Phil Rice 00:44
Hey there and welcome to And Now For Something Completely Machinima, the podcast about machinima and virtual production and other related technologies. This week we have a pick from the the long passed by Ricky Grove. This is a film made by a friend of ours, Claus-Dieter Schulz. And it was made, oh goodness, I don't even remember the year but it was. This is from that machinimas first decade. And at the time that it was made. We had never seen anything like it before that would legitimately fall into the category of machinima. It's one that has perplexed me and eluded my grasp. And I think that's maybe one of the things that makes it great. Ricky why don't to tell us about it. Yeah,

Ricky Grove 01:29
I'm looking forward to discussing that with you that very thing, meaning and content. I chose this film because a it's a wonderful film. But also it's a film that deserves notice. And you fill in again, I congratulate you. And thank you for all of your efforts and restoring them many machinima flex films, by upgrading their quality, upscaling their quality. And I was going through some of the older films and looking at them and I came across this film called Nine the number nine. Claus-Dieter Schulz was a German machinima filmmaker in the very early days. All of his films had those qualities that you all know that I respect which is originality, and imagination. While the great majority of machinima filmmakers of the time are rushing to copy other popular films, or copy, popular television forms, or commercials or movies, Claus Dieter Schulz moved in a completely different direction. And I think it's because his background was steeped in what is called cinema. Modernism. Modernism began in the early part of the century, and it was a reaction to the what they called bourgeois realism of the 19th century. And instead of making things realistic, and well rounded and understandable, it moved towards abstraction. There was a whole series of films that many excellent filmmakers, there was a great film called Ballet Mecanique. Who did that one, I can't remember. But it was a whole series of abstract films in which they basically manipulated shapes in order to create visually pleasing experiences, and then also a feeling in the viewer. Far, far away from the realistic films of the time. And so when I came across this film, in the collection that we have at Vimeo, I was so impressed, because it still has, it still evokes, feeling in me. It also operates in this, he shot it in this weird space inside of games, I want to call it a liminal space, in game which is sort of outside the bounds of the regular game map. Elden Ring has this a lot. There are glitches that players have explored in which you can go, you'll, you'll you'll find a place and you'll jump over a bunch of rocks and then you'll find this tiny little split in the rocks in the in the in the the map that opens on to nothingness. And if you jump into this nothingness, while you're swinging your weapon and riding your horse, you can reap a whole bunch of runes by glitching. But the space you're in is this very strange sort of abstract place that's parts of maps parts of characters, it's very strange, and the fact that he had enough originality and Claus Dieter and was so sensitive to gamespace that he saw this as a possible way to create films, I think is remarkable. The music is from the Boards of Canada, which is one of my favourite. Sort of, I don't know what you call it. experimental music, spatial music anyway fits the mood of the piece, which actually has a kind of development to it. The it starts out slowly abstract and then it becomes more abstract and then eventually fades away into very tiny abstractions, which I thought was great. I have to say that I want to kick myself again, for throwing away all of my old Machiniplex recordings because we had an interview with on abstract machinima at machinima Plex it was a panel discussion in which Claus Dieter Schultz took place. Had I not been stupid and got rid of it, we would have been able to share some of that with you. So I apologise once again for that. But I just love this film. And it affected me just as much as it did the first time when I watched it again. What were your reactions? Guys?

Tracy Harwood 06:13
I start with this one, go on. And I don't remember too much about Claus Dieter. But I do remember that he was involved with the Expo as well. And I'm sure you'll be delighted to know I've actually found his blog for Machinima Studios. That goes right the way back to 2008. Oh, so that will be very helpful, I'm sure because I think there'll be some content on there that you're both really well, you'll really enjoy. I only know that he's a German creator and that he was active primarily in the late 2000s. Nine, as I understand it, from his from his blog, mainly it was released 14 years ago on the 31st of July 2009. And it was his, what he's described as his first abstract machinima, and it's been inspired by the work of Oscar Fischinger. Here, right. Hans Richter and also, Stan Brakhage wreckage. Sure, yeah. Now it's black and white, obviously. And it's something that Claus Dieter referred to as a motion graphics experiment. And, like you, Ricky, these, these visuals are really quite mesmerising. And I think that a lot of the reaction that I get to it is actually from the music that it's been put to. But actually, what I've discovered that is a he released two versions of this. The first was to Corsair by Boards of Canada. And this version actually is the second version, which was to an original composition by Martin Gurtner. And of the two versions, which you can, you can still both find both of these versions on his channel. I definitely prefer the Gurtner version, it's more upbeat. And actually kind of seems to complement the generative images you see on the screen a little more than the Boards of Canada version of it. Somehow, I don't know, I don't know how but it does. I'm not sure which of the two versions Claus Dieter actually preferred and I'm guessing you don't actually know but my thoughts would be it's probably this Gurtner version because that's the one you you know, remastered fill it. And it's it's brilliant the way that you've read remastered without this music, but I've got to say in places when you listen to the original music, it is just a teeny bit warbled compared to the original. So I'll show you both of those versions, and you see what you think. But when I was looking at this, I also thought well, I want to see what Oskar Fishinger has done, as well as the others. So I actually found the only film that Oskar Fishinger ever made on YouTube. And it's called an Optical Poem, and it was released originally in 1938. Now what you see in that film is the link being made by the creator between the music and the form of the images. And in fact, it's all about the sound which evokes the visual portrayals of sound. And in that particular piece, what you've got is the film being put to Listz's Hungarian Rhapsody, and it's a colour piece it's it's shapes Mmm, it's really interesting. It's quite mesmerising. But actually, I'd suggest you kind of watch it as well, because it's intriguing. And it's intriguing for a couple of reasons. One was, it's argued that it was a novel approach to animation. And it was created using paper cutouts hanging on almost invisible wires. And it gets shot frame by frame, to be in sync with the music. And it's basically described as an imaginary outer space. And it's, it's, it's really quite interesting and watching this. of Claus', Claus Dieter's work, which came first, because in the Fishinger example, it was about the music driving the visuals. And which came first in Claus Dieter's example. I think we probably all agree that it's most likely to be the visuals, I would have thought particularly. Yeah, I agree, when we hear that there's two different, you know, when we understand that there's two different music music pieces that it's been put to. I don't know. But I also think that what you're seeing with Claus Dieter's pieces, it's a little bit more abstract than that Hungarian Rhapsody piece. And then I also found films, and another one called Filmstudie by Hans Richter, which was a 1926, silent short, which does actually include a musical score, which had been sampled from from Darius Milhaud. And through that piece, you can clearly see a connection in terms of visual design references that Claus Dieter is used, that's black and white. That's very much the same kind of shapes. So you can clearly see that kind of that connection if you like. That piece, though, is described as Dadaist. I don't know too much about data sets or data ism. Although I, I understood it largely to be political references in terms of the content. So I'm not too sure about how that fits into what Claus Dieter's his work was all about. And then, of course, I was also looking at clips of Stan Brakhages his work, who's obviously a very well known experimental filmmaker. And of those pieces, I kind of thought that possibly it was Mothlight.

Ricky Grove 12:38
That's what I was gonna say my flight. Most it seemed to me that

Tracy Harwood 12:41
one was the most clearly related to this. So you know, this raised some really interesting questions for me in terms of the creative process that Claus Dieter had gone through. And then, as you were talking, Ricky, I was thinking, and the way that you were saying nine, you know, I was wondering if the Dataist reference wasn't also to that title, because what does that mean in the context of what we're looking at? Is it nine a numeral or is it nine meaning no, in German, I don't know.

Ricky Grove 13:16
Well, the Dataists were about they, they were precursors to the absurdist which are non sequiturs, things that don't seem to fit or put right next to each other. And I think in a way nine, is a non sequitur. Yeah. Because you don't think of numbers when you're looking at the know what's going on? And absolutely no. non sequitur?

Tracy Harwood 13:41
Yes. So, no. Nine, the German

Ricky Grove 13:44
good deed. Interesting, interesting research and thinking on that. Thank you.

Tracy Harwood 13:50
Really interesting avant garde pick there, Ricky. Thanks for sharing it. I don't think you're dated too much at all, because of the way that it was, you know, what it was presenting and how it was doing it. I think it's very interesting film to discuss it. Thank you. I

Ricky Grove 14:06
did express some thoughts that you were troubled with trying to understand it, what is it that about the film that creates this feeling in you?

Phil Rice 14:15
know, that's more so I experienced less of that on this on the rewatch than I did when we first were confronted by this film, which was a it was a submission to the Machinima Expo and he ended up, it ended up winning some kind of a Jury Prize related to the festival or good. But that's what that's when we first did that. That's what the occasion for the interview with him was that I remember us. We conducted that interview actually, kind of as a group. And I confessed to him that I felt like my ability to to understand and fully appreciate truly abstract work like this, that I felt hampered by just this sense of, I'm wanting to draw something out of this and I find it was all just confusion, you know, and that it wasn't just for his peace but abstract work in general. You know, you look at Dali as at least a lot of his work is there it's grounded in a reality that that has then been contorted or, you know, corroded in some way and so at least I have something to grasp onto there. But you know, Mondriaan or something or Jackson Pollock, I just don't know what to make of that, you know, when it when it gets really truly abstract or absurdist, as this may better fall into. I don't know how much different that is today, but I I definitely didn't feel disturbed by it. Like I did then. So I don't know if that's I don't know what that is. Is that was I more arrogant back then? And so it was disturbing to me because I was upset that there was something I didn't personally understand. Was I just immature you know, after last week's mention of the female but mod for Starfield, I. But artistically, I still don't feel like I would know how to produce something like this. I don't I don't know. I, it's a gene I don't have I think, or at least, it's either that, or I have so negatively programmed myself by telling me myself that for decades, I don't get this. I don't know how to do that. Have I cast a spell on myself? You know, have I have I prophesied it by keep saying it? I don't know. It's this this episode isn't about the complexity of my psychological profile. But you know, it's I don't know. I think that I brought this up when talking to Claus Dieter, in our interview, I don't remember for sure if I mentioned it to him or not. But when I was in, when I was at university and studied philosophy, one of the areas that we covered was was Ludwig Wittgenstein and his his understanding of when when a reader comes to a text, there's, for lack of a better word art that happens in that moment, because the reader is bringing something with them, and actually changing the text by interacting with it through reading. So the text is not a static thing. It's just a starting point. And it's really the reader is bringing something and he had this whole philosophy built on that idea. And I kind of feel like maybe abstract art, maybe is that way too. So me being disturbed by it when I was, I guess I've come to wonder if that wasn't something I was bringing to it. More so than something that was coming out of that screen and hitting me, you know, I think that's one of the things that in my own limited way, I've come to appreciate about abstract art, because abstract art has an openness to it, that lets the viewer do that. Much more so than at the other extreme end of things would be a photograph. Yeah, photograph leaves nothing to your imagination whatsoever. You can still interpret things about a photograph. But there's not really room for interpretation on what you're physically seeing. It is dark, it's the other way. It's yeah, your your brain does something different when interacting with this or with any abstract art. So yeah, those are the things that I found myself thinking about. I don't find that my reaction to it now is is one of discomfort or being disturbed. And I tend to think that's because I've kind of chilled the eff out a little bit. In terms of I have to grasp everything, you know, I get, I guess, you know, it's like all of us. The older you get, the more you realise you don't know. And you're either going to be comfortable with that or you're going to be miserable. Yeah, yeah, I choose and I choose to not be miserable with the mysteries of the universe, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I love that Claus Dieter was actually when I did the Overcast Podcast, back in that same era. He was one of my most vocal listeners. He would email me after almost every episode, just with some kind of comment. Always very friendly and intelligent and just respectful. And sometimes it was his suggestion. Sometimes it was just you said this, and it made me think of this. And if you remember that show if we didn't delve into the kind of stuff that we do on this one, talking about. I don't know, sometimes veering into deep territory. The Overcast was just just fun. zany, fun. Yeah. But he found a way to, ironically enough draw depths out of that, that I didn't even know was there. You know, write his comments. That's the kind of person he was. He was fiercely honest with me. In terms of critique, as well as praise, I mean, just just a really interesting guy. And I still don't know why. Like, I didn't meet him somewhere. And then I said, let's say, I didn't give him my business card. So hey, listen to my podcast. He just showed up. I didn't know who he was. He just showed up out of nowhere. And he was the most interactive listener of that little podcast. Great. And we became, I think I can say friends from, you know, from those interactions, there was a lot of back and forth. And just a very interesting guy. And yeah, then he talked about I want to make machinima film. And I mean, he hadn't done anything yet. And he did something. Something specifically in response to something on the podcast? Oh, wow. Where it was. It was based on on some poem, some Portuguese poem. I can't remember what it was called. Because the name was in Portuguese, I can't remember. But that was the first thing I'd ever seen from and it was it was quite unique. And then I think this may have been the only the second thing that I'd seen him create. And yeah, I was very honest with him and with you at the time that just I don't know what to make of this. So I don't know if I still know what to make of it. But if I'm honest, I didn't enjoy that back then. And now I do. So make of that what you will, but I actually, I enjoy watching this, I enjoy rewatching it. And there's no comprehension going on. And maybe that's the whole point. Is that right? I should I shouldn't have ever been trying to comprehend. If you look at the actual roots of what that word is, I shouldn't have been trying to apprehend or comprehend this. I should have just been in the room with it all along. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that's where I've come to.

Ricky Grove 22:45
I love your comments, Phil, thank you just so insightful. You're not alone in that feeling about abstract art. The problem with abstraction and experimental filmmaking is that it becomes elitist. And that people who enjoy it will often create cliques in which they have special knowledge of blah, blah, blah. And that's not what the intention of any of that at all was, it was to blow a breath of fresh air into a stale art forms, right? And to try to perceive cinema as a direct form, in which there's no interpretations. There's no symbols or dumb, nothing, it's just you and the images on the screen. Certainly, that's what Stan Brakhage did with moth light. month late, he collected moths that died in his outside light. And he pulled them apart and then used their wings to put on film stock. And he did that for months, until he had, you know, what, 10 minutes or eight minutes of film. And then he developed that film. And that's what you see, you see random shapes coming together and coalescing, and you, the viewer read into that film, any associations you have, based on the shape scored, no, no associations were intended. And I think that's one of the beautiful things about experimental art. It's an option outside of the mainstream, that I'm really glad we have. Not everybody enjoys it. Not everybody gets it. But you know, oftentimes, experimental elements will make their way into mainstream films. For example, Salvador Dali did a dream sequence for a major Hollywood film. Oftentimes, abstract, art or film can be put into those sections in which irrational moments occur, or dreams occur. Now that's a different thing than what we have here with Claus Dieter Schulz, but it does bleed into the mainstream in some way. So I'm really glad for all of your comments are very filled, especially you you really Your honesty about your experience with it is just refreshing. And I'm Thank you Claus Dieter Schultz. If you're listening, come back and make another film. Okay. You are so goddamn talented. You didn't make as many films as you should just so good.

Tracy Harwood 25:15
That's from Damien.

Ricky Grove 25:18
Damien. I'm so sorry. Go ahead. Oh, I'm such an egotist. I apologise. Go ahead.

Damien Valentine 25:23
So I was kind of kind of figure out how am I supposed to follow what all of you have said so far. So I was Ricky thinking, and maybe I had a free pass there. So Tracy, you I remember when I watch this, this film again for the show. I remember seeing it back in the Expo days, I can't remember what I thought of it back then. I suspect I appreciated it more now than I did back then. And kind of echo some of the things that Phil was talking about is getting older and and being able to see things differently and not worrying too much about what you don't understand. It gives me a feeling and remind me of some things but I'm not sure if I should share that or not. Because it's my own personal interest. Right? You don't need to know. So I enjoyed watching it now. And I enjoyed the feeling that it came to me. And as I think about it from sort of a technical perspective, because obviously, my understanding of 3d animation and how everything's made in games has increased since those Expo days. And I think about, I still don't know how this was made, because obviously, the shapes are fairly simple. But the effects made with the way they move and interact with each other. That's not an easy thing to do. No, I think it has to do with iClone or thinking why it could be possible. It takes such a huge amount of time and energy. Is it actually worth even trying to do that. So Ricky, when you said at the beginning of this episode that it was made by going into the space outside the game world where things do get strange, that suddenly made it all makes sense. So I was glad you got that because it's kind of bugging me ever since I watched it again, for this, how's it? How did he make it? Yeah,

Ricky Grove 27:24
you'll find sometimes it in certain games, if you go outside the boundaries of the map, the graphics distort. And depending upon where you you, the game player are, you can move forward or back or side to side. And those graphics will change. And I think I'm not sure, but I think that's what Claus did. I think he found a place in which those graphics would change. And I think he recorded 30 minutes and an hour of him interacting with it, and then cut it down to that bit. That that's my guess,

Damien Valentine 28:00
where he made his own sort of map in the game world for what he wanted. He wasn't using something that came with the game itself. No. Yeah, that's what I would add on to your theory there.

Ricky Grove 28:13
Right? No, I have a question for you. Go ahead, Phil.

Phil Rice 28:16
I was just going to add the origin event the first time that I think that that was ever seen that effect used to be called the Hall of Mirrors effect. It basically once truth well, true, mostly 3d games came about like Doom. Doom wasn't actually a true 3d game, the original, it was kind of two and a half d, you know that the nothing could be over something else. And a map and doom, it wasn't three dimensional, truly. But if there was an area in a map that did not have a texture applied to it, then it would be it would end up being transparent. And if that place where there was no texture was outside the game world, then the game engine didn't know what to render there. So it would just try to render whatever was nearby. And it created this very strange effect. And throughout all the Doom games, and this is talking late 90s and early 2000s, the Doom games, the Quake games, there were inevitably little places somewhere where someone forgot a texture on the official maps. And if you found it, yeah, you could you could trigger that. They call it the Hall of Mirrors effect because that's kind of what it what it ended up looking like. But within what was really interesting is that how that untextured openness to the outside of the you know, the partition was interpreted varied by graphics card.

Ricky Grove 29:52
Yes, that's right. No, I remember there was

Phil Rice 29:55
there was a slightly different way that it would get rendered depending on which graphics card in some of those games had a way of changing from regular rendering to OpenGL rendering. And that would make that behave totally differently. And it's something that I observed and ran into, but it just never occurred to me to use in the way that he did. It's brilliant. I had some ideas of how to how to mess with it, but it just, I didn't know what to do with, with what I captured. And it just so yeah, there's there's an amazing mind behind this, that this is a thing that has probably been observed by hundreds of 1000s. if not millions of players of games. At some point, you've seen some glitch like what, even now in Elden Ring, it's still there, you find a spot? Something isn't quite right. It's, it's been that way, for multiple decades. And, you know, here's someone who took that and turned it into into art. It's amazing. Yeah.

Ricky Grove 30:56
Damien, I have a last question for you. Do you would you enjoy the film more if they removed the boards or the soundtrack, and included the original Star Wars? To

Damien Valentine 31:10
actually, sort of along those lines, I didn't replace it with the Star Wars soundtrack. But I just turned the sound off and just watched it for the visuals. And that increased the feeling I got more than listening to it with the music that came with it. And

Ricky Grove 31:25
fascinating, fascinating. Well, thank you, everybody.

Phil Rice 31:29
One more thing I wanted to mention, Tracy, you, you mentioned wondering about, you know, the chicken and the egg thing with which came first? Was it the sound that inspired the visuals or the other way around? It occurred to me there's one other possibility and we won't know unless Claus Dieter reaches out to us. But it's quite possible that the visuals were in part inspired by the original soundtrack. But then, the visual, but then the visuals that were inspired by the original soundtrack, then inspired Martin, what's what's the composer's name that did the new, the second soundtrack? That that chain of of inspiration is very interesting. Gurtner

Tracy Harwood 32:13
Thank you, Gurtner.

Phil Rice 32:14
Yeah, maybe maybe Martin Gurtner. Never heard the original soundtrack. He was just given the visuals and those visuals inspired his musical approach. I don't know just for them. It's kind of random. But it just just occurred to me so fascinating. I'm really glad you picked this one, Ricky. It's good to revisit it. Yeah.

Ricky Grove 32:34
Just to let everybody Yeah, just to let everybody know, you know, there is a element of experimental in machinima filmmaking. Its not as big as the major trends, and then unreal films and all of that, but it's still there. So keep your eyes open for it. And if you're looking for a new experience, try it out.

Phil Rice 32:56
Great pick again, Ricky. Thank you. And thank you, everybody, for listening. We love your feedback. So drop us a comment. Drop us a like if you'd like to show how about that. And then, over on our website, we've got different ways to contact us as well. We thrive on your feedback. We love it. We may not get to read it all out here on the show every time but we share it with each other when it comes in and it's pretty exciting stuff. So keep that coming. We really appreciate it. And Tracy, Ricky, Damien, thanks for your time. You're welcome, everybody. Have a good day. Yep.