In its April list of films to be discontinued, Kodak announced that it will no longer manufacture the slow-speed black & white Plus-X stock. This comes as a significant blow to the global film community, many of which still use Plus-X due in part to its beautiful contrast and fine grain. The legendary stock has been in circulation for over 70 years.

Like all filmmakers, I am fully aware of the digital era that we are currently engrossed in. However, large companies such as Kodak often claim that they wish to give filmmakers as many creative options as possible. However, eliminating Plus-X in ALL OF ITS FORMATS (5231/35mm negative, 7231/16mm negative and 7265/16mm reversal) seems to counter that aforementioned notion. Many of us still shoot in black & white (I just completed a film on 16mm Plus-X negative) and digital has not yet come close to attaining the range of any black and white film stock.

This leaves us with only Double-X (5222/7222, 35mm/16mm negative) and Tri-X (7266/16mm reversal.) Although useful in certain circumstances with its wider latitude, Double-X is not a practical replacement for Plus-X due its increased grain and lower contrast. Also, Plus-X reversal has been a favorite of film educators and film students for many years due to its ability to achieve a beautiful image on film at affordable rates. Now, education in film will be even more limited with the elimination of the reversal stock.

Along with a number of other filmmakers from around the world, I have begun a corporate campaign to prevent Kodak from removing the Plus-X stocks from its motion picture catalog. Please read the petition I have written and posted on my company website:

?url="http://www.richprod.com/plus_x_petition.pdf"? http://www.richprod.com/plus_x_petition.pdf?/url?

If you are as passionate as myself and others are about this and wish to attach your name to this petition, you can send your contact information to

?url="mailto:bill?richprod.com"?bill?richprod.com?/url?

You may include as much information as you like, but please send your FULL NAME and E-MAIL ADDRESS at the very least. I hope to get as many names on this as quickly as possible and to send it to as many divisions of Kodak as I can.

NOTE: YOUR INFORMATION WILL NOT BE SHARED WITH ANYONE OTHER THAN KODAK!!!

As someone pointed out, everything is headed towards digital. That is the future. My response was that that is inevitable. But when you are down three points and there are only ten seconds left on the clock, you can either sit on the sidelines and watch everything unfold, or you can try for the fifty-yard field goal.

Thank you for reading this and PLEASE HELP KEEP PLUS-X ALIVE!!!

-William DiPietra
Filmmaker
Founder/President of Richmond Productions, Inc.
http://www.richprod.com
bill?richprod.com