Our Story
Film's beauty isn't magic. It's physics. And physics runs anywhere.
The Question
Why does film still look better than digital?
I'd shot both. Hundreds of rolls of film. Thousands of digital frames. And no matter how good the sensors got, no matter how many edits I tried, digital never felt the same.
Most people shrug and say "that's just how it is." Film is analog. Digital is digital. Different mediums, different looks.
But I couldn't accept that.
Because I knew something most photographers don't:
Film's beauty isn't magic. It's physics.
The way silver halide crystals respond to light. The chemical reactions of dye couplers. The scatter of photons through the film base that creates halation.
These aren't mysteries—they're equations. And equations don't care if they're running in chemistry or code.
The Journey
Physicist → Artist → Engineer
The Physicist
I started where most dreamers start—trying to understand the universe. Theoretical physics. The big questions. Why does light behave the way it does?
"But somewhere along the way, I realized I didn't just want to understand beauty mathematically. I wanted to create it."
"I was making art for other people. The passion that pulled me away from physics was slowly getting buried under client briefs."
The Artist
So I left academia and picked up a camera. For seven years, I worked as a creative director, photographer, and film director. I got good. I made things I was proud of.
The Engineer
So I did something that made no sense to anyone but me: I went back to university. At 28. To study computer science.
"Code was like physics—logical, precise, powerful. But unlike physics, you could build things with it."
The Realization
One night, it clicked. No one else was going to make this. The engineers building camera apps didn't understand photochemistry. The photographers didn't know how to code physics simulations. The physicists were still at their chalkboards.
This was mine to build.
"Physics taught me why. Photography taught me what. Code taught me how."
— Shane Labelle, Founder & CEO
The Mission
Not a filter.
A film engine.
A complete recreation of photochemical imaging, built from first principles.
We didn't copy the look of film. We rebuilt the process.
You should be able to create the art you imagine.
The Team
Two engineers and a wild card
Shane Labelle
Founder & CEO
Physicist turned filmmaker turned engineer. Shane spent a decade collecting the exact skills needed to rebuild film from first principles: the physics to understand why light behaves the way it does, seven years behind the camera to know what good looks like, and the engineering chops to actually build it. He leads the company and builds the product.
Gregory Gislason
Co-Founder & COO
A structural engineer with a master's degree who went back for his MBA. Greg approaches growth with the same scientific rigor he used to design structures—analytics, metrics, data-driven decisions. No gut feelings, no guessing. He helps scale Daydream and keeps things moving, treating every challenge like an engineering problem.
Hannah Nickel
Social Media & Creative
The chaos element. While the founders obsess over data and physics, Hannah's the one who shows up with an idea so weird it just might work. Officially she runs social media. Unofficially, she's our Gen Z council—keeping us grounded in what actually resonates with people.
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