Synopsis of Clay, Creativity & the Comeback

Clay, Creativity & the Comeback, directed by Luke Fandrich, is a compelling documentary that tells the story of Medalta Potteries in Medicine Hat, Alberta, highlighting the power of creativity, resilience, and community action. 

Released in 2019, the film chronicles how a once-abandoned ceramics factory was revitalized through the dedication of passionate individuals, transforming it into a vibrant cultural and educational hub. While focused on a specific site, the documentary resonates broadly, illustrating how heritage preservation and collective effort can reshape communities.

Medalta Potteries was a cornerstone of Medicine Hat’s industrial identity, producing functional and decorative ceramics that reached markets across North America. However, by the 1950s, economic shifts and changes in manufacturing led to the factory’s decline. Buildings were left vacant, kilns grew cold, and the site faced the risk of disappearing entirely from public memory. 

Fandrich’s documentary about Medalta and the surrounding clay district captures this decline while emphasizing the crucial role of those who fought to preserve it. Individuals such as James Marshall and Jack Forbes dedicated years to advocacy, restoration, and fundraising, ultimately securing Medalta’s designation as a National Historic Site of Canada.

The film’s strength lies in its human storytelling. Through interviews with volunteers, historians, and artists, Fandrich paints an intimate portrait of the challenges, setbacks, and triumphs involved in saving Medalta. The documentary does more than recount historical facts; it conveys the emotional investment of those who recognized the factory’s cultural and historical significance. Viewers witness the determination required to preserve the past, along with the joy and satisfaction of seeing the site return to life.

Clay, Creativity & the Comeback has had a meaningful impact on both local and broader audiences. Locally, it has renewed interest in Medicine Hat’s industrial history and inspired community pride, showing that collective action can achieve remarkable outcomes. 

For educators, historians, and cultural enthusiasts, the documentary provides a resource for understanding how heritage preservation intersects with creativity and civic engagement. By highlighting workshops, exhibitions, and educational programs at Medalta, the film also emphasizes the ongoing role of art in connecting the past to the present.

Ultimately, Fandrich’s documentary is a celebration of resilience and the ambitions of a community to reimagine their heritage for a new generation. It demonstrates that even neglected spaces can be revitalized when people work together toward a shared vision. Beyond its historical focus, the film encourages audiences to recognize the value of cultural heritage, inspiring other communities to preserve and repurpose their own forgotten landmarks. 

Clay, Creativity & the Comeback ensures that Medalta Potteries is remembered not only as an industrial heritage site but as a living testament to the ceramic arts. The success of these efforts further emphasizes the importance of dynamic community spaces and the potential for renewal that emerges when dedicated artists rally around them.

Photographing the Rise Up Hot Air Balloon Festival

Over this past weekend I had the pleasure of utilizing my media pass and photographing the Rise Up Hot Air Balloon Festival in Medicine Hat, Alberta for the 4th year in a row. Featuring a variety of launches, flights, glows, and a handful of custom "googly eyed" memes, my content this year reached over 300K people on the Editing Luke socials in just the first 4 days of the festival. 

The Rise Up Hot Air Balloon Festival is a vibrant, free, and family-friendly event held annually in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Launched by Willy and Cindy Taillon in collaboration with the nonprofit Our Collective Journey, the festival aims to uplift spirits and promote mental wellness through the awe-inspiring spectacle of hot air balloons soaring over the city.

Scheduled on May 22–25, 2025, the festival featured nearly 30 balloons from around North America and involved morning and evening flights, weather permitting. A highlight was the mesmerizing Balloon Glow event at Kin Coulee Park on the Friday night, where tethered balloons illuminated the night sky creating a magical experience for the attendees.

Generative AI & the Movie Theatre Documentary

With generative AI trending heavily this week on the back of some new Chat GPT updates, I set out to do a few experiments to see if I could learn more about the process - and hopefully, produce some hybrid results from original images that were created and restored during production of Your Cinema Needs You. 

Instead of simply generating content, what I wanted to see is if I could use an archival image I restored, an illustrated image of the Monarch I commissioned, and an image I photoshopped myself into - and experiment with how those elements could be combined and fine tuned. 

While the image of me in theatre was a simple Chat GPT conversion of an existing image, the wide shot of the theatre is a hybrid combining generative AI, hand drawn elements by my friend Jess, and "tests" where I photoshopped specific details of the theatre to further stylize and manipulate the results. Everything is increasingly falling into a new gray area. 

I personally still want to work directly with artists, particularly because, even here in a simple test, collaborating with Jess is what made this fun and gave our approach a point of view. 

All that said, did I like the result? Yes. Do I still have concerns about what the future of AI means for original content? Every. Single. Day.

Online Release of Your Cinema Needs You

The wait is finally over! After 15 months since the premiere that reopened the Monarch Theatre and the extended international film festival tour that followed, Your Cinema Needs You is online and available to screen Canada-wide right now. Click here.

Hawaii, a Bentley, and a Magazine Cover

Back in the early days of my professional travel shoots (once it became a full-time gig) I felt like I was making up for lost time. This resulted in some questionable business decisions.

Jump cut. Oahu, Hawaii.

So much potential. I have a laundry list of locations I plan on documenting across the entire island. This is going to be amazing. But you know what would make it even better? Keeping it low key in an incredibly ostentatious Bentley Continental GTC.

I was watching a lot of Top Gear at the time. I could already picture the edits. I got in touch with a luxury dealership in Honolulu and worked out the details for my shoot. 

Now, at the time, I knew I'd have to sell a lot of the content just to cover my overhead and that, frankly, I was doing this first and foremost to have a story to tell.

I sold a few images after that trip, but not nearly enough to turn a profit on the shoot. Not exactly surprising.

Two years pass.

I have multiple galleries from the Oahu shoot online collecting casual hits. Out of the blue, I get a message about licensing from a marketing firm in Australia.

We chat. We hit it off. The idea expands. Another month passes.

I get an email notifying me that my Oahu shoot has turned into a multi page spread and that they'd like to offer me the cover story for the winter edition of the Qantas / Jetstar in-flight magazine. Highlights of that little road trip I took is now going to be in every seatback in Oceania.

Needless to say, the shoot finally turned a profit.

Newsmaker of the Year: Luke Fandrich

I'm grateful, humbled, and very surprised. 

Yesterday, the Medicine Hat News announced in a full front page spread that I, Luke Fandrich was their 2024 Newsmaker of the Year - recognizing the success of my documentary, Your Cinema Needs You about the Monarch Theatre in Medicine Hat, Alberta. 

I only got the heads up a couple weeks ago that my name was being thrown around about this, but when we ran those first premiere shows of the documentary at the Monarch one year ago I really had no idea what 2024 had in store or just how far this film would end up going. 

I want to thank this community for their involvement throughout so much of this journey. 

Telling this story - in this way - would've been impossible without so many of you reaching out, sharing your experiences, and supporting the project from the very beginning. I can't downplay what a significant detour my year took, and the doors that opened, because of how well those premiere shows did. 

I want to thank the team at the Medicine Hat News for their coverage throughout the course of production of the documentary and for this recognition. Seeing this announcement was an amazing way to both cap off and kick off a year. Thank you!