator had been installed and "at around 5pm on Tuesday, December 6th, 2016, those six people coated 17 meters of photosensitive film. This was just (the) first test of two-layer black and white film, and there were some issues with the run - but it was real film. These six people went from ZERO to REAL FILM in just three months." The absolute first beta roll of P30 had just been produced.
Here it is. One of THE FIRST photos taken with new P30 film: "exposure #3 from that first roll, photographed in downtown Florence, Italy on an overcast day by Nicola Baldini. The negative was scanned on a consumer-grade desktop scanner with no adjustments. It was then cropped and saved as a high-quality JPG file. It is as completely un-retouched as a scan can be." It had taken nearly 2 years 2 months, but FILM Ferrania had just produced it's own first type of film. It was Black & White only. But it was film. On the 1st February 2017 FILM Ferrania announced the arrival of P30 Alpha to the rest of the world. It wasn't yet available to purchase but us long suffering, faithful Kickstarter backers we're given the option to exchange our reward for rolls of P30 Alpha or alternatively keep the original reward and receive a voucher for a discount off the cost of ordering some rolls of P30 Alpha when the new shop went live, which was around March 2018. This was the option I chose, and you can check out the first photos I shot with P30 alpha by looking at this blog post. And here it is. Here is what P30 looked like when it first started turning up on people's doorsteps:
Up until this point, I've structured this post as a kind of timeline of events, mainly because I felt that was the best way to really give you a break down of everything that err... broke down.. during FILM Ferrania's efforts to get to the stage of producing P30 Alpha. But it wasn't until July 2018 that FILM Ferrania announced they were in a position to become a "continuous, uninterrupted film production" company, and summer 2018 was a date given in one email update for initial testing for colour reversal film... I'm not even sure if that is happening now, at time of writing. Suffice to say FILM Ferrania still had it's share of hurdles to overcome. They had to effectively close the LRF in February 2018 whilst works were carried out to implement government mandated repairs, details of which are scarce, and they were only able to re-enter again on the 16th July 2018. This meant putting a pause and restart on continuous production of film. Much of August to September 2018 was spent refurbishing the LRF and again production was halted whilst the team refurbished machines and refined their processes to reduce waste and produce top quality consumer grade film. A frank update in December 2018 broke down FILM Ferrania's future plan as simply as possible; "We must be able to produce film continuously. We must be able to produce final, retail-ready products entirely in-house. We must radically reduce waste", and at this point Kickstater backers we're advised that their original pledge would likely be converted into vouchers for future use as such a time that FILM Ferrania started producing colour film. At this point P30 was still not readily available from third party suppliers. Only 2 updates were shared in March and May of 2019 that revealed very little info other than that production was being restarted. At this point it seemed like the project truly was fizzling away into nothing. That was until December 2019 and in February of this year when FILM Ferrania founder Nicola Baldini started sharing video updates in a "Q&A" style format of what was happening with the project. In typical FILM Ferrania fashion it promises the last update soon in the 4th video, but at time of writing some 4 months later it still hasn't been shared...! One key quote that I took from the series though was "the original version of the project as we conceived in 2014 has failed." "for sure, when we started FILM Ferrania we under estimate a lot of things, but this is quite normal for any challenging project." It's clear that FILM Ferrania wasn't preparted for the complexity of the problems they would face when they initially started out and maybe hadn't envisioned all of the challenges they would face. 2019 did start to see the arrival of P30, in limited batches, online and on shelves around the world though, the machine was moving slowly but it was still moving!
4 weeks ago, 28th May, FILM Ferrania announced they we're back and P30 was in stock again, the post that prompted me to put this whole thing together. It's been exactly 5 years, 8 months and 29 days at time of writing since the Kickstarter was announced and I, like a lot of the backers I don't doubt, have felt on more than one occasion that this was just going to fizzle away into nothing and that we weren't gonna get our money back. It's worth noting that when P30 Alpha first went live, it looks like only some 70% of the original backers we're seemingly still following the project. You only need to check out the history of the comments section on the Kickstarter project to see the sheer volume of people criticizing the campaign or 'invoking rights', Facebook was no different and Instagram was the mostly the same. Why is that wrong? Well my feelings are that the majority of backers probably just didn't understand the complexity of what was happening, or suspected it was a scam, as I mentioned earlier, or just didn't get it. This wasn't a straightforward task, and it was never going to be from the beginning and that was when all the services and chemicals were available for them before they had to make their own... that job was made even more complex when all of that suddenly was no longer available. The domino effect resulting from the asbestos issues that occurred in 2015; the delay to the chiller delivery, the delay to the steam generators, the severing of the water umbilical, the remedial works to connect electricity and gas, severely crippled FILM Ferrania's opportunity to become a film producer and any lesser company would have gone bust and died off. They are only still now, recovering and adapting to the new challenge. Nicola Baldini put it best himself in a video update when he said only 5 manufacturers made film during the golden age of film. Now I think there are maybe 3; Kodak, Fuji and Ilford. You can't be in leagues with those companies overnight, and even if the events of 2015 had been different for FILM Ferrania they would have produced a significant volume of colour film yes, but would still had to have to adapt their work practices as they grew and developed. Instead of doing that now, they are instead doing all of the background work, and all the hard work first before rushing to market the first batch of colour film. Understanding all of this is why I haven't gone nuclear in the comments section yet, and I still hold hope that one day FILM Ferrania Scotchchrome will go live in the website shop (or something similar at least!) and it will be a great time because the world will have a new major manufacturer of film, built from the ground up and made entirely in Italy. Forza FILM Ferrania.
Nobody from FILM Ferrania contributed to, sponsored or endorsed this blog post. All images and diagrams used for illustrative purposes only and no claim to ownership is made. You can find more info on FILM Ferrania and buy P30 film on their website: https://www.filmferrania.com/
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