I think we are held in by ideas that mostly affect the legitimate film industry right now. Kodak and sometimes Fuji are trusted, they have a control of the market and the film stock price. This I'm guesing is propped up by some intellectual property issues.
What I'm wondering is whether egineers and manufacturers in China and India are capable of back engineering and producing film stock in quality close to that of Kodak. This may seem far fetched, but what provokes the idea is the fact that already we have very small companies in China that are capable of developing, prototyping and producing product for very small volume output, and making a proffit. In this sense (their viability relative to their prices and scale) they are doing things that just could not be done in the USA or Europe.
So I wonder if there may be a period after the collapse of Kodak, Fuji where artisan (indie) film makers and artists working with the medium, are able to source film stock at quite reasonable prices. But we may have to ship for processing etc.
I've only been a sporadic visitor to this forum, but I'm guessing you have had lots of debate over film vs digital media. I followed a link from the cinematography forum the other day and read some interesting ideas that were comments following the recent article on the demise of film by (film die hards) Speilberg, Scorceise etc. I will find a link if desired.
Some experiments were made measuring brain wave activity for pople watching film vs digital motion pictures.
Film watchers had higher alpha waves. These waves are normaly associuated with subjective experience, like meditation, maybe some contemplative experience. I think there was some speculation about the function of the alternation between the complete projected film frame and the black screen with the closed shutter. Do we fall into a subjective state, transcend, between the film frames? To me this is analogous to how experience itself can be described.
Digital watchers showed an increase in beta waves, the waves associated with active experience objective experience. These styles of experience, the objective vs subjective, may not be simultaneously compatible.
So my imediate thiught was that digital media as an unstoppable modern trend is part of the movement to a more objective and particular world. It's a world where subtlety, subjectivity and wholenes are harder to find. It's a world populated by increasingly discrete and separated looking things, that have an increasingly hard time finding connection or relationship or a comfortable sense of context or belonging.
The fact that this modern trend is expressed everywhere or is unstoppable does not mean that it is good.
So will some artists enjoy the then exstinct film medium. I think so. Maybe I can suggest that artists are of two kinds. There are those who sense or anticipate the coming changes in the world, and even if those changes are destructive, offer a facinating portal or intuit insights into the future qualities of experience.
There is another kind of artist, at least in theory, who's function is to remind us of our nature, whether it's emotional, spiritual, or basic sense of identity as human beings.
Cheers
Gregg.