The Revenge of Analog: For Those Who Are Sick of the Digital World
Dear viewer, yes, you are spending too many hours on your smartphone and on YouTube, Instagram and deep down, you hate it. You keep saying you want to do something about it. Sure, we all do. This film is about an alternative, going the other way, digital detox.
If you like what you see here, do try it at home. ♪ I'm a fool to want you ♪ ♪ I'm a fool to want you ♪ ♪ To want a love that can be true ♪ Today, the Eastman Kodak Company used explosives to demolish two buildings following the move to digital photography. Once a household name, Kodak is understood to have demolished more than 80 buildings on the site over the past 10 years and plans to demolish at least 16 more by years end. Polaroid has closed factories in Massachusetts, Mexico and the Netherlands. Job cuts include 150 positions to be eliminated over the next couple of months.
With a further 300 workers laid off in Mexico and in the company's headquarters in Enschede in the Netherlands. Today, we're introducing an iPod, a phone and an internet communicator. This is one device. And we are calling it iPhone.
The smartphone changed everything when it came to photography. We take more photos now than any time before. This is analog camera sales and they kind of peak in '99 and then they start falling 'cause digital cameras get invented. And then digital takes a huge step forward.
There's more people taking photos than ever before 'cause more cameras are out there. And then they fall, too. And they fall because the smartphone gets there and the smartphone really changes the game. ♪ There will come a time ♪ ♪ When I will leave you ♪ Analog was truly dead.
Film, records, books, letters, outdated, obsolete, gone. Iconic companies were disappearing. Our future was digital, easy, convenient, free. A brave new world was out there and we couldn't wait. Or could we? In Vienna, I met a man who thought, this is all a big mistake.
This is his impossible story. Whoa. Vienna is the most analog city in the world and this place we created, we wanted to bring all the machines and all these magic treasures together, new generation, old generation. So people, customers, and most importantly also investors can feel it.
They cannot see it in a PDF or in whatever. So one of our main weapons to really destroy any concerns of investors is this machine. It looks pretty ugly.
It's this Spanish style but when you select your favorite vinyls and then you already hear a magic sound. Investor's gonna cry, stand in line outside here and say, "Take my money, please." ♪ Take it slow ♪ ♪ Take it slow ♪ ♪ Take it slow ♪ ♪ Take it slow ♪ ♪ Take it slow ♪ ♪ Take it slow ♪ ♪ Take it slow ♪ ♪ Take it slow ♪ Shit. ♪ Take it slow ♪ ♪ Take it slow ♪ ♪ 'Cause I need it slow ♪ ♪ And I need it ♪ ♪ Take it slow ♪ ♪ Take it slow ♪ ♪ 'Cause I need it slow ♪ ♪ And I need it now ♪ Doc, who is the Doc? Why are you Doc? Where does the Doc come from? Yeah, somehow the Doc is a leftover from my scientific studies. It was very easy.
My parents didn't put any pressure on me. They just said, "Whatever you do, be the best doing it." So, pretty soon I found out that the only chance for myself being the best doing something is if I do things that nobody else is doing. So I am the world's most important spider eye muscle expert.
My father always asked me, "What is this all for?" And so basically the Doc is the only outcome from back then. So this title I carried on since then. I always tried to look at things differently. When everybody was running in this direction, I thought, hey, maybe it's cool to look in the other direction. 60 centimeters. Oh yeah, that's good, it start blinking.
Again without mineral, good sign. 10 years ago, Doc had found a new calling. While we were all salivating over our first iPhone, Doc decided to resist. He became the self-appointed patron saint of all things analog.
Step one, he set up a venture selling expired Polaroid film. It was called Unsalable. My theory is that the biggest difference between digital and analog is the fact that digital always just tickles two of your senses. It's always I can see it, I can hear it, but it's always behind the glass screen. So I cannot really touch it, I cannot smell it, I cannot lick it. So it only, you know, it's nothing real.
And therefore the young generation, who grew up digitally, there's so much longing for this real thing they can touch, caress, hold in their hand, that they can fully sense. It was the beginning of an unlikely business adventure. You know, I often tell stories that are not 100% true, but this one really is 150% true.
Do you have your Polaroid Colorpack Camera? In the '70s and '80s, Polaroid was everywhere. And even today, we all recognize that classic white frame of a Polaroid instant photo. But in 2008, the cultural icon was a mere shadow of its former self. No one believed analog photography had a future and all Polaroid factories were being closed down. All but this last one in Enschede in The Netherlands.
Once churning out millions of packs of film, it was about to vanish. ♪ I feel the breeze ♪ ♪ I feel the breeze ♪ ♪ Take me on your boat one day ♪ ♪ We'll fade away and slip away ♪ ♪ We'll go away with me ♪ ♪ We'll stay away ♪ Doc had been invited to the closing party. He couldn't resist. He knew little about film chemistry and even less about running a business, but he had a vision. This factory must be rescued. It was beautiful and important.
What everyone else saw, "Doc, that's impossible." My wife said, "Don't go there, give up on it." But I went there and you know, the machines, all of them were still in perfect shape. So I said, "There is still a chance. We have to try it."
So I went to the Polaroid management say, "Do you really want to kill it or do you want to give it for adoption and you know, we take care of it?" So when Florian came in and said, "I want to buy this film factory in Enschede, Netherlands, don't wind it down", to the owners of Polaroid corporation, it was a no-brainer to say, "Sure, if you want to take it over, it saves our wind down costs." The crazy thing is they said, "You have one week. We have an agreed scrap value of the factory parts for 180,000 Euro. So if you sign the agreement and transfer me the 180,000 Euro, the factory is yours."
So that was it. I didn't have the 180,000 Euro, but I immediately started to make something like a business plan. They loved the business plan. Business plans was for sure, one of my best, my best specialties.
With a small group of friends, Doc bought the business. They were going to keep Polaroid alive. It sounded crazy. A 1940's tech for the 21st century? ♪ Like a broken sail ♪ ♪ But I'll never give you up ♪ ♪ If I ever give you up ♪ ♪ My heart will surely ♪ One of the many snags, Doc wasn't allowed to use the brand name Polaroid but he soon found a new one. It was really literally during a meeting with Polaroid where they continued to tell me, "This is impossible.
This is impossible. This is impossible." So it was just, I gave up and said, "Yeah, let's call it Impossible."
So Polaroid was reborn as The Impossible Project which would prove an interesting choice of name. Nevermind, the beginning was fabulous. Life was returning to the factory.
♪ You can swing ♪ ♪ You can fail ♪ ♪ You can blow my mind ♪ In the beginning, we started with 10 people at the factory. It was really a hard year. Everybody thought that it was impossible to get it all running and now, well here we are. Something already created before I was born. That's amazing.
And I am creating it now daily. That's wonderful. Doc took Impossible headquarters to Europe's startup capital Berlin, where he found a team of well digital natives who shared his belief in the magic of analog or at least succumbed to his unrelenting enthusiasm. I would love to say that all of this was part of a very clever strategy based on my extended studies in business. It's not quite true to be honest.
Basically it just happened. This wasn't nostalgia. This was about rediscovering the value of real things, authenticity. A good way to just look and in order to understand why Impossible exists let's go back into the year 1946 when a guy called Edwin Land, who was an incredible inventor and visionary, thought about the beginning of instant photography.
I look forward to the dream of being able to take a wallet out of my pocket and perhaps open the wallet, press a button, close the wallet and have the picture. Grand machines for a grand purpose. ♪ Express yourself ♪ ♪ Express yourself ♪ ♪ You don't never need help ♪ ♪ From nobody else ♪ ♪ All you gotta do now ♪ ♪ Express yourself ♪ ♪ Whatever you do ♪ ♪ Do it good ♪ From the beginning, it was clear that this is a magic material.
It's not a clone. You cannot print it 500 times with the right iconic frame. It was one of no other kind.
Back in the days, instant photography and Polaroid was everywhere. ♪ Some people have everything ♪ ♪ And other people don't ♪ ♪ But everything don't mean a thing ♪ ♪ If it ain't the thing you want ♪ ♪ Express yourself ♪ ♪ Express yourself ♪ ♪ Oh do it ♪ ♪ Oh do it ♪ ♪ Do it too ♪ Good morning everyone from Impossible. We are now on our way to Enschede to the film factory. We are twins. Am I doing the talking all alone? No I can do it. The fascination of a lost technology and the big challenge to bring it back.
And he told me about this thing, you know, called sX70 Fucking crazy. And he was like, "You know it, you know it, you know it, it's so cool." I've never been to the factory before so it's super new experience for me. Doc saved the factory from closure and kept all the sort of old machines and had to look at the reformulation of the new films for Impossible. Oh look at this.
Everything's painted. Wow, wow, wow, wow. This is incredible. Hi.
Hello. Oh, the godfather of camera repair. This is like heaven.
Oh Betsy. She missed me, you know? If only there weren't the problem with the Polaroid formula. It was tragic. Doc had bought the factory. He got the machines back from scrap metal and persuaded the workers to return.
But then they discovered that the formula to actually produce Polaroid film had been lost forever because the chemicals didn't exist anymore. Instant film is the world's most chemically complicated man-made product ever. There's never been a completely manmade product that is more chemically complicated than that. Doc and his team were continuing to make instant film, but their product was, well, awful.
Colors were all over the place, bits of the image would disappear and a photo took 45 minutes to develop. It wasn't pretty. Oh my God. You know, we had this killer crystals and we had leaky pods and we had pictures disappearing.
I don't understand, the film worked or it didn't work? Of course it worked. It was perfect, but you know in a very special way. Well, yeah, I mean there was many skeptics. We had a lot of people that we were still talking to who were long-time Polaroid veterans and they all said that it'll never happen. There's no way. Oh my God.
This is an innovative product 'cause the images disappear. This is, you know, one of the very first images and everybody was super excited that we get any result at all. But it was also the beginning of us understanding that there are a lot of challenges in front of us. Nevertheless, we said, "Please support us and go on this journey with us. We don't want to fuck you but this is an adventure and this is what we can do."
When he first launched the first film, we analyzed it and it was terrible. I mean it really was. The images looked like ghosts and these weren't of good quality.
And so it was disappointing to us. We were really hoping it would be great. But I think Florian didn't realize just how complicated it was. There were two customers in the beginning. The one said, "Ooh, yeah it was nice before it disappeared."
And the other one said, "Call me when you really make film." It would take them years to reinvent the formula. But Doc wasn't going to be stopped easily. He traveled the world in search of fellow believers and converts and there was some good news. Doc could see signs of analog coming back.
In New York, advertising billboards were again being hand painted. Impossible wasn't alone. We're on the 22nd floor of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel. This is the famous GM building. Rockefeller Center is that way. And Apple, iconic Fifth Avenue Apple store rebuilding their glass cue.
They're making it bigger. They're making it bigger. Doc's been a hero because I've followed The Impossible Project since it was truly impossible and bought the very earliest Impossible film. So I thought, well, I'll write this guy, he's iconic in the field and see if he responds, and you did.
So we had the digital Skype conversation and- Then we changed to analog. And then we changed to analog. I love collecting art and I love the intersection of art and technology and there is an intense beauty I think that that has been incorporated in the design of analog products.
This is a famous phone by AT&T from the '60s and '70s called the Touch-a-matic. And so That's the outside line. I have a message.
Just so intensely beautiful in the way its designed. And look at the way the speaker phone is designed. It's very cool. So these are the incoming outside lines that are punched down on the punch down block.
These are line cards. And so when I go off hook, then if I put it on hold, you can hear the interruption. It cycles through mechanically and it's very reliable. I mean these things were really engineered well.
I have my housekeeper here. I've got the package room, et cetera, and you can program in all these different numbers. And so if you call.
Housekeeping, good afternoon, Shelly speaking. Oh hi Shelly. Wrong number, sorry. There you go. Why do this, David? Well, I wanted to make telephone calls so. I mean it's connected to the outside world and it's ready.
The Impossible Project, this was the good luck that all of these machines worked somehow like this. So if something breaks, you still can exchange it and you can understand it. It's not a black box. So I think this is very similar because it's much easier than all this hidden technology that we have today. Renaissance, okay Oskar, here we go.
And I'll say from David and Doc. Great. Put a few stamps on here And then we're just gonna send this off. People were starting to get it. Analog was a decision, to keep something and to use it, a choice each of us can make. Right, right.
Yes. Okay. Look at me.
Okay, that way. Hold and hold and stay. What's the camera we're using? You're using an Aeroflex 35 SL camera, probably one of the most sophisticated sync sound cameras in the world. It's a fairly lightweight handheld camera and we've had quite a few of them and they're still being used today. It's a 35 millimeter film camera. It's film, it's incredible.
You know, we love film. Isn't film meant to be dead? Well, film is actually not dead. You have a nice clean frame and cut. You can use it as a cut and everything, okay.
It's beautiful, beautiful. Now we're walking into, this is the safe room. This is where all the gold is. It's not gold, it's like lenses. They're so expensive.
They're like gold and we love them. And here they are, there are all these lenses. They're worth a lot of money, a lot of money. I would have to sell my house just to buy this, you know? ♪ For I was born to glory ♪ ♪ You kiss forever more ♪ The Impossible Project expanded to New York. Whether it's instant photography or film, it's a rebellion against technology making things too easy or too quick.
You have a lot of things with customers where things don't work out with the film. You know, I remember having people saying, "Hey, my wedding was a disaster. The film didn't work." Of course, it's pretty upsetting, but it's one of the things you have to factor in with that kind of unpredictable media.
Sure, we could all be making iPhone apps but to what end? Over time, I really had to ask myself why I was working for The Impossible Project. You know, I really came up with this idea that human beings, we're analog. And I think that's part of the reason why we gravitate towards analog things still, even though we're in this very digital realm. Do you think this enthusiasm for analog, do you think it is a passing stage or it is something that is here to stay? You know, I really think that this is just the beginning of a very huge rediscovery of analog across all forms of media. I have the very good feeling that because of the digital acceleration, they are really looking for a digital detox.
Oh my God, I love that. I really like that one. How does that even happen? It sometimes does it. I think it's from the chemicals. That's crazy, like it looks a bit like it's burned.
Sometimes it's annoying but mostly it really makes sense that it happens and you're like, wow, okay that makes it even better. It's so trippy but it balances the picture at the same time. Is Impossible the business? Absolutely.
I'm very happy that you didn't ask if it's a sustainable business or a profitable business. Well that's what I meant. Not yet.
We are still at the very beginning. This is suddenly the wonderful thing about what we are doing. You know everybody wants to leave some traces in this world. If people don't use analog materials then they will go away. So you want to sort of promote the fact that it's out there, that it's good.
It's different and it's special. It's experiencing the real and not the image of something real. So many digital products feel a little bit similar, so bright and the color's so good from even every amateur.
People crave something that's a little weird, a little wrong almost. I'm talking about a little weird. I should think that's the moment to take a weird picture. Am I in this? You're in this. We're made of chemistry. Film is made of chemistry.
When I see an image shot on film, I feel an affinity for it that I simply have not been able to feel towards digital images. Photography wise, it's not just about the perfection of the material. It's about the emotion you connect with it.
Even the people hate it, that there's chemistry that they have this stuff. Oh are you kidding? It's a mess, but come on, it's the best. Exactly, nowadays it is the best. You know, when I was working on the book I wrote, I cannot tell you how many people told me the smell of the reagent on the negative took them to their childhood or to some sexy time they'd had with Polaroid or to their grandparents' house. Smells are evocative.
It's not that I think digital is bad. In fact, I think the argument about film versus digital is really old, it's kind of done. For me, it's keeping a choice alive.
For technology to eliminate something simply because it's more convenient is really shortsighted. I want to look at the long-term. I want to make sure that people can still use film long after I'm gone. Doc's project had taken a first call.
The film was it at last at least beginning to look like Polaroid. A photo now took only 30 minutes to develop. It was a kind of a honeymoon period. If you looked closely, however, you might've seen some dark clouds forming on the horizon.
The photos were cool but expensive and notoriously difficult to handle. It was then that I got to know Oskar, a young engineer from New York. Oskar was fascinated by instant film and he saw a future for Impossible in the digital world. He was soon to become a key player on the team. I'm Oskar Smolokowski.
I'm left camera right now. Oskar was only 22 when he joined Doc in Europe with the intention of learning the business from the boss. Can you imagine? I came into the job thinking, okay, I'm gonna learn from a CEO on how it's supposed to be done.
The part I remember about my first day at work when we went on a ride on his motorcycle to eat at his favorite sushi place. And to be honest, I was like, what the fuck? I can't believe this is how you run a company. It's not been boring. You could see this at the World's Largest Photo Fair. In 2014, Impossible was still regarded as a charming analog outpost, but theirs was the busiest stand.
This was where young people went and it was young people who were at the heart of the company. I was 23 when I went to the store for the first time. You had lines of old Polaroid cameras across all the walls.
You know, it definitely had a magic to it and this kind of retro magic to it. So I picked up an old Polaroid camera and that was my first experience with it. You know, the first shots were all on old Polaroid cameras. And actually today they are still only old Polaroid cameras. But when you kind of get introduced through it that way it does have this very retro thing to it. But the more you play with it and you use it, it's less about the retro aspect of it and more about the experience of actually holding a photograph, letting it develop in your hand, which is of course an analog process, but it's more about the experience of it.
I think both Doc and myself, we really loved the product and we wanted to bring it to people. And for me, it was always the challenge of how do we make this business sustainable? How do we give this a future? How do we kind of pay the bills, keep the lights on and keep everybody employed year by year? And we have this giant factory and to make that sustainable, we needed to bring the volume of the film up. And to do that, we needed to bring the quality of the film up and the prices down.
And I think that's where the biggest difference was between myself and Doc. He really believed that the film we had, this imperfect one, people would fall in love with it the way he fell in love with it. You know, when the company started Florian famously said, "Anything you make in the factory, I'll sell." Like that's not a product people want, you know? People want instant analog film that develops quickly and looks great and that's what we want to give them. ♪ Without you ♪ Impossible to me was definitely heart over mind. Like with a lot of stuff that comes at you in life, you do it because it feels right.
And that was definitely the case here. I felt the need to explore further, to connect to the project in some way, to talk to Doc and see if I could help. I always knew that I wanted to do something with products but at Impossible, I really figured out what that means. And it really means, you know, putting two years of your life into something that's gonna launch, endless hours tweaking the details and the millions of things that could go wrong. But it's just like with the analog process, the more you put in, the more you get out.
When we took over the factory, it was like, let's bring this film back, Polaroid stopped making it. With the camera, we want to create our own kind of future for these products. It was very much about dreaming in the early days. And it needed to be about dreaming to get it started and off the ground. You needed to do stupid things like buy the factory to start the thing. But to actually bring it to profitability and to bring it to as many people as possible, you actually need to do a lot of work.
And honestly, you know, we started doing that a year ago 'cause before it was more about the dreaming. Doc and The Impossible Project captivated a lot of hearts, including mine. I mean, I suffered pack after pack of the early Impossible Project film to get those few shots worth keeping. But there just weren't enough enthusiasts like me to keep the business around. We had this amazing story, we had this amazing mission, but at the end of the day, we had a lot of work ahead of ourselves to make it a sustainable company or we'd be gone.
One of the turning points was bringing Stephen Herchen on board around 2014. I mean he knows instant photography better than anyone on the planet now I guess, and actually worked directly with Edwin Land straight after graduating from MIT. And he's been instrumental in evolving the product to where it needs to get to. Actually, just that one, that one there. Yeah, thank you.
While the company had to focus much more on viable products, Doc continued on his quest, authentic and possibly impossible projects, such as craftspeople swimming against the tide of convenience. We still have to really fight hard because still on a daily basis, things, machine, technologies disappear. We are in Berlin and I have some negatives from New York to develop my analog shots myself and experiment.
We're living in the digital age. This seems like a lot of hassle. It's good sometimes to just be completely lost on your own in this little cave for the whole day or the whole night and you can't even have your mobile phone 'cause you have a bright screen and it will destroy the picture.
So I think that's very healthy, I don't think it's a hassle. I think also for your brains and for your physical feelings, just moving, doing things, looking at it properly and not having this weird bright light around you from computer screens, yeah. It's very calming and it's very rewarding. ♪ Ruffled at my base ♪ ♪ And it walked under my tree ♪ ♪ When suddenly it seemed all the fingers ♪ ♪ Were pointing up at me ♪ ♪ And the footsteps in the side ♪ ♪ Will all get washed up ♪ So all was well in the land of analog? No. In reality, their products weren't selling and Impossible was fast running out of money. Doc was under pressure.
Financially, we had to find a serious investor to take the next steps with us. The candidates were not standing in line. Luckily, we found Mr. Smolokowski. Oskar back then convinced his father to give Impossible a chance.
He got excited about the project. So I think I just forwarded an email. I was like, "They're not great yet, but this has some potential." Slava was a classically trained clarinet player, but also an inventive investor, which happened to be exactly what Impossible needed this time. It's analog.
I think we needed a bit of a reality check. For the product to work for more than a few people, which was what was needed to kind of keep the lights on in the factory, we needed to do something about it or the whole dream could die. If you start to doubt your own product or if you don't have this 100% trust that comes from inside, it's hard to sell it, it's hard to convince other people.
The problem with Oskar, he didn't really feel secure about the quality and many other topics. You know, I always even with the worst film, I say, "Wow, I love it. Look at these killer crystals, wow."
It's one thing to have a dream and it's a very different thing to actually execute on that dream and build a company. I always like to do things that can go totally wrong or be super, super incredible. You know, Steve Jobs, what was so brilliant about Steve Jobs? He was the only guy who you really believed in that he really was in love and proud and crazy for his own products. And in today's world, this is very unusual. I was lucky.
I found what I love to do early in life. I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. And in 10 years, Apple had grown into a two billion dollar company with over 4,000 employees. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, this is how.
The film was still a disaster. Millions had been lost. Something had to give. And that something was Doc. Sometimes life's gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.
It was crazy. Of course, it hurt me to to leave the company but then loss of energy or even thinking of giving up was never on the table. Doc's energy was insuppressible. He didn't stay down long.
Of course, he'd soon start a new impossible project. Supersense is one of my dreams come true. Spending a lot of time with the rediscovery of analog technologies in a digital world, I found out that the people who love Polaroid they also love wine or they also love good coffee, they also love letterpress, they also love books. And so I said, "Let's bring all these things together in one very special place." And I found this crazy Venetian palace in the heart of Vienna and I said, "Okay, this is the place that would be the perfect home for bringing all these crazy technologies under one roof."
People always ask me, "What is it? Is it a museum, a bar, a restaurant, a shop?" Basically, it's a laboratory for me. We can try a lot of crazy things and technologies. ♪ That I find of you ♪ ♪ Every time, every time ♪ ♪ No one that lives ♪ ♪ Could want you more ♪ ♪ For I was born to glory ♪ ♪ In your kiss ♪ ♪ Forever yours ♪ ♪ I was blessed with love to love you ♪ ♪ Till the stars burn round above you ♪ ♪ Till the moon is like a silver shadow ♪ Meanwhile, back in Berlin, Oskar and his team are working on ways to make the company better, to create cool analog products for digital natives.
2010, '11, '12, if you explained to people what we we're doing, they'd say, "Oh, nice, they'll probably fail." I mean the reality is Impossible is one percent of the market. And then we were hoping to grow from there. But at the end of the day, this idea of rebelliousness or not, I mean we're still gonna be this company here. Impossible was a totally rebellious concept. You know, like it's a concept that had no logic really behind it at all.
It was just a very impassioned person following through on their dream. And I think it's important for us that we maintain some of that. We need to put our finger on what it was that made it so special. And the idea that we landed on is bring magic to life.
This is how they used to do nice brochures. So this is 1972. But this idea of magic is kind of everywhere. And if you really think about what all these cameras did since the '50s, '60s, '70s, whether it was a small moment with a family or people, we really want to preserve that and to build that. If we get this right, that next product can be great.
Hi, I'm Oskar. Hi. I worked on this camera and I'm CEO of The Impossible Project now. I wanted to invite you to just give me some feedback.
Okay. Okay, it looks like it's came from the future. Good.
I think it's very sexy. Very sexy, very good to hear. How would you take a photo? Yeah, maybe on and off.
Um. Agh, help. -How would you? -I have no idea. Oh.
So you've got eight lights, which corresponds to eight photos in each pack. It tells you how many you have left. Smile now. Yes. I like the idea. Really interesting.
Oskar was heading to New York. He had put everything into Impossible's first all new camera, the i1. The ring flash is great for portraits.
And when you turn the camera on, it tells you how many photos you have left. Then you can switch it to bluetooth mode. So you have two sides. I have no idea whether the Impossible Project is onto something or is not onto something. It's very difficult to know with any generation, what technology is gonna take off and whether or not something this retro given that everybody's got a camera in their pocket is really gonna have any kind of resonance.
I think I'm pretty, a responsible person. When I start something I want to make it happen. A lot of milestones is in front of the company. This is one of the important, but not first and not last.
I very much do believe in real businesses. But the question is what is the business model? Is the business model earning billions every year and, you know, growing 100% every six months? I don't think the world works like that. So how does it work? Doc sent me to meet his friends at Moleskine, probably analog's greatest success story. They had just saved something themselves. Fratelli Bonvini, Milan's oldest stationary shop and printers. Analog, we are analog.
We are something very physical. So analog is not thinking. It's a real thing.
Handwriting, for example, many schools, especially in the United States, started to eliminate the teaching of handwriting in the primary school. And then neuroscientists started to underline the fact that a difficult learning of this kind of physical gesture is something that is implying a wider part of our brain because physical is hard, is heavy, is something difficult to learn, to manage. This is bringing us to access a knowledge, experience and the special emotions and the capacity of deep understanding. As a child, I was always fascinated by science fiction. I love my iPhone, but you know, the very success of Moleskine has been through technology because people suddenly discovered that they could do their writing on paper but at the same time, showing it, sharing it and creating communities around that through technology and through digital.
We think that this opportunity is for the future. Of course, we are a sort of natural place for designer or younger creative people here, but not only. Yesterday night, a client saying sometimes I'm entering here just to smell the different flowers that you have here, the wood, the ink, the paper.
This is not a museum for sure. Dreamers need partners to help them make the dreams come true, ideally with deep pockets to match. Christmas in Vienna.
This is the analog capital of Europe, if not the analog capital of the world. Oh, I can't wait. I know, I know. Doc had invited David Burnett and his team to discuss investment opportunities in vinyl. So welcome.
Wow, this is it? -That's it. -Wow. Now, it's still under development, but yeah. So basically the first room, this is where Flo is gonna work on this cluster and then on the right side, we have the printing area we're gonna see later.
But first, I have to show you a very special thing because you knew Seeburg 1000 and this is also from the family of Seeburg. Does it work? Of course it works. You remember nothing that doesn't work. I know. I mean I've seen pictures of this.
I've never seen one in person. Layla, this is so cool. This is incredible. We have to build our own formal cut, you know? Absolutely. Gonna meet Anna.
Hi, David. At the same time, when we do the recording, we produce all the covers. So we have developed a very special cover that comes- David was one of the Internet's first millionaires, a digital pioneer. In the '90s, he had invented GeoCities, an early social media platform.
But lately, David had fallen back in love with analog. -Go, go, go. -Go, go. I'm gonna go with the red button. You changed the world. -Okay? -Okay. I go for the black button.
Okay. One, two, three. Very good, very good, very good. Thank you. The smell, you know again? The acid. I think the new definition of luxury is not necessarily jewelry and watches.
It's the curated experiences. It's the authentic one-of-a-kind experiences that analog provide, a custom photograph, a custom record. You have to smell it because this is an incredible smell. You don't have to listen.
The resolution's so crisp. Because it's one-to-one, it's not an enlargement. Oh it's one-to-one, right. Do we roll 'em up after it dries? Yeah, yeah, yeah after it drives.
-Push on. -Push on, yep. Or this off. -Push on. -Okay then photo. Photo, and it's zero, one. You can hear it working. You can even see it working.
-Really? -Yeah. Oh my God, it's so cool. It's a whole jukebox in a very stylish cabinet. And you can program it.
So you really can, you know, when you have a romantic dinner, you program it and then you have three hours continuously. Oh look, look at the movement right there. Isn't that beautiful? I just want to say, thank you, everybody. This has been a fantastic series of performances of classic and new music here in the Supersense Analog Palace in Vienna. Your magnificent playing has been recorded right back there direct to disc.
So this is not a pressing, this is direct from the microphones to the cutting head to the disc, which is unprecedented. And I just want to say thank you for being part of the renaissance of this classic music and the renaissance of analog history here in Vienna. So thank you very much. Thank you. At Impossible, a negotiation was going on behind closed doors.
It's the dream to reunite The Impossible Project with the Polaroid brand. If this works out, it will be Slava and Oskar who will make this dream happen. Is everybody here? Cool. All right, so we can start.
So I think this is the first time where I don't feel like I'm bullshitting that I'm saying The Impossible Project is a success. Okay, so let's go through this. So Polaroid acquired by new ownership group led by the Smolokowski family.
The new owners acquired 100% of the shares. Mr. Smolokowski is also majority shareholder of The Impossible Project, the company that purchased the last remaining Polaroid factory in 2008 and continues to manufacture instant film for legacy Polaroid cameras. The day we flew the Polaroid flag at the factory again was huge.
We're also very pleased to welcome the ownership group to the Polaroid family and excited to begin writing the next chapter in the story of the Polaroid brand. In 2008, obviously Doc started The Impossible Project and now in 2017, we're becoming Polaroid, which I honestly didn't expect. Obviously, thanks to you guys. It really felt like a brand new company.
Finally, even the film worked. You know Polaroid's goal and Dr. Land's goal for a camera like this was this is the most important part, this red button. So if I, all I should have to do is press the button.
This is our film that we've been selling and this is our new film. The biggest thing I think that a customer will see right off the bat is that it's a faster developing film. It's the most instant film that we've made.
In my mind, it's really the first film that's worthy of being called instant. Is that important? Yeah, it is. If you think of a magician who's gonna pull a rabbit out of a hat, well if it takes 20 minutes for him to get it out, chances are it's not gonna be a very effective act. But if it's fast, then obviously it makes a difference. Here you can see that there's already a recognizable image here and here there's nothing. So at this point, we're three or four minutes into the development process and you can now see this one is fairly well-developed.
This is gonna be the new Polaroid Originals film. A customer doesn't have to know anything about the complexity of the film. All they have to know is how to take it out of the carton and put it into the camera. The kind of three things that have happened that are really changing the dynamics of the entire company.
One is the quality of the film has gotten better and it's finally gotten more instant and it's finally gotten to be instant. Another is that we have a really nice lower cost brand new camera. And the third is that we're combining those two with this world famous brand. And that's gonna change the whole dynamics of the company.
We had witnessed a bit of a miracle. The 1940s tech was back in 2018. It worked and it was called Polaroid again. Oskar and Doc had pulled the rabbit from that hat. I was 22 when I joined the project and obviously I had no idea it would become my whole life. I mean there were years on the journey where I definitely wanted to quit.
But every year there was more to be done and it felt too important to even think about anything else. So before I knew it, I was 30 and this project indeed became my whole life. We are one big Polaroid Impossible family today. I wanted to thank everybody who made Impossible Project a reality today. Thank you so much.
80 years ago to the day, right here in New York, Edwin Land had founded the Polaroid Corporation. How rare is it that such a company, analog and totally not Silicon Valley rises from the ashes? The underdog was proven right. What an achievement. Doc would have been proud. But no one had made sure he was there that night. I was standing for the romantic, passionate, dreamy, crazy part.
That was super important in the beginning. I think it was a beautiful love affair. And as you know, not everything goes very easy in love affairs. It had many twists and many discussions but it was a big challenge with a lot of up and downs.
Of course, without shite and failure and making mistakes there is no progress. But this is the thing, you know, try it. Is it the failure that I'm not, or do I feel sad because I'm not actively involved in Polaroid nowadays? Yeah sometimes yes, of course, because I thought this would be my dream and especially I promised to my wife, this is the last project, you know, this time it works out. But on the other hand, I would never be sitting here if things had not evolved like that and I have the feeling, okay, the whole Polaroid story, maybe this was just the warmup for many other projects to do. There are many other places to take care that they are not vanishing.
I think I scare a lot of people, but my hope is that some people are inspired to think out of the box and maybe try things that at first are impossible. It didn't take Doc long to find a new impossible love affair, the most analog place he had ever laid his eyes on needed saving, a 1902 car hotel outside Vienna that had stood empty but fully functional since the 1970s waiting for the right Doc Quixote to kiss it back to life. This is Südbahnhotel up in Semmering, a very special car hotel close to Vienna and the last guest checked out 42 years ago.
It's part of a crazy vision of bringing analog treasures and pleasures to the people and help people remember that places like that built over centuries are important, even in a digital world. We have to open this hotel. It's not a question. It's not even think about it. As you can imagine, my wife kills me because she says, "Can you finally concentrate on one thing? Can you do one thing and you know, have it done?" And I just say, "It's always exactly the same thing.
This is exactly what it is all about." The owners love this hotel, but every McKinsey consultant has been telling them it's impossible to reopen, uneconomical, not profitable, blah, blah, blah. Until Doc came along with his style of business plan. Just give it a good clean, don't change a thing, it's perfect already, can't you see? Saving the Südbahnhotel would require passion and a lot of money.
Doc had plenty of the former and none of the latter. But then he got an email from the most unlikely of senders. Doc was headed to Silicon Valley of all places and there, rather less impressively located in a swamp, sat one of the world's largest companies ever.
The whole world had begun wondering about Facebook, but few people had seen it from the inside. Doc strolled right in. He had a question for Mark and his team. I don't know exactly what will happen but I have a feeling it's just important to keep going.
It's a big question. And even the guys who founded it said, "Okay, this is out of control." In the beginning, when we started a film with the Impossible factory, this was a universe that didn't care. And over the years, this has totally changed.
Everybody called me crazy. And now I think more and more people think Facebook is crazy and out of their mind. It was Scott Bones of something with the promising name of Analog Research Lab who had got in touch. "Dear Doc, The mission you're on and the story you're looking to tell is very close to my heart and right in our sweet spot here at Facebook. This is a very different kind of project so I'm not even sure where to start. A few of us had an interesting meeting on Wednesday that ties into things like this and we'd absolutely love to have you out to visit and talk more with us.
We're actively pursuing opportunities to reach out into the real world in a positive way and have stories like this that we can share, especially as I feel like we're in the middle of a really important moment in time right now. Talk soon, Scott." "Yes Scott, your words, even if just received digitally are full of delicious analog energy and I urgently need to meet you again and dive deeper.
I 150% agree that Facebook urgently need a deep cultural consciousness", I probably looked this up in the dictionary, "Reconnecting you to the real world and all your fantastic senses. Can't wait to discuss this face to face. Excited talk." Think different.
That was once the motto here in the land of Google, Facebook and Apple, the cradle of our digital world. Doc came to remind them of it. These companies, they start building a parallel universe.
All these employees there, basically, there's no reason for them to live or think outside that universe. So how can they solve the problems in the real world when they don't even know about it? Yeah, just a website. 10,000 people are working on one website, it's crazy. Somehow it felt like being in a movie. It's not at all connected to reality.
Yes, in a genuine life is stranger than fiction turn, Doc discovered that at the very center of Facebook headquarters where you would least expect it, there really was an analog heart beating. -Hello, welcome. -Hello. I'm Dana Martin. I'm the programming manager here at Facebook. Doc hey. I'm Scott Bones, I'm the graphic design lead here at Facebook in the Analog Research Lab.
Wow, thank you so much for having me here on this I think very special place. Yeah, very happy to have you. How can this be, honestly? It's quite a treat to have a creative space like this at a digital company. I think it really is important for us when we're trying to build bridges within our community and it definitely expands to our mission and our goal of connecting the whole world. We definitely fit into Facebook culture and we've been called the heart and soul of Facebook.
And Facebook's mission is to connect the whole world and bring the whole world closer together. I think analog and research really speaks to how we want people to slow down. Humans are the only animal that can not only think of what is but what isn't. So we can see the impossible and bring it to fruition.
I really love the name Analog Research Lab. And what would be your answer when I ask you, what is the smell of Facebook? I think it would be different for different people. I mean in here we come in and we smell the dust that settles on things in the room or a can of ink or a can of paint.
Are we talking about the people working here as a community or? I find myself spending less time online than I think I did before I started working here, which is a little ironic. But I think that just speaks to how much we really value and how we want to impact the world. So, Facebook had a soul after all and a smell? Doc wasn't so sure, but always one for going the other way, he put it to a test. He attempted some kind of analog judo grip. Doc's plan was to persuade Facebook to cohost his long cherished Analog Superheroes Dinner at the Südbahnhotel. So this is our invitation? Invitation for the big evening that will change the future of analog.
But we have to talk about the guest list, right? 12 people. 12 to 15 I think was sort of the magic, seemed like the magic number. Yeah, this is a dinner menu, not boring food, but food for thought. Yeah, exactly, very good. So we thought it's not just about sitting together and being nice, but we have some really crucial answers.
How does digital smell? Does digital make any sense? After a long period of analog companies trying hard to become digital, I think it's now time for the digital companies to start thinking of how to connect with people in analog ways. So here we go. You can already kind of see some of the image on there.
It looks very harmonic. Yes and there is a harmony to it. We're mixing up something that started digital and it's transforming back to analog. This is something you can't do digitally.
I take a picture. This is fine for you? Yeah. Don't move, don't move. It's black and white film, Scott, unfortunately.
Okay. So these two colors stand for analog and digital. I think the analog should be the bright color. This is not about good or bad or evil This is about how can we create a world where there's a balance again.
This is the future baby. Look at it. Why I end up co-hosting this amazing evening with Facebook, you know a lot of bad things are happening. But again, I think this is the perfect moment to start acting against it. This is not just about Facebook. This is about if you want to change the world you should sit together with the biggest companies on Earth to change something.
Because with my friends and old guys, we can sit together having many beers, but we will never change the world. Okay, everyone ready? Roll sound. Roll camera.
He did it. After 42 years, Doc had opened the doors to the Südbahnhotel once again. Facebook, Moleskine, Supersense, Polaroid, everyone he wanted to work together was coming together, at least for one larger than life night of enjoying all five senses.
How can you not see people sitting here having a nice glass of wine, walk around this hotel and look and have your own dreams of all the things that happened here? It's like cinema. It's like you are in the movie. ♪ Sunny day ♪ ♪ In all its glory ♪ ♪ Hot as the 4th of July ♪ ♪ The wind came in ♪ ♪ And it graced my face ♪ ♪ And it led me to your eyes ♪ ♪ Something told me ♪ ♪ I'd be seeing you again ♪ ♪ But for some reason I still cried ♪ ♪ Now years have gone by ♪ ♪ I've stood by your side ♪ ♪ But there's something on my mind ♪ You know, I started because I was in love with this hotel. What more do you need than you feel happy here even if there's no heating and there's no wine, there's no service? Nobody is here, but already you feel happy and you can spend hours here. You don't need to study hotel science for 15 years to find out that this is a magic place. ♪ I, I don't know ♪ ♪ I don't know how ♪ ♪ I don't know how to love you ♪ ♪ No I ♪ ♪ I don't know, baby ♪ ♪ I don't know how ♪ ♪ Said I don't know how to love you ♪ ♪ Now in the morning ♪ ♪ I reach for your embrace ♪ ♪ 'Cause I know that you need it ♪ It was an evening about celebrating everything Doc stands for, about falling in love again with analog and the idea that our lives could be less cold if we chose in our projects more impossible.
♪ There've been many, many times ♪ ♪ When my words get tangled up on the floor ♪ ♪ Oh yeah ♪ People are sitting controlled by their computer, that's our future. There are people in photography that are doing beautiful work, photography work- That effort part of it is really important. Thank you everybody for coming. It's I think a very important evening but hopefully there should be some fun.
I have been asked several times what exactly is the plan for tonight? We need more Doc's in this world. It's important to support the people doing good work with fundamentally good values. My question is is there a role of digital making this world a better place? Digital technology in general is at the infancy.
In terms of getting shit done, it's better. We think our customers are idiots. What are you saying? I mean we could talk about digital and analog, but the balance of all things good and evil boils down to give people something real, they grab it.
What makes us fucking human? What makes us human is that we still have emotions. And if we forgot what the emotions mean, let's at least trigger each other to have -those emotions. -I don't think we have to pit them against each other. We don't have to choose.
We can have both. But the problem is we would not be able to look at both if not some people stand up and do shit that nobody else is doing. I don't even know for myself will I ever succeed and not wake up every week not knowing exactly how to pay the bills? Analog, digital, I cannot hear it anymore. It's like thinking about sustainability, love and hate and like and dislike.
It's so overdigested, you know? My wife tends to the theory that I'm one of the world's biggest losers at the end of the day and I tend to think of that I'm one of the most successful visionaries. Maybe in one more difficult year or two difficult years or 10, we will find out. Who cares? You care You are shooting on 35 millimeter, you know? Who cares? I'm talking about- Everybody cares. Everybody cares. Especially the young generation cares. When they start to roast their own coffees, they care.
They just don't know that places like this exist so- Sorry Doc, it's not a business. A business? What is a business? Business? What is a business? What counts, in what world business counts? No, I don't believe in that. ♪ No, no regrets ♪ ♪ No, I will have no regrets ♪ ♪ All the things that went wrong ♪ ♪ For at last, I have learned to be strong ♪ ♪ No, no regrets ♪ ♪ No, I will have no regrets ♪ ♪ For the grief doesn't last ♪ ♪ It is gone ♪ ♪ I forgot too fast ♪ ♪ And the memories I have ♪ ♪ I no longer desire ♪ ♪ Both the good and the bad ♪ ♪ I flung out in the fire ♪ ♪ And I feel in my heart ♪ ♪ That a seed has been sown ♪ ♪ It is something quite new ♪ ♪ It's like nothing I've known ♪ ♪ No, no regrets ♪ ♪ No, I will have no regrets ♪ ♪ All the things that went wrong ♪ ♪ For at last, I have learned to be strong ♪ ♪ No, no regrets ♪ ♪ No, I will have no regrets ♪ ♪ For the seed that is new ♪ ♪ It's the love ♪ ♪ That is growing for you ♪
2024-09-15 22:20
