WEBVTT - The Kodak Story 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.800 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:14.920 tex Stuff from houstoforoks dot com. This podcast is brought 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.720 to you by Audible dot com, the Internet's leading provider 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.759 of audio books, with more than one hundred thousand downloadable 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.439 titles across all types of literature. For tex Stuff listeners, 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.400 Audible is offering a free audiobook to give you a 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.440 chance to try out their service. One audio book to 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:34.920 consider is The Singularity Is Near When Humans Transcend Biology 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:38.760 by Ray kirtzwil Kurtswile explores a future where man and 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.840 machine are one and the same. Text Stuff is fascinated 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:44.320 by the idea of singularity, and this is a great 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:47.520 book to learn more about it. The Singularity Is Near 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:52.320 When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray kirtzwild available from Audible. 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.400 To try Audible free to day and get a free 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.400 audio book of your choice, go to Audible podcast dot 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:03.640 com slash tech Stuff. That's Audible podcast dot com slash 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:09.440 tech Stuff. Well, Hello, there are kids, and welcome to 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:12.000 tech Stuff. My name is Chris Polette and I am 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.400 an editor at how Stuff Works dot com. Sitting across 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:17.759 from me, as is typically the case when we talk 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.160 about technology and stuff in the studio, that would be 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:25.759 senior writer Jonathan Strickland, somewhere in La Mancha, in a 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.360 place whose name I do not care to remember, a 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.920 gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:33.440 a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:38.240 a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing. Awesome, thank you. 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.039 I actually know where that comes from. Yeah, yeah, yep, 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:45.400 that's a brave New world. Get there, brave New world 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.480 that's from. I thought that was Beowulf. It was that, 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:53.600 you know, that's that's the original first line of Chaucer's 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:56.640 Canterbury Tales. It's actually what that is. You didn't recognize 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.040 it because I didn't use the Middle English. Yeah, okay, 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.800 all right, well that's no for that. Yeah, this is 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:06.160 full of beans this morning. Um. You know, frequently we 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:11.640 you know, frequently when we talk about topics on tech stuff, Um, 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.760 it's either something that's near and dear to our hearts 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:18.480 or something specifically that somebody wrote in about and this 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:21.800 is this is actually something sort of more toward the former, 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:25.160 but it's also something that's hit the headlines, and it's 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:27.840 probably near and dear to many of your hearts as well, 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.359 because the company we're talking about it is going through 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.280 some very rough times and it's somebody that it made 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.079 a real difference to really the world. Yeah, we're talking 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:39.839 about Kodak here and uh and yeah, Kodak has made 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:45.560 a huge impact on technology, on photography in general, especially 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.960 when it comes to the average person having a chance 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:51.840 to get his or her hands on a camera, because 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:56.160 before Kodak, photography was really a pretty limited field and 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.880 it was just there really were there really were no 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:04.280 consumer cameras. And the company itself has a very long history. 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:08.160 It's over a century old. Yes, yes, and and really 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:11.360 well for one thing, um, not long before we recorded this, 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:17.480 in February, UM, the company declared Chapter eleven bankruptcy. Yeah, 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:20.040 that was in January. And then and then a month 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:24.000 later they made an announcement that really kind of showed 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:30.120 how the company has changed dramatically. On February nine, Kodak 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.760 announced that it was getting out of the camera business. Yeah, 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:36.400 and I mean there's it's one thing to talk about 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.440 all the businesses that camera that Kodak is in, um, 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:42.280 you know, but it is made. It started out in 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.480 the film business essentially, but moved quickly into cameras. And 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:49.800 the idea of it that Kodak would stop making cameras, 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:53.040 it's just sort of it's it's it's really kind of 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.600 earth shaking to somebody who's grown up with it, right, 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.600 it would be it's hard to it's hard to kind 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:01.320 of what would you compare it to. It would be 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:02.880 like if Apple said it was no longer going to 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.119 make Max, like from now on, Apple was just going 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:11.640 to concentrate on mobile electronics. It's even it's yeah, but 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:13.560 I'm just trying to come up with something that people 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:18.040 can core business, right, Yeah, the thing that is most identified, 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:20.320 and I guess you could argue that with Apple. Now 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.800 the iPod in the iPhone have kind of supplanted the Mac. 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:26.920 But yeah, it's it's hard to wrap your mind around it. 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:31.120 So this means no more digital cameras or video cameras 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.400 or even digital picture frames from Kodak. Instead, what they're 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:39.560 going to focus their main core business on focus no 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:43.720 longer will be cameras, It'll be printers. So I guess 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:48.640 it's good that HP decided to continue it's consumer computer 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.800 business and not focus primarily on consumer printers for its 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:54.520 consumer side, because otherwise HP and Kodak would just be 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:59.240 head to head they still are technically, but well, the 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:06.280 apparently the bankruptcy filing included this information that as of September, 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:10.839 the end of September, UH Kodak had about five point 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:15.120 one billion dollars to its name. Unfortunately, it had six 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:19.679 point seven five billion dollars in debt, including twelve million 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:23.080 dollars that it owed to Nokia UM in Finland for 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.880 royalties on intellectual property. So yeah, when you have more 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:29.000 debt than you have money, that's what we call a 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:31.919 bad thing. That's also what we call fresh out of college, 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:35.279 at least in the United States. Well, uh, yeah, I 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.839 don't think that's exclusive to the US, No, but there 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.160 are a lot of places in Europe where taxes end 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:44.280 up taking care of a lot of the I'm just saying, well, 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:52.080 UM Kodak has quite a bit of UH intellectual property 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.560 information UM and then tried to leverage that before it 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.160 filed for bankruptcy. And there this is not really new stuff. 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:03.240 Code struggling has been a result of the you know, 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:08.320 the the burgeoning UH digital photography industry, which it has 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:12.159 done somewhat of a you know, semi successful capitalization on. 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:14.159 But and I think you could say right now, the 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:19.160 digital photography has supplanted a film photography for all. But uh, 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:24.960 there's a decreasing number of photographers who will use film. 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.839 And it's not that film is is worse than than digital. 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:30.600 In fact, there are a lot of photographers who argue 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:32.719 the opposite, that there are qualities that you get with 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:35.280 film that you cannot get with digital unless you were 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:40.119 to spend countless hours trying to recapture something that film 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.760 does naturally on its own. But that being said, the 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.800 general consumer, it's it's almost all digital now. I mean 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:50.200 that's what we have in our in our phones, it's 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:54.039 what we have. Some m P three players have them, tablets, 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.039 I mean, it's our our computers have a lot of 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.839 cases have the camera built into the frame. Right. Yeah, 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.359 and it would use them for you know, chatting and 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:04.880 things like that, but you can also use them and 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:07.120 take still photos. It would be very inconvenient if those 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:11.200 were all film based. True. But yeah, so wait, hold on, 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.480 I gotta take my laptop apart to get the film out. Yeah. 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:17.080 So some people say that Codex The reason why Kodak 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:18.800 is in the position it's in now is that it 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.840 did not adapt quickly enough. It did not commit fully 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:26.119 enough to the digital revolution and stuck with the film 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:31.440 side for consumer products maybe a bit too loyally. You know, 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.560 maybe we were a little too adamant on keeping with 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:38.880 that film side of the equation and not jumping enough 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:42.280 over to the digital side. And uh, and you know, 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:44.360 it's kind of hard to say whether back at the 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:46.880 back when Kodak was making these calls, it was hard 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.200 to tell that that was going to be the wrong call, 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.960 right well. Uh, And it's also an oversimplification because Kodak 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.480 was one of the pioneers of digital, because we're going 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.440 to look at that in a moment. Plus uh, you know, 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.559 they they've Kodak would have been in a much worse 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:06.240 position or even gone by now if it hadn't diversified itself. 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.160 I think we should take a look back, uh, starting 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:11.240 from the beginning. And it and a guy that many 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.680 of you know. He's a he's a tech pioneer, but 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.760 his name is certainly familiar to It's it's a household 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:21.240 name for many many people and has been especially in Rochester, 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:25.560 New York, New York. So about George Eastman. George Eastman, 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.600 who you know, he's not known as the brainiest inventor 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.079 whoever lived. In fact, he was sort of an average guy. 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:37.240 Um came out of an average home, ended up having 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:41.400 to uh to jump right into the workforce and actually 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:43.760 was a banker for a while too. He went to 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:48.640 school to become a to improve himself and um ended 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.560 up being a banker. But you know, he went on 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:54.040 a vacation. This is kind of funny. He went on 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.800 a vacation and wanted to be able to take pictures, 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:00.160 so he bought a wet plate outfit. This is way 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:05.199 photography was was done before Eastman got the idea to 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.480 try to simplify things somewhat. And he had to buy 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:14.360 a boatload of gear because yeah, because with wet plate photography, 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.920 you have to have the plate wet with chemicals before 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:22.520 you take the photo, and before it the plate dries, 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.560 you have to develop the photo, so you have to 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:28.480 keep the He had to buy a tent so that 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.520 he could develop the photos of his vacation on the 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:36.400 spot before the before the chemicals dried. That's somewhat inconvenient. 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.320 And this is why professionals were the only people taking 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.640 photos because nobody wanted to mess with this. It was expensive, 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.120 it was a pain in the neck. And then came 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:50.480 the development of the dry plate development. Are you gonna 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.160 do that the whole podcast? Because I will quit right now. 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:56.440 The funny thing is we use these terms, but these 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:02.840 are totally photography terms. Okay, of the progression from what 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.480 plate to dry plate? Um, So, yeah, he knew about this. 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:08.480 This is not something that he invented that plate to 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.280 dry plate, right. Dry plate meant that you no longer 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.320 had to have those wet chemicals on the plates before 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:16.080 you took your photo, and you didn't have to worry 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:19.360 about it drying out before before you had to develop it. 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.479 But what he did because he came up with a 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:28.760 an emulsion coding machine which allowed the mass production of 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.240 dry plates, which was a big deal because that before 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.760 then you were making dry plates one at a time, 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:38.040 very slow, painstaking process, not efficient. There was no real 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:42.600 way to make that a consumer market device at all 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.040 because it just took too long to make them. Yes, 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.080 this is this is one of those situations where he 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.040 figured out he heard about these experiments people were doing 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.520 with with a gelatine coating for the chemicals that you 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:59.680 would use to capture an image. And he said, you know, 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:01.920 I think that there's got to be a way to 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:06.599 make this easier. And he spent long hours after he 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:09.360 would go home from work, he would spend hours working 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:13.319 in his mother's kitchen, UM trying to come up with 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:17.560 a way to to make this a mass production affair. 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:19.679 And they apparently he would they would find him in 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:21.600 the morning. He would fall asleep on the floor in 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.800 his clothes, coming home after a long day at the office, 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:26.320 and he'd have to go back to work. So he 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:30.400 spent a long time UH working on this process and 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.280 a lot of elbow grease, really putting into the process 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.640 of trying to come up with us. But no headlight fluid. 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.200 So in eighteen eighty fluid. Yeah, I'll tell you later. 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:44.280 In eighteen eighty he began to create the commercial production 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:48.800 of these dry plates, and he rented Aloft in Rochester, 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:52.240 New York. And this is the date that Kodak tends 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.480 to trace its history back to, is an eighteen eighty 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.480 when Eastman started to actually UH produce these dry plates 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:04.240 and sell UH. And a year later Eastman partnered up 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.880 with a guy named Henry A strong. Hey, you know 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:10.400 you gotta go with somebody with it with a name 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.360 like that. We well, and you know what he he 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:16.480 made before he got into this whole film business, right, 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.440 buggy whips. Yeah, when you if you have a strong 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.600 buggy whip, you know you're in good hands. Was supposed 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:25.280 to those weak buggy whips. I don't want to make 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.839 any cracks about buggy whips. I can do it too. 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.000 So anyway, they formed the partnership that they called the 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.360 Eastman Dry Plate Company, which just rolls off the tongue 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:41.480 and uh. And then that year that fall Eastman quits 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.560 his job as a bank clerk and devotes his full 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:49.080 attention to this business. Yep. So he he really believed 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.040 that they were going to make a mark, I may 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.600 make a name for themselves in this this business. And 0:12:55.679 --> 0:13:00.320 he was right. They were very successful, very early by three. 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:02.680 So just two years after they had formed this partnership, 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:07.200 they transferred over to a four story building in uh 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:09.439 an address that we now know as three four three 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:13.080 State Street, Rochester, New York. And if you were to 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:17.360 visit that area, you would find Codex Worldwide headquarters. So 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.000 they did not they did not venture far, No, not 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.280 at all. Although the building looks completely it's it's a 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:27.120 different building. It's what's now three four three State Street, 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:31.360 so should make that clear. But in eighteen eighty four 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:36.360 they changed the business and it it evolved from a 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:41.080 partnership into a corporation with fourteen shareholders at with a 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:44.599 it was a two hundred thousand dollar corporation, which in 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:47.400 four that's a that's a big jung of change. I 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:52.040 did not actually think to do the conversion to find 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:54.880 out exactly how much that is in today's dollars, but 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:57.960 I'll say lots. Yeah, I I only did one conversion, 0:13:57.960 --> 0:13:59.880 and that stuff for something that's coming up soon. Yeah, 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:03.840 I'm wondering if it's the same thing. Probably, um yeah. 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:06.319 And as a matter of fact, in four, that's when 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:10.320 they introduced negative paper, which you know basically was paper 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:12.679 that just complained about how nothing's going to work out. 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.679 A lot of negative papers in college now, um this 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:20.040 of course, uh, you know was anybody who's worked with 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.080 film for cameras as uh, you know what you use 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:26.480 to capture you know, you have the negatives are looks 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:28.120 like and you know, hold it up to the light. 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:30.760 It looks like the opposite of what you see when 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:35.160 you print a photo. UM, and William H. Walker somebody 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.000 who was working with the company, uh, invented a role 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.640 holder for for negative. So this is this is just 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:42.920 you know, this is trivia in a way, but it's 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.840 not in another because these guys are inventing the way 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:50.680 that you capture images for and and making it simpler 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.560 and mass productive, you know, doing the mass production work 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:58.120 for this stuff. So they're really inventing the photo business. Yeah, 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.720 it's because of these the work that these men did 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:08.240 that the the consumer camera developed evolved the way it did. 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:11.360 I know, but I just wanted to stop myself before 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.240 I said it again didn't quite work. But anyway, Yeah, 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:19.240 if if if someone else had made advances in the technology, 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:24.400 perhaps cameras would have have been completely different. You know 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:27.480 when you think of that role of film that if 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:30.280 you've ever used a camera that actually used film and 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.080 you had to put a roll of film in and 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.280 feed the film over through a little feeder and then uh, 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:38.560 they would take photos and you look at the exposure 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:42.040 number on your camera. Uh. The reason why we do 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.080 that is because the work these men did. If other 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:47.880 people had done something else. Then cameras would have looked 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:50.880 and behaved completely differently than the way that we think 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.840 of them. Um. Yeah. And as a matter of fact, 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:59.560 this is in eighteen six, This is about the time 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:04.240 that uh, Kodak sowed it's its roots of um sod 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:09.320 its roots really sort of began, Yes, began looking at 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:13.160 the possibility that they should be getting into other technologies. 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.720 They were there, uh uh one of the very first 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:21.120 companies in America that had a full time research scientist. Um. 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:27.680 And he was looking at the creating a transparent film base. Um, 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:29.560 you know, something that was flexible, it didn't have to 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:34.280 be a solid plate like the existing photo technology was. Yeah, 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:39.200 the first transparent photographic film came from Kodak, and it 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:45.880 was right around that time. Uh. It was when Eastman 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:50.680 founded the Kodak company. Yes, I I love the genesis 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:53.200 of this name because now companies come up with names 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:56.440 for themselves and from products by going through marketing groups 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:58.920 and focus groups and trying to come up with, you know, 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:04.480 the excitra things that were stir the passions. Eastman sat down. 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:06.280 He liked the letter K because he felt like it 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.840 was a strong letter and just played around with words 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.760 he made up Kodak and you know, look at that. 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:17.159 It's it's short, it's sweet, and people remember it's one 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:19.680 letter off from being a bear. Also, I think he 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.560 he also liked that the color yellow, the signature color 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.040 yellow that they use on their packaging. Um, and he 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:27.359 came up with the slogan, you press the button, we 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.399 do the rest for the first camera. Now here again, 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:34.920 it's twelve they've stopped producing cameras or are about to really? Um, 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:38.800 So it was when they released their first camera. Yeah. 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:42.080 Before that they were they were strictly film yes, and 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:45.200 dry plate and dry plate. And now in eighty eight 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.720 they've really released their first camera. This is giving birth 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:52.320 to the era of snapshot photography. Yeah. In the sentence 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:55.720 that huge. Yeah, this is what allows the average person 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.080 to get a camera and not have a lot of 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:02.920 training or expertise of fatiography and take pictures. Now again, 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:06.320 we should stress that the quality of pictures is going 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:10.120 to depend highly upon the type of camera and the photographer. 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:13.800 We have a photographer as our producing today, and I 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:17.200 just want to make it clear that we appreciate the 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.360 intense level of skill that she has as a photographer. 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:26.720 I I agree, Um, she's also scary. Um and and 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.440 eighty nine was when the when Kodak released its first 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:34.479 commercial transparent role film. UM. So this perfection that the 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:37.560 release of the camera equipment, the release of the transparent 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:41.400 role film. UM this is a complete revolution because it's 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:45.920 it's made uh, photography available to the average person again. 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:50.439 Um and Uh, this is when you know things started 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.159 to really change. You Also at this time, though, you 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:55.880 had to go into a dark area to load your 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.480 camera because you don't want to expose your film and 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.160 ruin it before you can take pictures. Because of course, 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.480 the whole thing about film is that it has a 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.359 chemical reaction when it's exposed to light, and that's what 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.320 allows it to capture photos or pictures. If you were 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:14.080 to expose that film to light before you were to 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:16.480 use in a camera, then you would just ruin that 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.320 that film. It would be it would be as if 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.520 you had taken a photo already. Uh. That was completely 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.560 uncontrolled circumstances. So you had to load it in a 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:31.879 dark room until when they introduced their first daylight loading camera, 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.919 which had the role protected the film in such a 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:39.280 way that you could load the film into a camera advance. 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:41.800 It the film, so that the little part that was 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.200 exposed is beyond where you're taking the images and you 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:48.840 just start snapping away. Yep. That's a a big difference 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.520 because I can tell you trying to load film in 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.760 the dark can be really annoying, especially if you drop it. Uma. 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:58.160 So uh, you know, we don't want to we don't 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.359 want to discuss every little thing they've got on. I mean, 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:02.600 there's there's a lot of information on the Kodak website 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:04.840 about this type of stuff if you're really interested in 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:08.240 the company, which is amazing, but you know, I want 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:10.600 to capture some of the highlights. Um. You know they 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:14.280 did change, yes, exactly, Well, they were the Eastman Company. 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:16.160 They switched to the Eastman Company and then they became 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:21.879 Eastman Kodak and capture the again capture to uh to 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:26.080 really play off of the name Kodak um and uh, 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.560 let's see. I mean the they basically grew for the 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:32.440 next few years, just rapidly. They took off, they built buildings, 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.359 they started moving outside the United States. Um. And then 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:39.160 they announced the pocket Codac camera in which used role 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.560 film and you hey, guess what, you could actually figure 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.119 out where what what snapshot you were on because it 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.400 had an indicator to tell you what number you Hey, 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:51.719 I'm on number twelve, right, which is very useful when 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:54.040 you are wondering how many photos you have left on 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:57.280 the roll and you know, well, anyone who's used a 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:00.360 film camera and they've wanted to go out and take 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:03.560 pictures of stuff it does. It can be frustrating if 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:04.960 you looked down and he said, oh, wait, I only 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.720 have two photos left. Is this moment really worth capturing? Yeah? 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.399 Or should I wait and and save those two photos? 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.760 But before this you essentially had to keep track of 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:18.720 it with yourself until you realize that, oh, the cameras 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.800 not advancing any further because I've taken the last image. 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.040 Anyone who's ever rolled his or her own film as 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:28.280 I have also has had that problem because you go 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:30.480 in the dark, you're sitting there and loading it. It 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:33.639 feels like enough, you put it in the cartridge and 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.840 then you start snapping photos and it doesn't matter if 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:39.679 there's a number on that because you really don't know 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.280 exactly how many photos you've got. Um so yeah, I 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:47.480 mean they started moving into uh into Europe about this time, 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:52.920 but oh yeah, they started while we had see through 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:56.840 photos before because they invented the transparent film. But this 0:21:56.920 --> 0:22:00.600 is when they really got into uh see through stuff 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:05.040 because they started making plates and paper for X rays, yes, 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:10.760 which had only been discovered the year before. So yeah, 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:14.000 they jumped on that very very quickly. I mean, Kodak 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.880 at this point was one of the leading companies when 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:22.560 it came to capturing and processing images. Well, I mean 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:27.879 that also in six they started promoting the first film 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:31.760 especially made for creating motion pictures. They actually worked with 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:33.960 some some inventor guy who also lived in New York. 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:38.439 I can't remember his name. No, No, that wouldn't it. 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:45.520 Alexander grim bell Um, Steve Jobs. I'm just okay, I'm 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:47.880 gonna keep giving wrong answers until you say the right one. 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:53.920 Thomas Alva Edison, that guy. Yeah, I like to call 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:58.399 him elephant shucker. Oh man. Yeah, I'm just mean, Well, 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:01.640 I didn't kill an elephant with alternating current. Well technically 0:23:01.680 --> 0:23:04.480 he didn't. He just sanctioned it. Okay, um, fair enough, 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:08.920 So that was only following orders, following orders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:23:09.000 --> 0:23:14.359 So they didn't come up with the folding pocket codac camera, um, 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:16.600 which was great if you had folding pockets. Yeah, if 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:19.840 you didn't. Well, well, this is this is the first 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:21.800 to have the two and a quarter by three and 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:24.840 a quarter inch negative, which was the standard size for 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:28.080 you know, thirty years or so for a while. Anyway, 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:32.080 in Eastman kind of showed what sort of boss he was. 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:35.680 We you know, we if you listen to our HP podcasts, 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:38.520