They are treating instant photography like it was a long list secret that had to be reverse engineered. That the supply chain was gone, the formulas gone, and they were going off marketing brochures and a few carts of film.
But the factory had been running 6 months before they started. If they had secured the rights to the Polaroid IP for film, I am getting most of the suppliers would have been happy to sell them the stock. They could have hired people who knew how the process worked (who had done it 6 months prior). They could have replicated the film exactly.
Yes, there may have been a few changes, a few problems, a few issues. They would not have had a grand adventure and a romantic origin story. But their film would be much closer to Fuji’s.
And that’s the thing. They are making a small amount of product for a small group of people. They are missing out on the “teenage girl” market, which Fuji has discovered is huge.
The Instax camera line is a best seller. So far, impossible isn’t. And my guess is that it is the product, not the marketing. (The camera is too big and bulky. They are old, not vintage. The film is too expensive and too slow, and the colors are all wrong.)
I own a Polaroid Snap and a Fuji Instax (in addition to more serious cameras). Even as instant photographers both me and my wife aren’t that interested in spending $400 to try the Impossible films.
