All language subtitles for Instant.Dreams.2017.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG

Once, not too long ago, there
was
a perfect chemical formula of
imperfection.

It changed the way we captured
and imagined the world as we
know it.

But then things changed.

The digital dark ages
took hold of our lives.

The perfect formula was lost.

My dream, which I used to
talk about then...

...off being able to take a
wallet
out of my pocket...

...press a button...

...and have the picture.

In these dark times, we wait.

But there's still hope.

I'm really looking forward
to seeing this result.

A few seconds.

Yeah, it's an important
experiment.

A few seconds, a few seconds.

Is this actually Gen 2?

Waiting for a wonder.

Three minutes.

It's too slow.

I don't call this 'Instant
film'.

It's different from
what Dr. Land did.

We have to change the process.

99 million tons of snow
fall on New York...

...in the greatest storm
of its recorded history.

The precipitation catches
the great city unawares...

...and gradually puts the big
town
in a deep-freeze.

As the snow descends at the rate
of two inches per hour...

...car travel becomes hazardous.

Thousands are marooned
away from home...

...as travel facilities halt
and accidents multiply in the
streets.

This is when The New York Times
first reported...

...on the invention of a new
form
called 'one-step photography'.

Edwin Land presented it at
the...

...meeting of The American
Optical Society
in February, 1947, here in New
York...

...the day after a huge
snowstorm
almost shut the whole place
down.

He demonstrated it in front of
a room full of scientists...

...by taking a large-format
photograph
of himself...

...and revealing it, peeling it
open,
60 seconds later.

There's also an editorial in The
Times
the same day.

It says: There's nothing like
this
in the history of photography.

Dr. Edwin Land claims
to have invented a new camera...

...which will revolutionize
photography.

It all looks quite ordinary
right up to the time he takes a
picture.

But, says the doctor, the
difference is
that all you have to do with his
camera...

...is to wait exactly one
minute,
then open it up...

...and you'll find the negative
and the print.

When I was about 13 or 14, I got
my own
Polaroid camera for the first
time.

I bought it in the junk room of
a bookstore
for three dollars.

It ended up accidentally
starting me
on this journey that I'm still
taking.

I'm the author of
'Instant: The Story of
Polaroid'.

In 2008, Polaroid announced
that it was going to stop
manufacturing film.

It felt like I was confronted
with the death of a friend.

I was a new parent at the time.
I was juggling a full-time
job...

...but I wanted this story to
get told...

...to keep this technological
vision alive.

Almost anyone you ask
knows what a Polaroid photograph
is.

At its peak, Polaroid sold more
than a billion
individual photographs a year.

It was an enormous company.

There was a fantastic character
at the center of it all in Edwin
Land.

He was really one of the great
visionaries
of American technology.

He had a vision for the future
of the evolving human being.

The founding myth of Polaroid
photography
goes like this:

Edwin Land, on vacation with his
daughter
at the end of 1943.

They were in the mountains
of New Mexico...

...and he had taken photographs
of her
all day with his Rolleiflex.

At the end of the afternoon,
his daughter, who was three,
asked him:

'Daddy, why can't I see the
photos now?'

And Land asked himself:
'Well, why can't she?'

The story goes that he sent her
off
to be with her mother for a
while...

...and he spent the night
pacing the resort...

...working a rough form
of his invention out in his
head.

In 1985, during the course of
the work
undertaken to irrigate the Gobi
desert...

...a strange fragment of rock
was discovered.

Research revealed that it
contained
a 'spool'.

Further analysis showed the
material
to be extraterrestrial in
origin...

...and not of human manufacture.

Where did it come from?

A long time ago...

...back in Germany...

...when I was a little girl...

...I dreamed of the desert.

I had to wait...

...for the magic moment to
manifest.

And...

Yeah, it just happened.

Colors show up in a very, very
different way.

It was not what you actually see
with your eyes.

It was like chemistry.

Poisonous.

Just scary.

And really intense.

It was so beautiful.

It triggered something in my
creative being.

I believe I have always been a
photographer.

The desert is definitely
the canvas I work with.

Nobody sees you.

Nobody cares.
You can do anything.

It's just magical.

Just like the Polaroids.

So this is my last Polaroid
stock.

Choose some for today's shoot.

The new stock expired in April,
2009.

And some of the very old
stock...

...expired in 2006.

I have to use these soon,
otherwise they're not going to
work anymore.

Of course I can't buy new,
because...

...Polaroid stopped production
a long time ago.

Sometimes you can still buy them
on eBay,
but for a lot of money.

So if this is gone, I guess I'm
going
to look for something else to
do.

I don't know what I'm going to
do,
but I'm going to think of
something.

There's tens of millions of
Polaroid cameras
out there in the modern-day
world...

...waiting to be used again.

My mission it to reinvent
the instant film...

...and keep this analog
experience alive
into the digital age.

Most people know something
about photographic prints.

They know that a photograph
is a reproduction of things...

...in terms of light and shade.

When we open the shutter,
reflected light from the
subject...

...is gathered by the lens
and focused on the film.

When the shutter opens...

...the light penetrates and
strikes
the silver halide particles.

And those which the light
reaches
wake up.

And which cannot be seen until
it is
brought into visible form...

...by chemical means.

This is where the lightened
image
comes to life.

The one thing I always
regretted...

...was not having been involved
in Polaroid in its earliest
time...

...when they were really
creating this
from nothing.

So when the opportunity came
along
at The Impossible Project...

...to do what Dr. Land had done
originally,
it was awful enticing.

Especially at my age
and the stage I was in my
career.

One of the things that Dr. Land
did was,
he believed a lot in secrecy.

The chemicals that were being
made
and used in the Polaroid film...

...were all assigned a code
number.

They were never called
by their chemical name.

Most people didn't know
what they actually were.

The molecular design
of the instant film...

...is very, very complicated.

The analog instant film...

...is the world's most
chemically complex
completely man-made product
ever.

When you start to assemble
all this chemistry together...

...there's all kinds of side
reactions
that happen.

Many of which we don't even know
what they are.

Just like a living organism,
it's got a mind of its own.

As the world passed into the
second half
of the 20th century after the
birth of Christ...

...beyond the dreams of its
ancestors...

...modern man has molded the
earth
to his liking.

Proud of his vast creative
ability...

...he can boast of the grandeur
of his achievements...

...and admire the scope
of his own imagination.

How you use your eyes to see...

...brings about new forms
of human association and action.

Are you living in today's world?

The walls of your worlds
are coming down.

It's becoming a simple matter
to pick out of your homes...

...your private, once solely
personal life, and record it.

Ours is a brand new world
of all-at-onceness.

We now share too much
about each other...

...to be strangers to each
other.

The chemistry of Polaroid film
being analog...

...in comparison to digital
is closer to the way we're made
of.

I think there's also an analogy
to human interaction.

Which is the most mysterious of
all to me.

Land envisioned a future in
which
you always have a camera with
you.

Not a big, bulky one,
but something small and
simple...

...that inserted no impediment
between photographer and
subject.

That nothing else
would disrupt the moment.

The idea would be that you would
just shoot pictures all day
long.

A future in which one would
document
one's life all the time.

In 1970 he made a short film
called 'The Long Walk'.

In it, he talks about the future
of photography.

He reaches into his coat pocket
and pulls out a black wallet.

Everyone who sees it has the
same reaction:
'What did I just see?'

Because it looks for all the
world
like he's holding a black
iPhone.

They were a long way from the
dream
which I used to talk about
then...

...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.

The camera that would be,
oh, like the telephone...

...something that you use
all day long.

Our long-awaited, ultimate
camera...

...that is a part of the
evolving human being.

And that was almost forty years
ago.

He once said that for a product
to be truly new...

...the world must not be ready
for it.

Because if the world were ready
for it,
it wouldn't be much of an
invention.

Very sexy, totally see-through.

Where's the gun?
I don't know where the guns are.

This is cute.

So you're just, like, getting
through the area,
taking a break...

...on the way to your dream
farm.

Is that a bracelet?

I brought the flower crown with
me.

It'’s funny, because if you open
the thing,
you will laugh.

Sort of the same thing
that you're carrying there.

The first shoot I did,
taking people out to the
desert...

...gave me the idea to make a
big project
out of...

...different characters
living in trailer parks.

Trying to find love.

Trying to understand the world.
Make sense out of the world.

The sun's already gone.

Shit.

Maybe the face after.

Don't look at me.

Yeah, that's good.

Keep doing what you're doing.
I'm just going to both of you.

"Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker!"

For me the essence of my work
is telling stories.

A little bit further down with
the head
towards me.

Yeah, looking more into the
camera.

Living out your desires,
fantasies.

Building a new world...

...which is far away
from the regular world.

One morning I didn't wake up.

I was worn out, I had a fever.

I fell asleep again and I
dreamed.

My chest felt squeezed.

Certainly it is because of the
close-fitting
elastic bandages it is wrapped
in.

A little bird said morning for
her love.

The frozen wind crept on up her.

The freezing stream below.
There was no leaf upon the
forest bower...

...no flowers upon the ground
and little motion in the air...

...except for the mill wing's
sound.

Charlie Brown...

My little movie star. We're
going to get you
a little star on the Hollywood
Boulevard.

You're going to be the most
famous
of all of them.

"Charlie Brown, here comes
Charlie Brown."

Nice.

I think he peed on me.
- Charlie Brown peed on you? No
way.

I feel wetness.

On my hand.

I don't see anything.
- I feel it in my hand.

It didn't.
- I feel something wet on my
hand.

He might have spit a little bit
on your hand.

No, it's coming out of him
onto my left hand.

Hey, sweetie.

Was it just that?
- OK, I guess it was drool.

I didn't know he'd do that.
I thought it had to be pee.

No, they don't really pee.
They shit.

Since I've been a little girl, I
actually thought:
Oh, we wanted to go to America.

In the middle of the desert,
in the middle of nowhere would
be wonderful.

But then when I came to
America...

...I just had a hit-and-run
accident.

I was seven years on crutches.

I had thirty operations.
It was pretty hardcore.

That changed my life.

My way of seeing things.

There might be bad things
happening...

...but still you have some kind
of control
of them...

...by creating a world within a
world.

This is so cool. I love this
picture.

I love this color explosion.
That looks like little flowers.

All 'problems' of an expired
Polaroid.

Here you get, like, the
chemistry
didn't develop anymore...

...and you can see the rollers
while they pushed out the film.

Where you can see the yellow
part.

Those poor girls
really had to work a lot.

I totally embrace these kind of
mistakes.

I think life is unpredictable.

Therefore it's really great
that the films are so
unpredictable.

'Wabi-sabi' is a Japanese
term...

...for something which is
imperfect.

But it also means that...

...only things are perfect
which are imperfect.

Like a dish with a chip,
because it tells a story. It has
a life.

Perfect.

Love.

Friendship.

Color.

Memories.

Future.

Love.

I really was married to
Polaroid.
I started in 1977...

...and left in 2005. That's 28
years.

Dr. Land, his last five years
with Polaroid...

...were my first five years.

He was clearly a great role
model for me
as somebody who knew how to do
science.

He knew the value of doing
experiments...

...and would tell you that
there's no such thing as a
failed experiment.

To join this adventure,
I had to move to Europe.

It was a pretty major decision,
because it involved...

...leaving my wife for a good
part
of this time.

I just couldn't resist.

It was a chance for me to get
back to
what I love the most...

...which is work on the
reinvention
of instant film.

The importance of dreams.

It is not easy to grasp this
point.

It implies something vague,
unknown, or hidden from us.

Man never perceives anything
fully,
or comprehends anything
completely.

He can see, hear, touch and
taste...

...but how far he sees,
how well he hears...

...what his touch tells him
and what he tastes...

...depend upon the number
and quality of his senses.

By using scientific
instruments...

...he can partly compensate
for the deficiencies of his
senses.

But the most elaborate apparatus
cannot do more...

...than bring distant or small
objects
within range of his eyes...

...or make faint sounds more
audible.

No matter what instrument he
uses...

...at some point he reaches
the edge of certainty...

...beyond which conscious
knowledge
cannot pass.

There are, moreover, unconscious
aspects
of our perception of reality.

It may appear, for instance,
in the form of a dream.

The book just came out of me.

I wrote most of the time nights
and weekends.

In two long train rides,
I wrote about a third of the
book.

There days when I wanted to be
doing
other things, but I couldn'’t 't
stop.

Always a little voice
looking over your shoulder...

...that says: You should be
working on that
a little more.

To keep this weird old way
of making pictures going.

The first Polaroid Land camera,
the old 95.

Graduating to a group of a
couple of
rangefinder cameras.

Then came the electric eye
models...

...and more recently,
the color pack cameras.

What a product story.

Polaroid photography did have
an enormous effect on popular
culture.

It was just everywhere.

There was even a Polaroid camera
on a bad day in 1963.

The president of the United
States
is dead.

That is the only photo
of the moment President Kennedy
died.

What I love about this camera
is that it allows you to capture
the moment.

Every moment in life...

...that you stop and show:
this happened just then and
here.

And those are the moments
we want to keep.

A lot of people think of
Polaroid
as a snapshot medium...

...but that you would never use
it
for something important.

That's really a misapprehension.

A great many photographers
have pushed this medium to the
point...

...where it really showed its
ability.

Take a look at this base
and see what kind of quality we
have.

OK, that's one. Another one.
No, that's Gen 2.

You can take a picture of me.

Now I'm going to do Thomas.
Gen 3.

In fact in both of them.
Looks like about the same place
almost.

Two minutes.

But it should be...

The Gen 3 should, in a few
minutes...

I'm not sure when.
- It might be a little bit cold
in this room.

Press a button...

...and have the picture.

Press a button...

...and have the picture.

Now.

There's probably been
thirty or forty new molecules...

...that have been designed and
synthesized
and tested to come up with
these.

And it's taken two and a half
years,
probably a little over two
years.

But the Gen 3 should start to
brighten up...

...and move into its final
phase.

It's too slow.

When the Impossible Film
started...

...after a number of years we
were able to
put together a very basic
recipe...

...that made the first
Impossible films.

I don't call those instant
films.

It's a full half an hour
to get to a finished print.

Press a button...

When an instant print comes out
of a camera,
it's also the experience of
time.

Press a button...

There's an organic process
that you're pulled into.

You almost want to continue
watching it.

There's a feel of the evolution
of time
passed. That's part of the whole
experience.

In an instant digital print...

...there was no experience.

No mystery.

No sense of dreaming.

No sense of time.

It's like being put under
with total anesthesia...

...and wake up four hours later.

There's nothing in-between.

There's nothing else.

It's very strange how time
passes.

Most of these people
I just don't know anymore.

No more connections to them.

And you were so close to people
and they just disappear out of
your life.

Very, very, very strange.

Gosh, this is a really nice box.

These are really...
That's me when I was small.

My sister, my grandmother,
mother, my great-grandmother.

That's a very long time ago.

No Polaroids back then.

Me in Cuxhaven growing up.
On the beach, basically.

Me taking my first bath.

Oh my God, I was looking for
these photos.

For years I've been looking
for one particular photo
album...

...with all my old student
photos
and my childhood passports.

This is basically...
This batch is how I grew up.

I'm going through my life.

It's only such selective little
parts.

My past was such a different
time.

Because it was the time
before digital came in.

They are all moments you
remember,
but no pictures exist of them.

Our memories are always somehow
faded.

So everybody can project
their own fantasies on the past.

I can't remember if I chose this
life.

I think I must have,
but I might not have known what
I was in for.

My family turned out to be
mostly jerks.

My mom says I was named
after the champagne.

My dad likes to say I was named
after his product.

I had a dog, Lucy.

Born when I was two.
She was just about my only
friend.

I got lost in the desert with
her once.
Really lost.

I dreamed that I wanted to quit
my job
hostessing at this restaurant
and I was like:

I was going there to quit
and I was freaking out...

...and then my skin just kept
peeling
off of me.

At first I thought it was
sunburn.

But it was all over my face
and I was peeling it off like a
mask.

I felt like a new person as I
was taking it off
and I had this fresh skin
underneath.

So I went to the...

I didn't tell you this part.
So I went to the restaurant...

...and I saw my friend there.

She was like: Oh, I'm not happy
in school,
I want to leave.

And I was like: "If you're not
happy,
you have to leave. I had a dream
about it."

So I told her in the dream that
I had a dream.
- So you had a dream in a dream?

Yeah, I said I had a dream about
it.

"I think it's the right thing to
do. You shouldn't
go to school if it doesn't make
you happy."

"You have to follow what your
dream is."

So then I left the restaurant
and I was in this café...

...and I was giving this pitch
for this movie I want to make...

...to this woman I know
who's a producer...

...in LA, who's a real person,
and I was giving the pitch to
her...

...she was like: "I love this
idea.
I want to help you get it made."

And I left there and I was going
to tell
my family that I was going to
make a movie.

It was really cool. And my skin
was like...
It was so weird peeling it off.

I would definitely say
that the world is losing magic.

Today, of course, everything is
covered.

So the way you perceive your
past
has completely changed.

That's also why you have a
different memory
today, which is instant memory.

I think people are obsessed
with the necessity of moments.

And therefore also this deep
feeling
about time has changed.

That is actually what I don't
want to be part of.

And so I'm stopping time...

...and creating my own time
dimension.

We have art and order
not to die of the truth.

That fits so well to my life.

Dining in the Altstadt.

I have a table for two.

I am missing you.

Lily's bar for lunch.

A Weiss bier and nice music.

Beginning to rain.

I find myself at times inspired
to write haiku poetry.

It's like an instant print,
which is a very small,
single frozen piece of time.

Hey, Jenn.

Hey, I've been waiting.

You've got something coming up
this weekend, right?

You're getting together with
Cindy
on Friday?

Friday's going to be great.
- What are you doing?

The Museum of Fine Arts
has an exhibit of Dutch
painters.

Are you kidding?

No, it's just ironic.
We saw so many Dutch paintings
together.

That's funny. I just got done
talking to Zach
who's been visited this
weekend...

...by a woman from Amsterdam
who's a composer that he knows.

I'd love to go to that jazz
festival
in Amsterdam.

Actually, it's in Hamburg.
- Do you know what week it is?

I think it's in April, isn't it?
I will look it up.

The other thing I want to do
this weekend
is pick out a Christmas tree.
Alone, again.

I just talked to Zach and I
asked him
to help, like he did last year.

Help you get the tree
and put it up.

Sorry I'm not able to do that
with you.

All right. I probably won't have
time
to do a lot of it for you.

I'll see you again at Christmas,
but I'll be looking forward to
that.

I'll see you later.

Bye bye, love.
- I love you. I'll talk to you
tomorrow.

Bye bye.
- See you.

Well, there it is.

The Polaroid 1000 instant
camera.
The world's simplest camera.

It's the exciting Christmas
present...

...that lets you enjoy your
pictures
in minutes in brilliant color.

For instant excitement,
instant laughter...

...instant fun.

This is something Edwin Land
wrote
on March 25, 1974:

"When a new medium
comes into our midst...

...we proceed to use it pretty
much
as we used older media."

"We could not have known
and I've only just learned...

...that a new kind of
relationship
between people in groups...

...is brought into being by
instant film...

...when the members of a group
are photographing and being
photographed...

...and sharing the photographs."

"It turns out that buried within
us...

...God knows beneath how many
pregenital
and Freudian and Calvinistic
strata...

...there is latent interest in
each other."

"There is tenderness, curiosity,
excitement,
affection, companionability and
humor."

"It turns out in this cold world
where man grows distant from
man...

...that we have a prehistoric
tribal competence...

...in being partners in the
lonely exploration
of a once-empty planet."

Land really thought that his
invention
was a tool...

...that would change the way
people related to one another.

He was extremely romantic
about his creation...

...and quite the idealist.

Can you wrap me the captions
on that file again?

I just want to make two changes
and run it by the fact
checker...

...and then we can take it to
proof.
That'll be good before the end
of the day.

Thanks. I'll get them back to
you
in ten minutes.

That's a silly pose.
Can you look at me?

Let me see.

I like that one better.
You're smiling a lot more.

I think it really...

I think it really captures my
personality.

You like that one better?
- Yeah. Just my mind wandering.

I think it really captures my
personality.

Yeah, that one's better.
You're making a sort of silly
face, though.

Yeah, but it's the best I can
do.

It probably comes out that I
take
close to a photo a day of Alex.

Not quite, but pretty nearly.

I hope that it gives him a way
to connect
his childhood...

...to something that I was
interested in
and writing about.

You know, he will be one of the
last kids...

...to have been photographed
this way.

I've got enough film to last a
few more years,
but it's going to dry up soon.

So, he'll be one of the last
ones
who remembers how it smelled...

...and how it felt to peel one
of those pictures
open and see it.

You know, when I'm fifty years
out of the picture...

...he'll remember it.
That's nice.

It still makes me laugh
looking at it.

Just nine months old, I guess.
Something like that.

And it was Christmas.

Polaroid photography is
social...

...in the way that when you take
an instant picture...

...you pull it out of the camera
and it develops on the spot.

And there's a little time lag.
It takes
a minute or two, or three, to
happen.

During that time, if the person
you've just taken a picture
of...

...doesn't know you well,
if it's a stranger at a party

...or an occasional
acquaintance, you know...

...you're sort of forced to make
small talk
to fill in the moment.

The eye is surprisingly
forgiving.

I had a Polaroid executive
say this to me once.

That they're always hung up on:
Is it as good as 35mm quality?

And he said: "Go pick up a
newspaper.
You're looking at a bunch of
dots."

The eye forgives anything,
if it's a good photograph.

You know that famous story about
Dustin Hoffman...

...and Laurence Olivier on
'Marathon Man'?

I don't.

Dustin Hoffman would stay up all
night,
so he would come in disheveled
and dirty.

And Olivier looked at him once
and said:

"My dear boy, you should try
acting.
It's much easier."

Are you taking a picture?

For God's sake, I got to reload.

Hang on.

I look a little lazy.

It's Friday night. Lazy is OK.

That's good.

Let's see what we've got.

You know you don't shake?

You know the thing
that celebrities always do?

Where you get the shoulders
square
and the hip turned...

...and the arm out.
- Square.

That's right. That one. Exactly.

The earlier forms...
You know when you peel them off?

It came off wet.

And you had to shake it to dry
it.

This is a fun one,
'cause it folds.

Isn't it cute?

How do you know these guys?

Hang on. Sorry, the flash didn't
go off.
- Oh, no.

How do you know these guys?

Your eye forgives.
Look at a newspaper. It's all
dots.

Right, right.
- It's all right.

What's this kind of camera?
- This is an SX-70.

Which you can see in 'Boogie
Nights'.

I mean, this is my house,
it's my birthday, all of my
friends right here.

That's my wife.

And that's her, like right now.
- That's her two minutes ago.

As you take people's pictures,
people gather around to look at
it...

...and ask to have their picture
taken.

So the circle of that moment
widens to a small group.

And then the second thing that
happens...

...is that the photo itself,
because it's a one-of-a-kind
object...

...because there's no digital
file
or negative...

...gets given to the subject.

This, as far as I know,
is just about unique in
photography.

It doesn't happen that way
with any other form.

There won't be digital files
that were transferred...

...from phone to computer, to
the
next computer, to the next
computer...

...and stored away on a hard
drive
somewhere.

Very often, you will never see
the image again.

It's like an artefact of time.

Like a ghost came out of the
machine.

Once, not too long ago, there
was
a perfect chemical formula of
imperfection.

But then things changed.

A digital image is a stream of
dots,
ones and zeros.

An analog instant picture
has three dimensions.

It has thickness...

...and volume.

It weighs something.

I like to describe the invention
to end all inventions.

I call it The Replicator.

It's a duplicating machine
that can make an exact copy of
anything.

Confronted with such a device,
our present society would
probably...

...sink into a kind of
gluttonous barbarism.

Because everybody would want
unlimited quantities of
everything...

...since nothing would cost
anything.

In fact, cynics may doubt
if any human society...

...could survive an invention...

...which would lead to
unlimited abundance...

...and the final ending
of the curse of Adam...

Every human is unique.

It's not an exact replica,
it's not a clone.

The human body that has a level
of
chemical complexity...

...and a biochemistry that is
just incredible.

We are trying to modify it...

...but in my opinion,
that is a subjective thing.

It is perfect, but, also, it is
imperfect.
All at the same time.

Maybe just... Turn towards the
sun
so it's obviously not...
Remember?

Exactly. That's good. That's
great.

I ask myself this:
Why did God create us?

What was his purpose?

The world walking by.

I'm watching the reflections
in some sunglasses.

There's a line somewhere.
It's not clearly defined.

We must not cross it.

These are part of the 20 years
of work,
but it's only one of the safes.

So we have another one.

So there's 700 in each drawer.

And there are 23 drawers,
by 700.

A great deal of the secret
of our success...

...has been that we have
concentrated
on concepts.

That has given us
a heavy, technological
weighting...

...that has let us be
years ahead of the field.

The very end has elements of
tragedy,
for sure.

Its very success, in some
ways...

...was the thing that made it
fearful about change.

Every time a new environment
forms
with a new medium...

...people go back and live in
the old one.

Any new medium completely alters
the image we have of ourselves.

Of this, you are completely
unaware.

Land, although he was
one of the great visionaries...

...was caught in the wrong time
frame.

The limitations of analog media
that they
couldn't be shared in volume
globally...

...cut him off
from the larger world impact...

...that digital photography
then opened up.

...take a wallet out of my
pocket...

...take a wallet out of my
pocket...

Welcome to the Instant Lab.

You have to choose
an image for exposure.

Do this now.

By the time they realized, it
was too late.
It was the mid-Nineties...

...and Sony and the others
were all way ahead of them.

Place your device face down
on the cradle...

...in the top of the tower.

That was the sound of success.

Locate the shutter and pull it
out
all the way.

Do this now.

The device will make the
exposure.

Slide the shutter all the way
back.

Press the eject button
located at the front of the
Instant Lab...

...firmly for one second.

You have initiated the chemical
reactions
that will process your instant
photo.

Wait for it.

Thank you for listening and
remember:
I can repeat any of my
instructions.

The company went bankrupt in
2001.
It was sold, and sold again.

That last buyer turned out to be
a crook.

He'd stolen three billion
dollars.
He got fifty years.

The factories and the land under
them
were sold off.

The one in Waltham I visited.

It was demolished six weeks
after I got there.
There's a shopping center there
now.

I am on the verge of change.

Because the narratives...

...came to a happy ending for
me.

So everything I was working on
and working through for so
long...

...now became reality.

I'm living the dream now.

It seems...

...I want to, like, see
something
beyond the image.

To a point where an image
becomes an imagination.

That... See the land up there?
Alex?

That's the beginning of New
Jersey.

And then there's a long pier
over there.

Bapu, my dad, used to,
when he was a little kid, fish
off that pier.

He had a really long fishing
pole...

...and go all the way out to the
end
and throw his line in the ocean.

You think we can do that
someday?
- Sure.

We should ask bapu.
The three of us can go together.

He'd like that and I'd like
that.
Want to do it?

We could even go out on a
fishing boat
sometime, if you want.

Would you like that?
- Cool.

I would love to do that.

Trying to predict the future...

...is a discouraging
and hazardous occupation.

If his predictions
sound at all reasonable...

...you can be quite sure that in
20,
or at most 50 years...

...the progress of science
and technology...

...has made him seem
ridiculously conservative.

On the other hand,
if by some miracle...

...a prophet could describe the
future
exactly as it was going to take
place...

...his predictions would sound
so absurd, so far-fetched...

...that everybody would laugh
him
for scorn.

There's an interesting quote
from Arthur C. Clarke...

...that I think really applies
to us:

"The only way of discovering the
limits
of the possible...

...is to venture a little way
beyond
and into the impossible."

It's my own opinion
that when it comes to future
directions...

...we can learn an awful lot
from visionaries and people like
Dr. Land.

To show us possibilities
and which way to go...

...beyond what most of us
would be conceiving of.

People who have this passion
to develop technologies...

...that nobody had even
imagined...

...and continue to keep dreaming
of what human nature is...

...and what it eventually
becomes
in the future.

Not too bad.

Very good. Think it will survive
two cats and a grandbaby?

I think it will.

Merry Christmas.
- You look handsome.

Watch the film.
- OK, sir.

That's going to be a great shot.