■ I By RICHARD PATTERSON The introduction in 1980 of the high speed Fujicolor negative film sparked a revolution in cinematography which has made film an even stronger com¬ petitor to videotape as a production medium for television programming and which has created radically new approaches to lighting for both fea¬ (ABOVE) Fuji's film manufacturing plant at Ashigara. (LEFT) The research labora¬ Asaka where Fuji conducts basic tory at research in biotech¬ nology. tures and documentaries. It took an imaginative and venturous company potential for such a film and to invest in the development of the technology necessary to produce it. American Cinematographer recently visited the facilities of the Fuji Photo Film Co. in Japan in order to more fully appreciate the dynamics of the company and to see if we could get a to see the sense of the directions it will take in the future. Although it is only in recent years Fuji Film has enjoyed widespread use in the United States, the com¬ pany itself will soon celebrate its 50th anniversary. It began in 1934 as a manufacturer of photographic film that and has since diversified into a wide of products including Fujica Fujinon lenses and Fuji magnetic tape. It has almost 16,000 range cameras, AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, AUGUST, 1983 27