Philo Farnsworth invents the television, the single most important communication device to date, except it doesn't quite fulfill his vision and expectations.

In 1927 Philo Farnsworth invented and realized the worlds first electronic television. This was a device that would go on change the world. It permeates society today. "Tele-vision" the ability to see at a distance, as it is sometime described, or more etymologically (Tele) far (visio) sight.

Far Sight, it's anything but that, in the fullness of time, sure it technically fulfills that definition, but on just about every other level it is not farsighted. It is also possibly the most misused, underutilized, piece of technology we have. This was an issue for which Philo had not planned or forseen. Many times we see a need and then fill that need but without considering or understanding the full implications of what we have created, or how it will be used.

It was this kind of thinking that got me on to the subject, and I thought would it be funny if the guy who invented television, while he was first testing it, got interrupted by an ad! Something we get entirely too much of now. What would that look like and how would that play out? So I decided to do a short "spec spot" or commercial that illustrated this. It started out as a spec spot but during production it became something else. It became more of a short film, and while I did do an edit that was a commercial I abandoned that idea and just went with the short film. The reason for this was that during research and production, I discovered that Philo had great expectations for his new invention. He expected this technology to be used for the betterment of humanity, however, reality intervened. If you read the wiki page linked above you can see how this played out. This piece now plays out like a microcosm of his experience with the invention of the television. So here is my short film "Philo's Pholly"

This film just won an Award of Recognition from the IndieFest film festival in La Jolla ! Whoop !