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'Eno' Documentary: Different at Every Screening, to Explore Randomness and 'Generative' Film-making (theverge.com) 62
From The New York Times:
The key to "Eno" comes near the beginning of the film — at least, the beginning of the first version I saw. The musician Brian Eno, the documentary's subject, notes that the fun of the kind of art he makes is that it's a two-way street. "The audience's brain does the cooking and keeps seeing relationships," he says.
Most movies are made up of juxtapositions of scenes, carefully selected and designed by the editor. But "Eno," directed by Gary Hustwit, turns that convention on its head. Writ large, it's a meditation on creativity. But every version of the movie you see is different, generated by a set of rules that dictate some things about the film, while leaving others to chance. (I've seen it twice, and maybe half the same material appeared across both films.)
Eno, one of the most innovative and celebrated musicians and producers of his generation, has fiddled with randomness in his musical practice for decades, often propelled along by new technologies. He agreed to participate in "Eno" only if it, too, could be an example of what he and others have long called generative art... "Brain One", programmed by the artist Brendan Dawes, generates a new version of the film on the fly every time the algorithm is run. Dawes's system selects from a database of 30 hours of new interviews with Eno and 500 hours of film from his personal archive and, following a system of rules set down by the filmmakers with code, creating a new film. According to the filmmakers, there are 52 quintillion (that is, 52 billion billion) possible combinations, which means the chances of Brain One generating two exact copies of "Eno" are so small as to be functionally zero.
"But the ambitions of Eno are greater than the film itself," writes the Verge, with director Hustwit hoping for a cinematic future exploring generative filmmaking with their software and hardware package. "We have a patent pending on the system, and we just launched a startup called Anamorph that is basically exploring this idea further with other filmmakers and studios and streamers."
In an interview with the Verge, Hustwit points out that Brian Eno did the soundtrack for his previous film. "I was having these thoughts about, well, why can't showing a film be more performative? Why does it have to be this static thing every time?"
The film just began a two-week run at Greenwich Village's nonprofit theatre Film Forum, and in the U.K. is appearing this week at 17 Picturehouse Cinemas across England and Scotland. Check this online schedule for upcoming dates this week in Nashville (Thursday), Austin (Friday), Dallas (Saturday) — with later dates this month including Toronto, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and more cities in August.
Most movies are made up of juxtapositions of scenes, carefully selected and designed by the editor. But "Eno," directed by Gary Hustwit, turns that convention on its head. Writ large, it's a meditation on creativity. But every version of the movie you see is different, generated by a set of rules that dictate some things about the film, while leaving others to chance. (I've seen it twice, and maybe half the same material appeared across both films.)
Eno, one of the most innovative and celebrated musicians and producers of his generation, has fiddled with randomness in his musical practice for decades, often propelled along by new technologies. He agreed to participate in "Eno" only if it, too, could be an example of what he and others have long called generative art... "Brain One", programmed by the artist Brendan Dawes, generates a new version of the film on the fly every time the algorithm is run. Dawes's system selects from a database of 30 hours of new interviews with Eno and 500 hours of film from his personal archive and, following a system of rules set down by the filmmakers with code, creating a new film. According to the filmmakers, there are 52 quintillion (that is, 52 billion billion) possible combinations, which means the chances of Brain One generating two exact copies of "Eno" are so small as to be functionally zero.
"But the ambitions of Eno are greater than the film itself," writes the Verge, with director Hustwit hoping for a cinematic future exploring generative filmmaking with their software and hardware package. "We have a patent pending on the system, and we just launched a startup called Anamorph that is basically exploring this idea further with other filmmakers and studios and streamers."
In an interview with the Verge, Hustwit points out that Brian Eno did the soundtrack for his previous film. "I was having these thoughts about, well, why can't showing a film be more performative? Why does it have to be this static thing every time?"
The film just began a two-week run at Greenwich Village's nonprofit theatre Film Forum, and in the U.K. is appearing this week at 17 Picturehouse Cinemas across England and Scotland. Check this online schedule for upcoming dates this week in Nashville (Thursday), Austin (Friday), Dallas (Saturday) — with later dates this month including Toronto, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and more cities in August.
Parlor tricks (Score:3)
Mixing stuff together using randomization is nothing new.
You can do that with a stack of cards.
Re:Parlor tricks (Score:4, Insightful)
Mixing stuff together using randomization is nothing new.
You can do that with a stack of cards.
I think Brian Eno already has been there, done that [wikipedia.org]...
Vanity Publication worth? (Score:2)
How much and how good are these vanity publications, if you are not as superfan?
Fully expect these 'for profit only' 'documentaries' to eventually get to the same minute by minute formula as a romance film.
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Mixing stuff together using randomization is nothing new. You can do that with a stack of cards.
Changing things up a bit with guitar solos, drum solos, lyrical changes, song variations, and unannounced guests joining in, is also nothing new.
Pretty sure it’s still called a “live concert” too. Nothing really “parlor” about a music artist doing that. Par for the course if they want to actually be remembered. Smells more pretentious than parlor. Static has value too, unless we enjoy 10,001 human arguments as to who heard the “best” version out of 10,001 varia
Re: Parlor tricks (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you're misunderstanding the kind of work Eno has done. While randomness had been used in music since at least John Cage, Eno's application of it to artsy-touch and eventually popular music was an early move, if not a groundbreaking one.
He's not the first producer to explore the studio in depth for what it could do for popular music, but the first to make "the studio as a musical instrument" regular practice (this in the early 70s, well before sampling and DAWs).
He's not solely responsible, but partly creditable with the techniques and sounds of modern music.
Re: Parlor tricks (Score:2)
That's "artsy-rock", spell check.
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Perhaps. But you haven't mentioned the giant that Frank Zappa was.
Re: Parlor tricks (Score:2)
Zappa was unquestionably a prodigious talent, and an outlier in the rock world of his time (no drugs, read music, composed for ensembles...), but in a lot of ways a polar opposite to Brian Eno.
Zappa liked a perfect, strict-tempo performance of his music. He kept his extremely tight band in line, musically.
Eno by contrast loves randomness, takes joy in incorporating 'happy accidents', was a member of Portsmouth Sinfonia - an orchestral ensemble where performers played instruments with which they were unfamil
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Now tell me the last time it was used on a documentary.
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Probably never, because it makes very little sense to do it.
The fact that it was never done before (and for good reason, might I add) doesn't automatically make it valuable. At most, it makes it a novelty or an experiment. But wetting one's panties over it is totally not warranted.
Re:Parlor tricks [for reality TV] (Score:2)
Pretty weak FP, but it actually links to my thought of the day because I see this "documentary" as a kind of reality TV. So from that perspective, the question is how many hours of garbage do they have to film to get anything worth watching? And then how do you recognize and repeat the frequency of the good bits? After all, the final objective is to get people to pay to watch it, right?
Reality TV has actually become good training for political campaigning now. For reality TV they create fake situations fill
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totally. doing random stuff and calling it art, and saying "only the observer can bring meaning to my art" is probably the oldest grift in the artist handbook.
Are you suggesting that only some art is a grift? What is art, anyway? How about this comment? Is it art? If it is, is it because I say so, or because you do?
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Yes there is such a thing as art. Even unpretentious art exists. Now... it is true that it is in the eye of the beholder that determines the value, so there is wide latitude for interpretation. So, Johnnie's art from 3rd grade.. sure it's art. Kid painted a bird and a house and a tree. So it's an expression or representation. Also it's fairly easy to agree that
Where you probably part ways with is when you
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I'd venture a bit forward and say there is art, and there is forced art.
When I experience art (generalizing here a lot, otherwise this post would turn into a book), I am looking for certain pointers, such as:
1. Is it complex enough? (does it require high skills to make it happen?) Randomly splashing some paint on a giant canvas doesn't qualify.
2. Does it have a forceful message behind it? (is it sending a clear, undoubtable message? can the public generally agree what it is about?)
3. Is the author (unless d
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But I'll bite on abstract art. Its an excellent grey
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Well, among my many hobbies, I paint as well, not to the level anyone would expect, of course.
I paint (you can laugh) 3D printed miniatures. Not many, and only those I want to paint.
I spend quite a few hours on one, and after it's done, they sit on some high shelf somewhere in the house. I rarely look at them again, suffices to know they are there.
But I would probably not be able to sell them, not because I am emotionally attached to them, but because I value those painting hours more than people, in genera
A Patent Pending? (Score:2)
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Uh, Avid had a script that would randomize the order of bin clips in like 1999.
No no no! This is way different! We live in the future now, so everything is different! Let's all thank science!!!!
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I mean if we want turing complete media files we can just bring back flash?
Re:A Patent Pending? [For poor singing?] (Score:2)
I hope it gets modded Funny, but it isn't a great joke.
If I could write jokes, I think the one that is lurking in this story would involve all-star wrestling.
Back IRL, yesterday I stumbled into a place where a bunch of people were having a kind of party to watch videos of their little concert. Showing the best bits of the performance to their friends with frequent jumping around in the video. I wish I could remember the exact expression they used, but my non-English memory is not so good. However in spite o
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The object of a patent is a technical solution. if the solution is different, it can be patented.
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Maybe 15 minutes to write it up. (15 seconds to copy/paste the already existing script). As I said, if there's a new factor it's applying it to a DCP, but I wish the director all the best in attempting to make it proprietary (as one can just create 300,000 versions in Avid and feed a random version for every presenta
Laughable (Score:4, Insightful)
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Like this tool for Super Mario World https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=... [smwcentral.net] https://authorblues.github.io/... [github.io]
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We should patent all stupid ideas. That way they are less likely to spread.
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Mod parent funny, though I think you're much too optimistic (per my other comments on the story).
Brian Eno and the Verticle Color of Sound (Score:5, Interesting)
Brian Eno is one of the very best conceptual artists of our time. His collaborations are profound, and his influence will be felt throughout the ages. I recommend most all of his stuff, especially if you don't understand what it is. If you like an artist that he gas produced, then start with that. He's worked with many. His installations and ambience are essential. The long now is a work for the ages. You don't have to understand it, it takes time to learn how to listen to what you're hearing. If he's not for you, that's quite understandable. A strong opinion is better than none at all.
Re: Brian Eno and the Verticle Color of Sound (Score:2)
I agree with parent.
There's (always on /.) a lot of "I could do THAT", but apparently ./ers aren't regularly actually _doing_ much of anything.
f.e. you can look at your favorite artist who raps/sings/plays over a loop pedal onstage and imagine how easily you could've created such a thing: "it's just a big digital delay. A box of memory and a couple ADC/DAC chips!"
Thing is, you _didn't_ create the technique. What were _you_ doing in the 1970s, while Brian Eno was creating long-form live loops with Revox tape
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Brian Eno is one of the very best conceptual artists of our time.
He lost me at Music for Airports.
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>especially if you don't understand what it is.
If I'm looking for pretentious self-absorbed narcism that styles itself "art", I'll read some James Joyce or listen to Bob Dylan!
Absolutely Nothing New (Score:2)
I remember re-riding one of the Disney Star Wars rides with my kids multiple times because they have like five different film possibilities for five different sections of the attraction...
Using that idea (Score:2)
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Yeah, that happened in the laserdisc era - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Dragon's Lair used a laser disc to do this in an arcade cabinet. I spent many quarters choosing my own adventure through that thing until I found the right combination.
Re: Absolutely Nothing New (Score:2)
what a clver nad thot-prvoknig quston! (Score:2)
"I was having these thoughts about, well, why can't showing a film be more performative? Why does it have to be this static thing every time?"
(Yeah, I realise I'm showing my age with that reference.)
BS from a great director (Score:3)
Furthermore, by concatenating random clips, the movie strips all of them of context, rendering all of them meaningless. As such, some collections may show Eno as a jerk, others as a racist, others as a brilliant artist and yet others as an absolute novice who simply got lucky. This is a work of sloth by virtue of the fact that no one has spent any effort in editing a movie that puts Eno's body of work in context.
Why would anyone watch this? Why?
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Thank you for summing up why I (a massive Eno fan) probably won't bother with this.
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Can I help? I saw the premier of this at the Palace of Fine Arts a few weeks ago. To directly answer your question "why would anyone want to see this?"
- Interest in Brian Eno, who collaborated in creating this. It's in line with his creative history, and includes a lot of personal archive footage and new interviews
- Mild interest in Gary Hurstwit, he's a decent director with an interest in nerdy things that overlap with mine
- Interest in the concept: does it work as a movie? I think generative movies are an
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I suppose that is the point: it's an evolving movie for Eno fans, not a documentary.
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the movie strips all of them of context, rendering all of them meaningless. As such, some collections may show Eno as a jerk, others as a racist, others as a brilliant artist and yet others as an absolute novice who simply got lucky.
ie exactly like every human being. Gandhi and Hitler, Che and Pinochet, Mandela and Mengele, are 99.9% genetically identical. I think you are waving the word "context" around while also hand-waving away what context actually does.
This is a work of sloth by virtue of the fact that no one has spent any effort in editing a movie that puts Eno's body of work in context.
Consider what happens when you apply your own comment to your comment.
Putting "Eno's body of work in context" results in a collection which may show Eno as a jerk, and/or as a racist, and/or as a brilliant artist, and/or as someone who simply got lucky. And that presentational cont
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The point is whether the portrayals that emerge from the random arrangement of files has any element of truth. Being faithful to reality is the point behind a documentary. Should there be no line between fiction and documentary, between fiction and fact? Your counterpoint is false: a random presentation of facts will present the truth only by chance. It's true that the editor could be biased, but at least some effort is spent in examining the facts. A random number generator performs no such service.
I'm not saying you're wrong in your preference to watch a traditionally presented mainstream documentary. That's a perfectly valid preference. I'm not trying to offer a counterpoint to your explanation of why you don't like this approach.
I'm pointing out that I find it very curious for someone with such absolute, objective, positivist notions of a fixed concrete "the truth", and a strong preference for a presentation style in which "truth" and "meaning" are issued formally from the creator rather than occur
With apologies to the creator... (Score:3)
A movie made by splicing random pre-selected scenes together with a filter added to the randomness is not interesting nor at the forefront of technology.
I'm waiting for real-time machinima with a script that is influenced by audience reactions. Now that would be fascinating.
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This was (somewhat) attempted in the past where the audience was given the choice of how the movie should proceed. As explained in this thread [stackexchange.com] it took you out of the movie experience and the choices generally tended to the middle option.
As for influenced by audience reactions, if we assume the people at the movie are the type who enjoy that genre as opposed to people who are d
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I'm thinking you have mics and cameras pointed at the audience and increase the intensity / frequency of things the audience reacts strongly to. If you get cheers for a kiss, move on to full frontal nudity. If a running gun fight has people on the edge of their seats, have a few extra and extra-violent deaths. That kind of thing. Anything that draws boos when that's not the intended reaction, you dial down.
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Uh... do people actually cheer and boo at the movies? Admittedly, I haven't been for about 15 years but I don't remember there being a lot of audience participation. I imagine someone hooting and hollering throughout the movie would be advised to quieten down and then eventually escorted out.
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Spontaneous outbursts happen. There are things you could monitor as feedback that are more subtle, too.
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Fun fact (Score:2)
Many of the original Windows sounds (eg the startup sound) eere composed by Eno. He is credited in the metadata.
Funny wanted (Score:2)
Nothing yet? But the story has potential. I think the best jokes would involve reality TV or all-star wrestling--but that's just a wild guess. I clearly can't write Funny.
Better than I thought it would be... (Score:2)
I got to see this in-person at Sundance, and in the context of a film festival it was a pretty cool experience. I attended the press/industry screening and it was fun to talk about the differences between the version I saw with folks who saw the other three versions that screened there. As someone who both programs software for a living and also works with/on film festivals, I expected this to be just a gimmick but I have to say it worked pretty well. However most of the reason it worked was in the conte