WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.339 So in 1992, a group of independent filmmakers 00:00:05.339 --> 00:00:08.220 in Canada realized something pretty counterintuitive. 00:00:08.439 --> 00:00:10.660 They figured out that the best way to spark just 00:00:10.660 --> 00:00:13.539 like absolute creative genius wasn't to hand 00:00:13.539 --> 00:00:16.079 directors a blank check. It wasn't about giving 00:00:16.079 --> 00:00:18.859 them unlimited studio time or cutting edge special 00:00:18.859 --> 00:00:21.579 effects. It was actually to give them exactly 00:00:21.579 --> 00:00:26.019 $100 for tiny rolls of film and essentially a 00:00:26.019 --> 00:00:28.899 locked door. Which completely subverts how we 00:00:28.899 --> 00:00:30.920 think about the creative process today. I mean, 00:00:30.940 --> 00:00:34.020 especially now. Oh boy. We operate under this 00:00:34.020 --> 00:00:36.899 assumption that infinite time and infinite digital 00:00:36.899 --> 00:00:38.659 storage will just naturally produce the best 00:00:38.659 --> 00:00:42.299 work. But often the most profound breakthroughs 00:00:42.299 --> 00:00:44.880 happen when you are like backed into a corner 00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:47.579 by a completely uncompromising physical limitation. 00:00:47.929 --> 00:00:50.009 Well, welcome to today's deep dive. We're so 00:00:50.009 --> 00:00:51.929 glad you're joining us today. We are exploring 00:00:51.929 --> 00:00:54.369 a really fascinating cultural micro history, 00:00:54.390 --> 00:00:57.429 and it's all based on a pretty concise Wikipedia 00:00:57.429 --> 00:01:00.250 stub about an event called the Artifact Small 00:01:00.250 --> 00:01:03.109 Format Film Festival in Calgary, Alberta. Exactly. 00:01:03.289 --> 00:01:05.730 Hell, annually in Calgary. Yeah. And our mission 00:01:05.730 --> 00:01:08.930 today isn't just to, you know, recite the 26 00:01:08.930 --> 00:01:11.549 year timeline of this one specific Canadian festival. 00:01:11.569 --> 00:01:13.579 Right. That would be a little dry. Yeah. Exactly. 00:01:14.219 --> 00:01:17.000 Instead, we are going to unpack what it actually 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:19.439 teaches us about the mechanics of creativity, 00:01:20.379 --> 00:01:23.420 how artistic movements adapt to survive, and 00:01:23.420 --> 00:01:27.079 the incredibly stubborn and enduring value of 00:01:27.079 --> 00:01:29.909 physical media in a world that is... you know, 00:01:30.069 --> 00:01:32.129 built entirely on ones and zeros. And you look 00:01:32.129 --> 00:01:34.170 at a single source document like this, and I 00:01:34.170 --> 00:01:35.930 mean, on the surface, it reads like a simple 00:01:35.930 --> 00:01:38.409 list of dates and locations. Yeah. But when you 00:01:38.409 --> 00:01:40.829 look closer at the underlying mechanisms, like 00:01:40.829 --> 00:01:42.950 what this festival actually demanded from its 00:01:42.950 --> 00:01:45.790 participants, you see the entire evolution of 00:01:45.790 --> 00:01:48.170 how a community wrestles with and ultimately 00:01:48.170 --> 00:01:51.569 defends a dying technology. It's so cool. So 00:01:51.569 --> 00:01:53.430 let's wind the clock back to the origin point. 00:01:53.730 --> 00:01:57.030 The year is 1992. OK. Now, the event wasn't called 00:01:57.030 --> 00:02:00.109 the Artifact Festival back then. under a highly 00:02:00.109 --> 00:02:03.689 literal name. It was called the $100 Film Festival. 00:02:03.829 --> 00:02:06.730 Right to the point. Very. And it started incredibly 00:02:06.730 --> 00:02:09.930 small. They showcased just eight short films 00:02:09.930 --> 00:02:12.770 and they were all shot entirely on Super 8 films. 00:02:13.210 --> 00:02:16.069 Just Super 8. Yeah. And the organizers who were 00:02:16.069 --> 00:02:18.169 operating under the Calgary Society of Independent 00:02:18.169 --> 00:02:22.009 Filmmakers or CSIF, they laid down this uncompromising 00:02:22.009 --> 00:02:24.969 rule. You had to shoot your entire project on 00:02:24.969 --> 00:02:28.030 exactly four rolls of Super 8 film. And nothing 00:02:28.030 --> 00:02:31.930 else. Nothing else. Because in 1992, the cost 00:02:31.930 --> 00:02:34.490 of purchasing and processing those four rolls 00:02:34.490 --> 00:02:37.789 came out to exactly $100. Which is, to truly 00:02:37.789 --> 00:02:40.650 graft what a severe constraint that is, we have 00:02:40.650 --> 00:02:42.889 to look at the actual mechanics of Super 8 film. 00:02:42.949 --> 00:02:44.590 Right. Because most people today have probably 00:02:44.590 --> 00:02:48.370 never even held a roll. Exactly. So Kodak introduced 00:02:48.370 --> 00:02:51.289 Super 8 back in the 1960s, mostly as a consumer 00:02:51.289 --> 00:02:53.789 format, like for home movies. Right. It comes 00:02:53.789 --> 00:02:55.689 in this little plastic cartridge that you just 00:02:55.689 --> 00:02:57.949 snap into the camera. But a single cartridge 00:02:57.949 --> 00:03:00.129 only holds about 50 feet of film. Which doesn't 00:03:00.129 --> 00:03:02.409 sound like a lot. It isn't. If you are shooting 00:03:02.409 --> 00:03:05.479 at the standard rate which is 18 frames per second. 00:03:06.060 --> 00:03:08.580 One cartridge gives you roughly three minutes 00:03:08.580 --> 00:03:11.319 and 20 seconds of footage. Oh wow okay so wait 00:03:11.319 --> 00:03:14.139 if you were limited to four rolls you have a 00:03:14.139 --> 00:03:17.379 maximum of what about 13 minutes of raw material 00:03:17.379 --> 00:03:21.139 to work with? Yes literally 13 minutes. Think 00:03:21.139 --> 00:03:23.460 about the math of that for a second. Okay. If 00:03:23.460 --> 00:03:26.780 your final short film is intended to be say 10 00:03:26.780 --> 00:03:29.759 minutes long and you only have 13 minutes of 00:03:29.560 --> 00:03:32.580 actual physical film to shoot it on. Your shooting 00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:35.500 ratio is almost one to one. Exactly. It's almost 00:03:35.500 --> 00:03:39.219 one to one. For context, a modern Hollywood production 00:03:39.219 --> 00:03:43.039 might shoot, I don't know, 50 hours of footage 00:03:43.039 --> 00:03:45.379 for a two hour movie. Right. They capture every 00:03:45.379 --> 00:03:47.259 angle. They do multiple takes. Yeah. They just 00:03:47.259 --> 00:03:49.419 figure it out in the editing room later. But 00:03:49.419 --> 00:03:52.340 this constraint makes that completely impossible. 00:03:52.580 --> 00:03:55.479 It's like a cinematic haiku. Oh, I like that. 00:03:55.639 --> 00:03:57.699 Right, because a haiku forces you to use exactly 00:03:57.699 --> 00:04:00.560 five syllables, then seven, then five. You can't 00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:02.800 just squeeze in extra words because you feel 00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:05.199 like it. No, you have to be ruthlessly intentional. 00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:07.860 Exactly. With only four rolls of Super 8, you 00:04:07.860 --> 00:04:10.960 have a hard physical cap on your runtime. You 00:04:10.960 --> 00:04:12.939 literally cannot afford to waste a single frame. 00:04:13.099 --> 00:04:15.419 And consider the psychological weight of that 00:04:15.419 --> 00:04:17.180 physical medium, too. What do you mean? Well, 00:04:17.180 --> 00:04:19.259 when you pull the trigger on a Super 8 camera, 00:04:19.500 --> 00:04:22.839 a mechanical claw physically pulls a strip of 00:04:22.839 --> 00:04:26.220 plastic past the lens, exposing the chemical 00:04:26.220 --> 00:04:28.759 emulsion to light. You can hear it working. Yes. 00:04:28.860 --> 00:04:32.759 Yeah. You hear the loud rhythmic whir of the 00:04:32.759 --> 00:04:35.500 motor running. You know, in real time, that physical 00:04:35.500 --> 00:04:38.779 material is being consumed. The financial meter 00:04:38.779 --> 00:04:41.480 is audibly running. Oh, that's so stressful. 00:04:41.709 --> 00:04:44.310 But it forces a complete shift in the artistic 00:04:44.310 --> 00:04:46.310 process, doesn't it? Totally. You can't just 00:04:46.310 --> 00:04:48.329 figure it out on the fly or fix a bad performance 00:04:48.329 --> 00:04:51.269 in post -production. It demands meticulous storyboarding. 00:04:51.550 --> 00:04:54.509 You have to rehearse your actors until their 00:04:54.509 --> 00:04:57.290 performances are pure muscle memory, long before 00:04:57.290 --> 00:04:59.870 you ever expose a single frame of that plastic 00:04:59.870 --> 00:05:02.829 to the light. And by imposing that strict budgetary 00:05:02.829 --> 00:05:06.050 and physical parameter, the CSIF leveled the 00:05:06.050 --> 00:05:08.209 playing field for storytellers in this really 00:05:08.209 --> 00:05:10.629 brilliant way. Because film is usually so expensive. 00:05:10.810 --> 00:05:13.389 Exactly. The film industry has historically been 00:05:13.389 --> 00:05:16.509 heavily gate -kept by financial resources. The 00:05:16.509 --> 00:05:18.750 director with the massive lighting budget and 00:05:18.750 --> 00:05:21.589 the top -tier camera rig usually has an inherent 00:05:21.589 --> 00:05:24.589 advantage. Right. But the $100 rule strips all 00:05:24.589 --> 00:05:27.110 of that away. It turns the whole festival into 00:05:27.110 --> 00:05:30.610 a pure meritocracy. I mean, if every single person 00:05:30.610 --> 00:05:34.370 is bound by the exact same four roles of grainy, 00:05:34.589 --> 00:05:37.980 unpredictable Super 8 film... The only thing 00:05:37.980 --> 00:05:39.879 separating your finished movie from the next 00:05:39.879 --> 00:05:43.540 person's is the raw quality of the idea. It democratizes 00:05:43.540 --> 00:05:46.100 the medium. Yeah. If you could scrape together 00:05:46.100 --> 00:05:49.199 that $100 entry fee, you had a voice. And it 00:05:49.199 --> 00:05:51.660 built an entire community on a foundation of 00:05:51.660 --> 00:05:53.540 scrappiness and discipline. But, you know, as 00:05:53.540 --> 00:05:55.699 any cultural historian will tell you, the constraints 00:05:55.699 --> 00:05:58.529 that spark a movement... rarely sustain it indefinitely 00:05:58.529 --> 00:06:01.149 which brings us to a major pivot point in the 00:06:01.149 --> 00:06:03.949 source material yes the evolution right because 00:06:03.949 --> 00:06:06.089 in the years following its inception the festival 00:06:06.089 --> 00:06:08.129 actually dropped the hundred dollar budgetary 00:06:08.129 --> 00:06:10.449 limit they did and they also started allowing 00:06:10.449 --> 00:06:14.170 16 millimeter film into the festival which shifted 00:06:14.170 --> 00:06:16.810 their core focus from low budget strictly to 00:06:16.810 --> 00:06:20.910 quote quality small format films now i have to 00:06:20.910 --> 00:06:23.089 push back on this evolution well let's hear the 00:06:23.089 --> 00:06:27.310 objection well the entire identity of this festival 00:06:27.310 --> 00:06:30.269 -like, its literal name, was built on the $100 00:06:30.269 --> 00:06:32.750 underdog limit. Right, the $100 film festival. 00:06:32.829 --> 00:06:34.889 Yeah, it was a badge of honor. By dropping the 00:06:34.889 --> 00:06:37.949 price cap and bringing in 16mm film, weren't 00:06:37.949 --> 00:06:39.910 they just selling out? I can see why you'd think 00:06:39.910 --> 00:06:41.870 that. I mean, it feels like they abandoned the 00:06:41.870 --> 00:06:43.790 very gimmick that made them special in the first 00:06:43.790 --> 00:06:48.029 place. And worse, 16mm film is significantly 00:06:48.029 --> 00:06:50.370 more expensive to buy and process than Super 00:06:50.370 --> 00:06:53.430 8. So aren't they just reintroducing the exact 00:06:53.430 --> 00:06:55.329 financial gatekeeping they were trying to avoid 00:06:55.329 --> 00:06:59.269 in 1992? See, that is a completely natural reaction. 00:06:59.649 --> 00:07:01.829 And honestly, it's a trap a lot of cultural institutions 00:07:01.829 --> 00:07:05.089 fall into believing that their initial identity 00:07:05.089 --> 00:07:07.730 has to remain frozen in amber forever. Yeah. 00:07:07.930 --> 00:07:10.129 But to understand why this wasn't selling out, 00:07:10.329 --> 00:07:11.930 we have to look at the physical and mechanical 00:07:11.930 --> 00:07:14.389 differences between Super 8 and 16 millimeter. 00:07:15.120 --> 00:07:17.100 It wasn't an abandonment of their principles. 00:07:17.480 --> 00:07:19.980 It was a necessary maturation of the artists 00:07:19.980 --> 00:07:21.939 themselves. Okay, walk me through the mechanics 00:07:21.939 --> 00:07:24.639 of that maturation then. Like, how does moving 00:07:24.639 --> 00:07:27.759 to 16 millimeter actually change the equation 00:07:27.759 --> 00:07:30.279 for the filmmaker? Well, Super 8 is an incredible 00:07:30.279 --> 00:07:33.100 format, but it is deeply limited by its physical 00:07:33.100 --> 00:07:35.779 size. The actual frame of the image on a strip 00:07:35.779 --> 00:07:39.029 of Super 8 is tiny. Like physically tiny. Very. 00:07:39.370 --> 00:07:42.129 So when you project that tiny image onto a large 00:07:42.129 --> 00:07:45.029 theater screen, it becomes intensely grainy. 00:07:45.110 --> 00:07:48.230 It has a beautiful nostalgic texture, sure, but 00:07:48.230 --> 00:07:51.050 it heavily restricts how much detail, shadow, 00:07:51.269 --> 00:07:53.350 and contrast you can actually capture. Okay, 00:07:53.449 --> 00:07:56.189 that makes sense. Now 16 millimeter film physically 00:07:56.189 --> 00:07:58.970 doubles the width of the film strip. So it offers 00:07:58.970 --> 00:08:01.470 twice the physical surface area for the light 00:08:01.470 --> 00:08:03.689 to hit the emulsion. Considerably more than twice 00:08:03.689 --> 00:08:05.750 the image area, actually, because of how the 00:08:05.750 --> 00:08:08.240 frame is cut. which translates to a massive jump 00:08:08.240 --> 00:08:10.980 in resolution and fidelity on the screen. Furthermore, 00:08:11.300 --> 00:08:14.160 16 -millimeter cameras allow for interchangeable 00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:17.060 professional lenses. They don't use those foolproof 00:08:17.060 --> 00:08:19.220 plastic cartridges we talked about. The filmmaker 00:08:19.220 --> 00:08:21.600 has to manually thread the film spool through 00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:24.240 the camera's mechanical gate, often in total 00:08:24.240 --> 00:08:27.079 darkness. Oh, so it's a huge step up in technical 00:08:27.079 --> 00:08:29.939 skill. Exactly. Super 8 is the punk rock three 00:08:29.939 --> 00:08:32.679 -chord song, 16 -millimeter is the studio album. 00:08:32.779 --> 00:08:34.720 Okay, I hear you on the artistic growth, I really 00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:37.830 do. But it still costs more money. Doesn't that 00:08:37.830 --> 00:08:40.029 ice out the amateur who can only afford the bare 00:08:40.029 --> 00:08:42.909 minimum? It alters the financial barrier, certainly. 00:08:43.389 --> 00:08:46.090 But you also have to factor in the passage of 00:08:46.090 --> 00:08:49.269 time. Inflation. Exactly. Inflation constantly 00:08:49.269 --> 00:08:52.210 alters the cost of film stock and chemical processing. 00:08:52.830 --> 00:08:55.769 Clinging stubbornly to a strict $100 cap over 00:08:55.769 --> 00:08:58.269 a decade would eventually mean reducing the amount 00:08:58.269 --> 00:09:00.990 of film allowed from four rolls down to three. 00:09:01.230 --> 00:09:03.269 Oh, and then down to two just to meet the budget. 00:09:03.570 --> 00:09:06.169 Right. At a certain point, the constraint stops 00:09:06.169 --> 00:09:08.950 being a creative catalyst and simply becomes 00:09:08.950 --> 00:09:11.450 a suffocating novelty. You can't make a movie 00:09:11.450 --> 00:09:15.070 on one roll of film. Ah, I see. OK. So the festival 00:09:15.070 --> 00:09:17.590 realized their true mission wasn't about enforcing 00:09:17.590 --> 00:09:20.840 poverty. Exactly. The constraint served as the 00:09:20.840 --> 00:09:23.120 spark plug to get the engine running, but once 00:09:23.120 --> 00:09:25.580 the engine is running, you don't need the spark 00:09:25.580 --> 00:09:28.320 plug firing continuously in the exact same way. 00:09:28.419 --> 00:09:30.539 That's a great way to put it. The institution 00:09:30.539 --> 00:09:32.860 adapted to serve the artists rather than forcing 00:09:32.860 --> 00:09:35.860 the artists to serve the gimmick. The core identity 00:09:35.860 --> 00:09:38.080 of the festival shifted from a strict budget 00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:40.840 challenge to a broader defense of the physical 00:09:40.840 --> 00:09:43.820 mechanical medium of celluloid itself. Regardless 00:09:43.820 --> 00:09:46.320 of whether the width of the plastic was 8 millimeters 00:09:46.320 --> 00:09:49.389 or 16 millimeters. Right. But, you know, when 00:09:49.389 --> 00:09:51.809 you change the rules of the game to focus entirely 00:09:51.809 --> 00:09:54.690 on the physical medium, you eventually have to 00:09:54.690 --> 00:09:57.909 confront a massive external problem. The digital 00:09:57.909 --> 00:10:02.230 revolution. Exactly. Because by the late 2010s, 00:10:02.470 --> 00:10:05.029 the medium itself was basically dying. Mainstream 00:10:05.029 --> 00:10:07.809 cinema had entirely transitioned to digital. 00:10:08.029 --> 00:10:10.730 And that perfectly bridges us to the year 2017 00:10:10.730 --> 00:10:13.129 in our source material. The year they finally 00:10:13.129 --> 00:10:15.509 addressed what they had become. Yeah. So in 2017, 00:10:15.669 --> 00:10:17.750 the event officially changed its name to the 00:10:17.750 --> 00:10:20.690 Artifact Small Format Film Festival. Right. And 00:10:20.690 --> 00:10:23.190 as our source points out, this cemented its status 00:10:23.190 --> 00:10:25.830 as Calvary's only celluloid -based film festival. 00:10:26.789 --> 00:10:29.370 Worldwide, it is now one of only a handful of 00:10:29.370 --> 00:10:32.610 festivals that exhibit exclusively on small format 00:10:32.610 --> 00:10:35.850 celluloid. It's incredibly rare now. It is. Over 00:10:35.850 --> 00:10:38.370 their 26 -year run, they also expanded to include 00:10:38.370 --> 00:10:41.309 commission projects, partnerships, and this really 00:10:41.309 --> 00:10:43.610 interesting event called the Film Music Explosion. 00:10:44.809 --> 00:10:47.929 But going back to the name, that specific word 00:10:47.929 --> 00:10:51.049 choice, artifact, it's doing a lot of heavy lifting 00:10:51.049 --> 00:10:53.399 here. It is a highly loaded term. I mean, when 00:10:53.399 --> 00:10:55.500 we hear the word artifact, our minds immediately 00:10:55.500 --> 00:10:57.379 go to archaeology. Yeah, Indiana Jones stuff. 00:10:57.460 --> 00:10:59.480 Right. You picture a piece of ancient pottery 00:10:59.480 --> 00:11:02.220 dug out of the dirt, sitting quietly under a 00:11:02.220 --> 00:11:04.519 pane of temperature -controlled glass in a museum. 00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:07.480 It implies a relic from a bygone era that requires 00:11:07.480 --> 00:11:10.399 delicate protection. So why embrace a word that 00:11:10.399 --> 00:11:12.600 makes your vibrant, loud film festival sound 00:11:12.600 --> 00:11:15.299 like a dusty museum exhibit? Because of the global 00:11:15.299 --> 00:11:18.820 context of 2017, by that point the world was 00:11:18.820 --> 00:11:22.399 overwhelmingly suffocatingly digital. Everything 00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:25.200 was captured on digital sensors, stored as ones 00:11:25.200 --> 00:11:28.279 and zeros on hard drives, and projected via perfectly 00:11:28.279 --> 00:11:31.279 clean mathematical digital files. Real physical 00:11:31.279 --> 00:11:34.100 film was gone. It was largely considered an extinct 00:11:34.100 --> 00:11:37.000 format by the mainstream industry. So by adopting 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:39.759 the name Artifact, the festival organizers were 00:11:39.759 --> 00:11:42.240 planting a flag in the ground. They were leaning 00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:44.580 into the rarity, proudly acknowledging that they 00:11:44.580 --> 00:11:46.379 were exhibiting something that was no longer 00:11:46.379 --> 00:11:48.539 the default. But they aren't treating it like 00:11:48.539 --> 00:11:50.919 a dead object under glass, though. No, not at 00:11:50.919 --> 00:11:53.340 all. Because an artifact in a museum just sits 00:11:53.340 --> 00:11:56.600 there. Here, the artifact is being violently 00:11:56.600 --> 00:11:59.379 dragged through a hot mechanical projector at 00:11:59.379 --> 00:12:01.879 24 frames per second. And that is the crucial 00:12:01.879 --> 00:12:04.159 distinction. Let's talk about what physical film 00:12:04.159 --> 00:12:07.080 actually is. The emulsion on a strip of film 00:12:07.080 --> 00:12:09.720 is made of microscopic silver halide crystals 00:12:09.720 --> 00:12:12.980 suspended in gelatin. OK. When you open the camera 00:12:12.980 --> 00:12:15.279 shutter, physical light bounces off the actors, 00:12:15.620 --> 00:12:17.980 travels through the lens, and literally strikes 00:12:17.980 --> 00:12:20.840 those crystals, physically altering their chemical 00:12:20.840 --> 00:12:24.559 structure. Oh, wow. It is a direct, indexical, 00:12:24.659 --> 00:12:27.480 physical imprint of a moment in time. Whereas 00:12:27.480 --> 00:12:29.759 a digital file is just a computer's mathematical 00:12:29.759 --> 00:12:32.139 interpretation of that light. Exactly. But emulsion 00:12:32.139 --> 00:12:34.899 is actual light touching actual chemicals. Yes. 00:12:35.220 --> 00:12:38.779 So by exhibiting exclusively on celluloid, the 00:12:38.779 --> 00:12:41.759 festival takes this historical relic and turns 00:12:41.759 --> 00:12:45.139 it into a living, breathing, sensory experience. 00:12:45.580 --> 00:12:47.860 When you sit in the theater at the Artifact Festival, 00:12:48.139 --> 00:12:50.820 you aren't just watching a flawless digital file. 00:12:50.840 --> 00:12:53.279 You see the imperfections. You see the dust settling 00:12:53.279 --> 00:12:56.039 on the projector lens. You see the physical scratches 00:12:56.039 --> 00:12:59.240 on the plastic strip. You hear the rhythmic mechanical 00:12:59.240 --> 00:13:01.360 clatter of the machine operating in the back 00:13:01.360 --> 00:13:04.159 of the room. It demands a physical presence. 00:13:04.360 --> 00:13:07.000 And that inherent physicality really explains 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:09.740 why they expanded into sensory events like the 00:13:09.740 --> 00:13:12.139 Bill Musick Yes, exactly because they started 00:13:12.139 --> 00:13:15.539 pairing these small format analog films with 00:13:15.539 --> 00:13:19.419 live in -room musical performances They are creating 00:13:19.419 --> 00:13:21.879 sensory environments that you fundamentally cannot 00:13:21.879 --> 00:13:24.360 download stream or replicate on a smartphone 00:13:24.360 --> 00:13:27.360 You just can't you have to be in the room in 00:13:27.360 --> 00:13:30.360 the dark, experiencing the mechanical reality 00:13:30.360 --> 00:13:33.379 of the art alongside other human beings. And 00:13:33.379 --> 00:13:36.480 to truly appreciate the stubborn survival of 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:39.720 this tiny tactile artifact, we have to zoom out. 00:13:39.779 --> 00:13:41.799 We have to look at the physical environment where 00:13:41.799 --> 00:13:44.720 this is all taking place. Calgary. Right, because 00:13:44.720 --> 00:13:47.340 the city of Calgary itself provides the ultimate 00:13:47.340 --> 00:13:49.840 contrast to this festival. Yeah, the source material 00:13:49.840 --> 00:13:52.179 actually provides a surprisingly detailed list 00:13:52.179 --> 00:13:55.259 of landmarks and infrastructure in Calgary. And 00:13:55.259 --> 00:13:57.360 when you piece it all together, you realize the 00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:00.179 sheer intimidating scale of this metropolis. 00:14:00.360 --> 00:14:02.500 It's huge. We're talking about an environment 00:14:02.500 --> 00:14:05.919 defined by modern skyscraping architecture. It 00:14:05.919 --> 00:14:08.500 is home to massive feats of digital engineering 00:14:08.500 --> 00:14:11.580 and structural steel, like the Bow and Telesky. 00:14:11.919 --> 00:14:14.580 Buildings that literally redefine the horizon 00:14:14.580 --> 00:14:16.679 line. Oh, completely. And beyond the downtown 00:14:16.679 --> 00:14:19.980 core, you have these sprawling cavernous commercial 00:14:19.980 --> 00:14:22.379 hubs like the Chinook Center and Cross Iron Mills. 00:14:22.399 --> 00:14:25.039 You have massive athletic and entertainment venues 00:14:25.039 --> 00:14:27.690 built to hold tens of thousands of roaring fans 00:14:27.690 --> 00:14:30.350 like the Scotiabank Saddle Dome and McMahon Stadium. 00:14:30.610 --> 00:14:33.450 Even the parks are massive. Yeah, even the natural 00:14:33.450 --> 00:14:36.330 spaces like Nose Hill or Fish Creek are these 00:14:36.330 --> 00:14:39.750 vast sprawling expanses. And of course the city 00:14:39.750 --> 00:14:42.429 is internationally famous for massive overwhelming 00:14:42.429 --> 00:14:45.190 events like the Calgary Stampede. Right, an explosion 00:14:45.190 --> 00:14:47.769 of millions of people and massive infrastructure. 00:14:48.190 --> 00:14:50.669 Exactly. It is a city engineered entirely for 00:14:50.669 --> 00:14:52.850 macro experiences. Everything is built to accommodate 00:14:52.850 --> 00:14:57.190 huge populations. transit and sweeping economic 00:14:57.190 --> 00:15:00.230 corridors. So picture the overwhelming scale 00:15:00.230 --> 00:15:02.570 of that modern infrastructure for a moment. Picture 00:15:02.570 --> 00:15:05.879 the soaring polished class of telesky. Which, 00:15:05.899 --> 00:15:07.980 by the way, actually features a massive building 00:15:07.980 --> 00:15:11.200 -wide LED light show on its exterior. That's 00:15:11.200 --> 00:15:14.059 right. Picture the massive footprint of the stampede. 00:15:14.440 --> 00:15:16.659 Why does an event dedicated to tiny fragile ribbons 00:15:16.659 --> 00:15:19.519 of 8 and 16 millimeter plastic manage to survive 00:15:19.519 --> 00:15:22.860 and actively thrive for 26 years in a city built 00:15:22.860 --> 00:15:26.179 on such a gigantic, hyper -modern scale? Well, 00:15:26.220 --> 00:15:28.419 I think it comes down to human nature and our 00:15:28.419 --> 00:15:32.080 psychological need for friction. Yeah. When we 00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:34.620 spend our daily lives navigating massive urban 00:15:34.620 --> 00:15:37.940 corridors surrounded by towering glass and seamless 00:15:37.940 --> 00:15:42.000 frictionless digital infrastructure We inevitably 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:44.799 experience a kind of sensory alienation. Because 00:15:44.799 --> 00:15:47.039 it's too perfect. Because the macro environment 00:15:47.039 --> 00:15:50.820 is incredibly impressive, but it is deeply impersonal. 00:15:50.879 --> 00:15:53.159 It's kind of like the difference between looking 00:15:53.159 --> 00:15:55.320 at the digital clock on your microwave and wearing 00:15:55.320 --> 00:15:57.659 a mechanical watch with a skeleton dial. Oh, 00:15:57.720 --> 00:16:00.080 that's a perfect analogy. Right. The digital 00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:03.220 clock gives you the information instantly, perfectly, 00:16:03.840 --> 00:16:06.700 without any effort. But the mechanical watch... 00:16:06.730 --> 00:16:09.610 lets you actually see the brass gears grinding 00:16:09.610 --> 00:16:12.409 together, sweeping the second hand forward. You 00:16:12.409 --> 00:16:14.830 feel the physical reality of the mechanism working. 00:16:15.090 --> 00:16:17.990 Exactly. The massive skyscrapers and digital 00:16:17.990 --> 00:16:20.250 billboards of Calgary are the microwave clock. 00:16:20.629 --> 00:16:22.789 The Artifact Film Festival is the mechanical 00:16:22.789 --> 00:16:25.490 watch. I love that. It provides a grounding, 00:16:25.850 --> 00:16:28.210 deeply intimate counterbalance. In a city where 00:16:28.210 --> 00:16:30.129 so much of the environment is overwhelming and 00:16:30.129 --> 00:16:32.590 intangible, people naturally crave an experience 00:16:32.590 --> 00:16:34.690 they can theoretically hold in their hands. Just 00:16:34.690 --> 00:16:37.100 sitting in a small room, watching a film that 00:16:37.100 --> 00:16:40.899 was painstakingly crafted frame by frame by someone 00:16:40.899 --> 00:16:43.179 who had to physically splice the plastic together 00:16:43.179 --> 00:16:46.360 with tape. It restores a sense of human scale. 00:16:46.500 --> 00:16:50.110 It proves that As our environments become increasingly 00:16:50.110 --> 00:16:53.330 massive and frictionless, we actually seek out 00:16:53.330 --> 00:16:55.450 friction. We want the mess. We want the scratches 00:16:55.450 --> 00:16:57.389 on the film. We want to hear the projector running. 00:16:57.610 --> 00:17:00.370 We need reminders of the physical mechanics of 00:17:00.370 --> 00:17:03.190 creation. The Artifact Film Festival survived 00:17:03.190 --> 00:17:06.349 for decades, not despite the sprawling modern 00:17:06.349 --> 00:17:08.390 city around it, but because of it. That makes 00:17:08.390 --> 00:17:10.670 so much sense. The larger and more digital the 00:17:10.670 --> 00:17:13.210 backdrop becomes, the more vital these small 00:17:13.210 --> 00:17:15.609 analog anchors become to a community's culture. 00:17:15.809 --> 00:17:18.009 Wow, it really brings this entire journey into 00:17:18.009 --> 00:17:21.349 focus. We started in 1992 looking at a group 00:17:21.349 --> 00:17:23.670 of filmmakers who realized that a locked door, 00:17:24.250 --> 00:17:27.150 a strict $100 limit on four rolls of Super 8 00:17:27.150 --> 00:17:30.329 film was the ultimate catalyst for intentionality 00:17:30.329 --> 00:17:33.250 and storytelling. And we saw how that rigid constraint 00:17:33.250 --> 00:17:35.630 was brilliant for sparking a movement, but also 00:17:35.630 --> 00:17:38.329 how the festival had the wisdom to let that movement 00:17:38.329 --> 00:17:40.940 evolve. Right, they didn't get stuck. No, by 00:17:40.940 --> 00:17:43.059 dropping the price cap and bringing in the higher 00:17:43.059 --> 00:17:47.160 fidelity of 16mm film, they matured from a scrappy 00:17:47.160 --> 00:17:49.859 budget challenge into a dedicated champion of 00:17:49.859 --> 00:17:53.000 the celluloid medium itself. And that evolution 00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:56.559 culminated in the 2017 rebrand to the Artifact 00:17:56.559 --> 00:17:59.750 Small Format Film Festival. They planted their 00:17:59.750 --> 00:18:02.609 flag as a rare international champion of physical 00:18:02.609 --> 00:18:04.869 media. Absolutely. They took what the digital 00:18:04.869 --> 00:18:07.390 world considered a dead relic and turned it into 00:18:07.390 --> 00:18:10.369 a living, breathing, sensory experience. And 00:18:10.369 --> 00:18:12.869 they have kept the mechanical heart of film beating 00:18:12.869 --> 00:18:16.890 for 26 years, thriving in the shadow of Calgary's 00:18:16.890 --> 00:18:19.569 massive glass towers and sprawling stadiums. 00:18:19.690 --> 00:18:22.269 It is a beautiful reminder that older technologies 00:18:22.269 --> 00:18:24.670 don't necessarily die when they are replaced 00:18:24.670 --> 00:18:26.769 by more efficient ones. They don't just disappear. 00:18:26.950 --> 00:18:28.680 Often they just shift. their role. They move 00:18:28.680 --> 00:18:31.700 from being the default industry standard to becoming 00:18:31.700 --> 00:18:34.480 a highly specialized, deliberate artistic choice. 00:18:34.839 --> 00:18:37.319 Which leaves us with a pretty fascinating thought 00:18:37.319 --> 00:18:39.640 to walk away with today. Yeah, I want to leave 00:18:39.640 --> 00:18:42.650 you with this to mull over. We've explored how 00:18:42.650 --> 00:18:45.190 a strict physical limitation, just four rolls 00:18:45.190 --> 00:18:48.869 of chemical film and exactly $100, sparked a 00:18:48.869 --> 00:18:51.089 creative movement that has lasted over a quarter 00:18:51.089 --> 00:18:54.730 of a century. Today, your life is likely characterized 00:18:54.730 --> 00:18:57.710 by infinite digital storage, endless retakes, 00:18:57.950 --> 00:19:00.529 and absolute freedom to create and delete without 00:19:00.529 --> 00:19:02.750 any material consequence. It's all too easy. 00:19:03.019 --> 00:19:05.980 So, what strict physical limitation could you 00:19:05.980 --> 00:19:08.640 impose on your own entirely digital life today, 00:19:08.920 --> 00:19:11.059 whether in your work, your hobbies, or how you 00:19:11.059 --> 00:19:14.220 communicate, to spark that exact same level of 00:19:14.220 --> 00:19:16.980 ruthless intentionality and creativity? I love 00:19:16.980 --> 00:19:19.660 that. Sometimes, to find your best ideas, you 00:19:19.660 --> 00:19:21.920 just need to build your own locked door. Thank 00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:23.759 you so much for joining us on this deep dive 00:19:23.759 --> 00:19:25.839 into the Artifact Small Format Film Festival. 00:19:26.160 --> 00:19:28.400 Keep seeking out those hidden analog gems in 00:19:28.400 --> 00:19:30.599 your own sprawling cities, and we will catch 00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:31.240 you next time.