{"id":13935,"date":"2012-01-06T04:51:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T04:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=13935"},"modified":"2012-01-07T05:18:29","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T05:18:29","slug":"kodak-on-the-brink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2012\/01\/06\/kodak-on-the-brink\/","title":{"rendered":"Kodak on the Brink"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The news that Kodak is preparing for bankruptcy protection signals another chapter in the death of celluloid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was one of the most iconic companies and brands in the world, synonymous with the photographic image, but in recent years profits have declined and costs risen.<\/p>\n

Once a hub of innovation that attracted America’s most talented engineers, it was essentially the Apple or Google of its day.<\/p>\n

But in the digital era processing film stock is a much more expensive business than manufacturing SD cards.<\/p>\n

Last November, Kodak said that it might not even survive 2012 if it couldn’t secure $500 million in new debt or sell their digital imaging-patents, rumoured to be worth between $2bn and $3bn.<\/p>\n

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In a report for the Wall Street Journal<\/a>, Mike Spector and Dana Mattioli describe the current situation:<\/p>\n

The 131-year-old company is still making last-ditch efforts to sell off some of its patent portfolio and could avoid Chapter 11 if it succeeds, one of the people said. But the company has started making preparations for a filing in case those efforts fail, including talking to banks about some $1 billion in financing to keep it afloat during bankruptcy proceedings, the people said.<\/p>\n

A filing could come as soon as this month or early February, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Kodak would continue to pay its bills and operate normally while under bankruptcy protection, the people said. But the company’s focus would then be the sale of some 1,100 patents through a court-supervised auction, the people said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The reversal is a notable one, especially as Kodak invented the modern digital camera in 1975.<\/p>\n

In this interview Steven Sasson<\/a> describes how he invented the camera in the midst of an era that was decidely analogue.<\/p>\n