Hi dear subscribers!! After many months of silence (after Fuji refusal) i’m back to you and this time I’m here to talk about the very last opportunity to believe in a future of our beloved packfilm! This unique opportunity now comes from New55, a great team of American guys, captained by Mr. Bob Crowley. In 2014 they raised up over than 400.000 dollars after a successful Kickstarter campain and they have started the production of a great 4x5 b&w Instant Film. You can see their stunning product here: http://www.new55.net/ Now, after few years of improvements they are ready to make the crucial step with a New 4x5 Color Film and they are also determined to improve their equipment to make film at a lower costs. Now you’re maybe wondering what packfilm could be involved in this New55 challenge. Well, i’ve talked about it with Bob Crowley (New55 founder) asking him what they are going to do about packfilm if this Kickstarted will be successful. He honestly answered my questions. 1st) Well Bob, talking about your new project ‘4x5 Instant Color Film’ what is the importance that you reserve for a PackFilm renaissance? All of us know that your main target is of course 4x5 format but our community must know how your challenge could allow us to see packfilm again. “Hi Francesco, We are very interested in packfilm. Make no mistake, if we can make packfilm then we will have advanced beyond our early stages and solved the technical and most importantly, the economic problems of small-scale film making, which is naturally more expensive. To make pack film, you must have an instant negative, a receiver sheet, and a proper processing chemical. Both black and white and color are actually pretty hard to do, and we've had to make some of our own black and white materials. Now that we have a possible great supply of color materials from a much larger company such as The Impossible Project, things can improve; Once we develop the 4x5 material there is no reason we cannot begin to work on pack film, but the opposite is not true. In other words, we need the film and papers, first, in order for 4x5 or packfilm to happen at all. Because we already have the 4x5 system that can be assembled with much simpler material, that is where we will start.” 2nd) You’ve talked about an involvement of Impossible Project beside your undertaking. What is the deal between you and Impossible (not the details of the agreement but the matter)? How substantially could they help you (chemical, sheet materials and so on)? “We become both customer and collaborators in that agreement. There is an important understanding now in place that was recently completed during my visit to Enschede. We'll depend on them for some things such as the negative, and probably the receiver sheet. We still have to do a lot including refine the processing chemicals, pod them correctly, and get it all to work consistently. We have committed to an investment in the QC tools needed to do all that. Because we are so fortunate to have a great early result and such incredibly helpful experts like Steve Herchen at Impossible, and others who have years of experience with instant film, we feel confident.” 3rd) Hard question but very helpful for subscribers base. If this campaing will be successful, how long (from not much optimistic point of view) the research and development will take before we can see an experimental prototype of Packfilm? “I expect there will be many experiments and in our kickstarter I have said, specifically, that we will get started on those experiments right away (assuming we are funded) and report on the results. Results could be shown as soon as the materials are developed. These would be prototypes, and if they look promising we would seek funding to commercialize them, next. We might look to other partners interested in making the pack film, specifically, because we too make a special black and white reciever material, here in Ashland (on “The Thing” - our now-famous coater). Using that in a pack film format makes sense to me. Time frame for a first prototype would be when we have 4x5 running, probably the middle of 2017.” Well guys, we have a great team of willing and capable guys and an huge help will comes from Impossible! We must believe in it! We are talking about the very LAST chance to do something in this way! After this one our beloved packfilm cameras and the magic of peelapart film will be gone forever. Write this beautiful story with us! Please, support this Kickstarter! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/892575418/new55-color-4x5-peelapart-film