Last week, FilmNeverDie announced that its Kickstarter-backed Nana 35mm film camera was available for purchase worldwide. PetaPixel readers pointed out that the press materials that accompanied that announcement were incomplete and worth greater scrutiny. We agreed.
There are two major factors that are worth discussing regarding the Nana: its crowdfunding campaign and the internals. One, FilmNeverDie was accused of backing its own Kickstarter in order to get funding past the finish line (which is in violation of Kickstarter’s terms of service), and two, FilmNeverDie is being accused of simply rehousing an existing analog camera out of China and charging a substantial markup for it.
As far as crowdfunding is concerned, Kickstarter’s terms of service expressly forbid a campaign owner from backing their own project.
“Pledging to your own project is not allowed by either Kickstarter or our payments processor. Doing so violates our guidelines and may lead to suspension of your project,” Kickstarter says.
During the campaign, FilmNeverDie published a blog post where it admitted that some of its staff did back it.
“We are thrilled with the support we have had from the film community throughout the Nana campaign. We believe in this camera and are determined to see it off the ground! We have had 136 backers and raised $53,852 of our $50,000 goal, which is incredible!” the company wrote. “However we would like to acknowledge that some of us, as individual team members did contribute to this. We are in communication with Kickstarter to see if anything needs to be rectified.”
Speaking to PetaPixel via email this week, FilmNeverDie’s founder Gary Wong added additional context.
“Firstly, only three employees backed the project and they all backed with their own money. This was also checked by Kickstarter, who cleared the campaign of any suspicions,” he says.
If Kickstarter did not see it as a violation of its terms, then this accusation would not hold water. Given that the campaign was allowed to be completed, the claim that FilmNeverDie backed its own project in order to complete it does not appear legitimate.
The second accusation is that the Nana is not an original camera design and is instead a re-housing of an existing, far less expensive camera. Critics say that FilmNeverDie positioned the Nana as a brand-new, built-from-scratch camera. Again, FilmNeverDie published an update to its blog post about the Nana campaign in response (below is a quote taken directly from that post with no corrections made to it).
“We have seen some comments and queries on social media about whether the Nana camera is simply a M301 camera with a metal body. Is the Nana just a re-shell of another camera? We realize we may have confused and misled our followers with what was said on our Instagram live, and we apologize for this (Instagram lives are nerve wracking!). The Nana camera has not been made from scratch, although the ideas and innovations behind the camera have come from the FilmNeverDie team. We did leverage existing parts and manufacturing capabilities for most components, as mentioned in our story and main campaign, hence there may be some similarities with the M301 camera. We’re grateful for the support of a 200-person strong factory that’s helping us bring this project to life,” the company wrote at the time.
The MF301 is a 35mm, fixed-lens, point-and-shoot style camera produced by Xiamen Xiangjiang Plasticy, which is based out of China. It produces two versions of that camera as well as two versions of the MF302, which appear to be marginally different. Side by side, with the Nana, the location of the buttons, switches, lens, viewfinder, and flash are consistent.
FilmNeverDie says that it worked with the manufacturer to create what is known as the MF308, which the company characterizes as an improved version of the MF301 and MF302 that incorporates a glass element instead of the plastic one found in both of those other models and uses a metal exterior. The rest of the specifications of the internals appear identical.
“The camera in question from Aliexpress is the MF308. Essentially, we approached the manufacturer and asked, ‘Can we create an improved version of this camera? Let’s start with a metal body, followed by an upgraded lens,’” Wong tells PetaPixel in an email.
“The goal is to improve upon our Niji camera, which is the manual, plasticky model. We aim for incremental innovation—why reinvent the wheel when even F1 racing teams don’t make their own wheels?”
The MF301 sells for $29.90 each if ordered in batches of between 1,000 and 4,999 (that price falls to $26.90 each if more than 5,000 units are ordered). The changes to the exterior and the lens element would increase that cost per unit and that, with FilmNeverDie’s margins added in, explains the higher $230 asking retail price of the Nana.
“The metal shell is new and the aspherical single element lens is a new optic in the market. The internal part and mechanism of the is heavily based on the MF308 camera,” Wong adds. “This aspherical lens is new to the market at the time it was released, but there is no guarantee the supplier will not use it in a different set up.”
PetaPixel’s Take
News here is covered from a neutral angle and aims to publish information about a product that is shared with the media. In this case, we weren’t aware of some of these details when we should have been, and for that, we apologize.
When news is shared on PetaPixel, that doesn’t mean tacit endorsement of said product. Recommendations are only made on Reviews, Guides, Opinions, and Editorials. Otherwise, stories are shared for the single purpose of providing information. Additionally, PetaPixel did not participate in any affiliate program with FilmNeverDie during or after its crowdfunding campaign, including in the story published last week.
Additionally, before being made aware of these concerns, PetaPixel agreed to take a look at the Nana for review. Given the above facts however, we have decided to decline that offer and will be returning the Nana to FilmNeverDie.
Image credits: FilmNeverDie
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