Sign of the Times: Fujifilm to Stop Making Film for the Cinema Industry

Less than a month after Kodak announced the sale of its photographic film business, Fujifilm has some downer news of its own: the end of its motion picture film business.

In the press release it issued announcing the news, the company cites the shift of the cinema industry toward digital as the reason for its decision:

Fujifilm has mainly provided negative films for shooting and positive films for projection in its motion picture film business operations. However, in order to adapt to the recent rapid transition of digitalization in the shooting, producing, projecting and archiving processes of motion pictures Fujifilm has decided to shift its business operations to provide products and services designed for digital workflow of motion picture production and projection.

Fujifilm plans to shutter the operations by March 2013. It did, however, reaffirm its commitment to producing “professional and amateur photographic still film”, so analog photographers need not panic.

Still, the news is a sad sign of the times, as photographic film companies have historically relied pretty heavily on their cinema film divisions. In 2008, Kodak’s motion picture film business accounted for 92% of its film business.

Fujifilm’s future does seem a bit brighter than Kodak’s did over the past decade. It has transitioned much more smoothly into digital camera technologies, and is one of the lone juggernauts of the photographic film industry now that Kodak has tapped out.

(via Engadget)


Image credit: Hyatt Cinema by jonathanpercy

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