Hello friend. So why Cartouche? Where does this mysterious name come from?
Cartouche means “cartridge” in French. Let me explain...
When I was a young boy, I would sometimes have the incredible chance to put my hands on my father’s Super 8 camera, a beautiful Kodak Instamatic M6 marvel.
To shoot my movies, I would call up a bunch of friends and give them costumes for their parts. Luc would get my dad’s beautiful brown felt hat, my other friend Dimitri would dress up as an old lady. We were maybe 10-11 years old... Another friend would wear a rubber skull mask and covered himself with some type of black rag...
The monstrous skull would jump on the old lady and massacre her... lots of ketchup on her face and on the ground... then Luc would arrive wearing his detective film-noirish oversized hat and shoot the monster with a toy gun... and that was it. Beautiful.
Then I would get more ambitious, and go to my house’s garage, get some rubbing alcohol, pour generous quantities on the floor around the skulled monster, then light it up, filming a ring of flames forming around him. Such a great scene! Great special effects! Oh my God, I was in heaven. I kept shooting and shooting the scene. Flames would go up, and start licking my friend’s rag, then the fire would grow, I kept shooting. The camera motor would stop when I would run out of film right? Oh, the fire was getting out of control, so I finally dropped the camera and rushed to my friend’s help who was putting out the fire on him, and on the floor around him.
Thankfully, the house didn’t burn to the ground, my friend was safe. Ah, the magic of cinema! I picked up the camera, pulled the trigger and continued filming the story, with Luc the detective saving the day again and killing the skull rubber monster once more. But, but... The motor kept running. Long minutes of filming would pass. I was filming a feature film! I thought... mmmhhh... My dad bought bigger longer film cartridges. Great.
So I finally gave up and took the film cartridge out of the camera, put it in the aluminum wrap and my dad eventually sent it to the lab.
When the film came back, processed, all rolled up in a little reel, I was so elated. The euphoria of creation was finally going to be rewarded by a super-production-big-effect-like-blockbuster! But I started to wonder, why so little film rolled up in this little reel? Can that be?
I threaded the film in the projector and started to watch the film. The film lasted only 2 and a half minutes. The last scene on the reel was my skull friend entering the garage. Then, no more film! Nothing of the glorious ring-of-fire special effect! Nothing of the infernal closeups of the flames! No sign of Luc coming in and killing the monster neither!
Just a white empty screen...
Thus Cartouche Creations. A way to remind me of the blissful creation of this masterpiece I had filmed with my friends, and never really saw its manifestation, at least in our dimension. It is forever in the ethers of some creative universe, surrounded by the energy of euphoria and delight, being recorded by a never ending motor that keeps rolling and rolling in a plastic cartridge, my sweet magical cartouche.
By naming my company Cartouche Creations, I just hope to again and forever tap into this absolute joy of co-creating something unique, special and gripping. Something that makes you pay attention, something that pushes you on the edge of your seat, for a moment or two. And it makes me never forget to put enough film in the camera, or whatever technology we’re using at that moment...
Alex Vachon
P.S.: I just want to thank my friends Dimitri, Luc, and whoever played the skull monster. I don’t think I ever thanked them enough.
