Impossible - The revival of instant film

A film by Maurits Reijnoudt The Impossible factory Enschede, the Netherlands Acids IMPOSSIBLE the revival of instant film Impossible, good afternoon, this is Nico Dikken Hi, Olaf! Polaroid had stopped making instant film And the factory was in bad shape It actually had to be built up from scratch again And this simply wasn’t that easy Well, my name is *** Koopmans and I’m the operational manager of Impossible Ltd. I’ll see what I can find in my base stock This is the product, the film pack The well-known darkslide on top And ten frames underneath When I turn the frame over, I can see a pocket And the developer is right in there I’ll show you When I squeeze it, the pocket bursts open And it releases a blue liquid This is our developer, which we refer to as ‘paste’ The paste *** is talking about is made in this production room The powder used for development paste is put into this chemical reactor The paste’s packaging comes from a big coil It’s uncoiled, and fed into a machine Which fills up the pods, also known as ‘envelopes’ Subsequently, the long strip is cut into smaller bits With exactly the right size to fit underneath the photos. We had to start from scratch trying to find out what the right formula was Right now we’re in the lab We’re conducting a test to find out whether we can turn the positive and negative components we got into a high-quality product Apart from those two substances, the photo system also consists of a developer, which we make ourselves These three components should yield a certain quality Either a colour picture, or a black and white picture The whole chemical process had to be rediscovered And what was the result? We’ve made a lot of progress We think we’ve already launched a good black and white film which we are very happy about And we’re also very pleased with the PX 680 colour film, which we have also launched recently Here you see the black and white film in different stages of its development: from sepia to greyscales And this is the first colour film, followed by the second one, and finally the PX 680, the latest version I worked at Polaroid for 36 years, 27 years of which I spent working as a repairman They closed down. I was among their last nine employees. And six months later they asked me to work as a repairman down here, and that was it. -And now you’re doing this on your own? -Yes. -And that’s manageable? It’s not a problem for you? -Yes. Back in the day, my heyday at Polaroid, we worked with 16 people, just repairing them. 48,000 cameras each year. And now they’re sent here from all over the world? For your hands to fix? Yes. These two are from Greece, and they’ll be shipped to Austria, and back to Greece from thereon. And that’s all on demand. Polaroid used to have a transportation firm With its own logo on its own polytarp truck covers Well, this is the cover. And they made a bag out of it, which you can see here. It comes with a photograph and certification And this is a piece of polytarp for this camera here I’ve made 50 of them, and I think they sold out in ten minutes That’s our doll, the kindest woman out there. Never says a thing, no matter what you ask. So that’s perfect! -So she’s your model? -Yes, she’s our model. I usually take a picture, so the customer can check whether the camera works properly. For me it’s also an indication of whether the lighting works well, and whether the pictures are sharp. Taking instant pictures professionally, that doesn’t happen very often anymore. You used to have passport photo cameras, big ones, small ones, macro cameras, like that one over there Dentists used to use them a lot. For dental pictures. That doesn’t really happen anymore. What else have we got... You name it! Basically, it’s all just nostalgia. Back to the factory floor. How do we assemble the film package we saw earlier? What it boils down to... To shoot a picture, you need a number of different materials Either delivered here, or from a coil, or spare parts, like the plastic container, but the plastic box is also a spare part. The cover is a spare part. Below, the spring, and the battery are spare parts, so they’re unassembled when we box them. All the other parts are delivered on coils, so you can put one after the other And this is what happens in the first part of the machine You get an extensive web, in which more and more materials are added, and laminated together Lamination is a process which requires high temperatures, special equipment, but also materials coated with the right substances to make sure lamination is possible The machines do this in successive steps. Adding one thing at a time. When such a machine is operational, the room is pitch black, because a negative should never be exposed to light. When not in use, however, the lights can be switched on, enabling us to film inside. What happens is that the frames come, and there’s a counter So, let’s say I count a certain number of frames. And make a pile of eight frames. Then, I add the protective casing: the darkslide. The spring and the battery are added on the other side. This little pile is stacked up, and is inserted into this plastic contraption And then you apply mild pressure, and... And of course I never manage to do it by hand... Essentially the machine does what I’m quite clumsily trying to do here The whole process of procurement, production, testing... ...and repairing makes sure that you can dig up your good old Polaroid camera once again!