Back to the future – how digital media can make some films last forever

Having recently seen the film ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’ at the cinema, I started thinking about the amazing possibilities being able to see into the future might hold. The most obvious being the chance to win the lottery, but also to feed my digital PR interest in technology developments.

New gadgets, applications and especially lifehacker solutions never fail to impress me. But it’s been interesting how many ‘old’ technologies seem to be coming back (if slightly re-invented!).

Reading the FT’s Weekend magazine on Saturday, there was a great article by Tim Bradshaw about how Polaroid could be making a comeback. The company first introduced an instant camera back in 1948 and was still something ‘cool’ in the 90’s. Sadly, the company closed its doors in 2008 as it was considered ‘out of date in the digital age’. But now an Austrian Entrepreneur and a former Polaroid manager want to bring back instant film under a new name to meet the demand of Polaroid enthusiasts that still exists.

This Polaroid venture - dubbed ‘the impossible project’ – would revive the business on a smaller scale, believing strongly that it will break even. Embracing current resources available, the team is already using digital media to raise awareness, share pictures with enthusiasts on developments, as well as inviting the online community to input on challenges they are facing in order to find solutions.

It’s a wonderful story of how ‘old’ and ‘new’ technology is working together to meet a current need.

Having read this I was also less surprised to learn that there is a course available in bookmaking. The Papered Parlour in south London helps to keep alive an interest in an art form which could easily be forgotten in an age of digital books. But with a trial launch coming up of video ads in the magazine Entertainment Weekly (not unlike the newspapers in Harry Potter), thanks to a collaboration between Pepsi and CBS, maybe there is a future filled with even more old and new technologies being bound together?

If you’ve got an idea, starting a conversation online can be a powerful resource to gain input from experts around the world. While I wait for my personal inspiration though, I’m going to watch more Sci Fi films and look out for that next big new/old technology of the future!