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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 ♪
♪ 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Film, records, books, letters, outdated, obsolete, gone.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 ♪
Shit.
♪ Take it slow ♪
♪ 'Cause I need it slow ♪
♪ And I need it ♪
♪ 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 ♪
♪ 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 ♪
♪ 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 ♪
♪ 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.
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.
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 ♪