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Animator/Filmmaker Tess Martin and Yuri Norstein's Tale of Tales
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In this episode of Re-Creative, Mark and Joe talk to animator/filmmaker Tess Martin about Yuri Norstein’s Tale of Tales (1979), a complex, surreal masterpiece. As Tess explains, Tale of Tales is less a classical narrative than a tapestry of memories, providing just enough clues to allow viewers to unlock its meaning and hidden depths, though a familiarity with the culture from which it emerged helps. Featuring a little grey wolf from a traditional Russian lullaby, Norstein employs deeply personal and culturally specific imagery—such as a glass of vodka and bread as an offering for the dead—making the film feel intensely real and true, even if one doesn’t fully grasp every reference the first time around.
Originally from the States, Tess relocated to the Netherlands to pursue her craft. Her own work follows in Norstein’s tradition of thoughtful, material-based art. Her projects tend to develop through a mix of personal interest and the practicalities of the Dutch public arts funding system.
Mark, Tessa and Joe discuss two of her recent films:
- How Now House: Using archives, personal memories and the philosophy of time, the film questions whether a space can ever really belong to one person, or time period, at all.
- 1976 Search for Life: A new father visits the hometown of his mother in 1976, accompanied by his wife and baby. At the same time, the NASA Viking lander is sending the first images back to Earth from the surface of another planet.
You can check out Tess’s work on her website.
Re-Creative is a co-production of Donovan Street Press Inc. in association with MonkeyJoy Press.
Contact us at: contact@donovanstreetpress.com
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Transcript
Sunday Morning Recording
00:00:09
Speaker
Mark. Joe, how are you? I am very well. It's ah earlier in the day than we normally do this. It's a Sunday morning. am caffeinated. I'm barely caffeinated. But you look great. That's the important thing. Oh, thank you. Yeah, and you sound good. This is the medium for looking great, that's for sure.
00:00:27
Speaker
So you told me before we started this that you don't have a question prepared. I do not. Which is fine because I do have a question prepared for you for a change. There you go. We're changing everything around today. Shoes on the other foot. All right. Okay.
Mark's Favorite Animation
00:00:40
Speaker
What is your favorite piece of animation ever?
00:00:45
Speaker
Oh my God. Well, you, you always ask me questions. Yeah, that's, that's a really hard question. Uh, I think the cat came back. Ooh, classic Canadian NFB. Yeah, an NFB. Yeah, the cat came back. And why is that your favorite? I just, because I have cats, and ah basically I'm a childhood heart.
00:01:06
Speaker
And so, you know, I appreciate i appreciate the goofiness of the of the song as much as anything else, and the animation's fabulous on that.
Guest Introduction: Tess Martin
00:01:14
Speaker
Well, I love that you said that because our guest today, Tess Martin, who's joining us from Rotterdam, of all places, had a cat wandering around her microphone earlier. Yeah.
00:01:26
Speaker
So I know there's a cat over there in Rotterdam with her. Tess, welcome to our podcast. Thank you. Yes, there is there is a cat. She's now looking out the window. She's moved on from my lap, but she she might make an appearance later. You might you might hear mine yowling because I always always close the door before we start the podcast. And it's morning and it's still breakfast time for them. So, yeah.
00:01:48
Speaker
So Tess, I'm going to introduce you to our listeners. Let me know if I get anything wrong. If I do, then you've got it wrong because I'm actually reading from your website. So Tess Martin is a film and visual artist based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and brings her perspective as someone who raised between cultures, themes of belonging, identity, and connection.
00:02:09
Speaker
And basically, you're a ah short film maker. And i've seen I've seen three of your films now. And they are technically excellent and engrossing.
00:02:21
Speaker
And I actually like one of them maybe even more than the art that you have chosen to talk about today. And well so we'll get into that. but That's an honor. Is there anything that you would add that you would like to say about yourself and your work that we should know about?
00:02:39
Speaker
No, that was a wonderful introduction. um Well, you wrote it. so the Well written. Yeah.
Exploring Time in Film
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I do film and like art installations that have films in them. um I've been in Rotterdam about 11 years.
00:02:56
Speaker
I grew up moving around. That's what that sentence means. Race between cultures. Yeah. So the the film that that is the one I most recently finished is kind of taking a look at our experience of time through one house, one specific house. And then the work I've done previous to that in different ways also has dealt with kind of our experience of time or trying to relate to a different time period.
00:03:28
Speaker
So that that seems to be a theme right now in my work. And is that a relatively new theme or is this something that has fascinated you for a long time? or um I think it's it's probably new in such an explicit, like conscious manner with these three films, which is now already like three or four years.
00:03:50
Speaker
because I started to get into a lot of um family history and like historical research. ah So that that kind of side quest kind of started me thinking about all these topics and then these these various projects kind of came out of that interest, I think. Right.
00:04:13
Speaker
ah So Mark had said that his favorite off the cuff... ah Yeah, that was given. The 30 seconds I had to think about it. And you're probably thinking about it more. But The Cat Came Back is, um it's a particular type of animation. It is, yeah. yeah it's engaging. It's funny. It's, um I think, ah a very Canadian, very North American. And the kind of animation that you do and that you're going to talk about later springs from a different place, doesn't it?
00:04:42
Speaker
Like it's just as engrossing, but it's not necessarily as commercial. What would you say the difference is? I mean, you know, um commerciality, is that the is that the noun? um When it comes to animated shorts is pretty...
00:05:00
Speaker
limited anyway. um but But for sure, you know, the style of Cordell Barker is is much more applicable to like Saturday morning cartoons, like animation for kids that that is is commercial um or that can be commercial.
00:05:19
Speaker
So that's true. My work is not that. But it's it's thoughtful and it's literate. Yeah, I mean, it's ah you know it's the age old thing that people think animation is for kids. So that's that's always been the thing that that animators in general, I think, struggle with. you know Because animation is just a technique. It doesn't mean anything. just means how it's made. So it's just like saying moving image. like It doesn't define the content. you know It's not it's not a genre. It's a technique. Yeah.
00:05:55
Speaker
So when people say stuff like that, just shows that what they're defining animation as is very specific and it's not what I define it as. Yes. My brain has been screaming Howl's Moving Castle for the last two minutes. Yeah, because I was like- Is that what you wish you had said in the answer? I wish I'd said that now, yeah. But you know what? I'll stand by it. But because I was definitely, it's because this morning, I was in Saturday morning cartoon mode. And that's the one that kind popped into my head. No, no, no, totally. And it's totally valid. It's just one of the options. It doesn't mean that all animation is aimed at kids or aimed commercial things.
00:06:43
Speaker
things, just like, I guess, film and cinema, right? Like there, there are, there is variety of filmmakers and some are commercial filmmakers, you know, who work in Hollywood and like, it's like superhero movies and then there's, there's everything else. So it's as broad. In fact, animation is, You know, we say animation is as old as cinema because that's true. But actually, I've come to think of it as as much older than cinema, in fact, because, you know, again, it depends how you define animation. But if you define animation as sequential imagery that is, you know, flickering past your eye at ah at a fast pace.
00:07:26
Speaker
Actually, that predates the invention of the film camera because of all these Victorian era toys, the pre-camera toys like the zoetrope or the phoenicistoscope or the thomatrope, which is the one that's just a round thing like on string and you you twirl it.
00:07:43
Speaker
And in fact, I was reminded of this documentary um that came out like, 12 years ago or something, this Werner Herzog documentary called Cave of Forgotten Dreams about the Lascaux caves in France, where there's these like 40,000 year old cave paintings. And in the documentary, there's like a sequential image of like a horse running. And he posits with with a torch, like a fire torch, he posits that someone...
00:08:13
Speaker
running the torch in front of these sequential images really fast kind of makes it look like it's one horse that is running. So if that's true, then then animation is definitely older than film ah That's incredible. That's really cool. That's a cool thought. I was thinking about, I was in Thailand once and I saw, now it was theater because it was, you know, an audience and people doing it but it was a little bit like animation because it was basically just silhouettes.
00:08:44
Speaker
It was puppets and silhouettes and you couldn't actually see the puppets because it was behind the screen and all of the, they were just images on the back of a sheet basically. And it was, yeah, that was very much like animation.
00:08:56
Speaker
Sure, yeah. I mean, yeah, the the line between puppetry and animation is also very blurred. This is a distinction people have a lot of opinions about within the various fields. But yeah, it's all it's all part of the same kind of time-based medium thing. Like, it depends how broad you want to go, right? Like, yeah after a certain point, it's just like art.
00:09:19
Speaker
So it's just it's it's justs just all um human expression of some kind.
Inspiration from 'Tale of Tales'
00:09:24
Speaker
Now, it's interesting, Mark, that you mentioned Howl's Moving Castle by Hayao Miyazaki, who actually has said of the animator that you want to talk about, Tass, in Hayao Miyazaki's opinion, they're one of the greatest living animators. So can you tell us who that is and what the piece of work is that you were interested in talking about? about Yes. So I would love to talk about Yuri Norstein's Tale of Tales from 1979. Yuri Norstein is a Russian filmmaker. He's more well known for a 10 minute short film called The Hedgehog in the Fog.
00:09:59
Speaker
which is also very beautiful and has some amazing, amazing, inspiring shots in it. And it it kind of also also goes down in history as like kind of a revolutionary piece of art But Tale of Tales, to me, is much more um interesting and complex. I mean, just like the distinction we were just talking about. Hedgehog in the Fog is based on, like, ah a children's short story about a little hedgehog that is going to go visit his friend the bear, and then he gets lost in the woods.
00:10:33
Speaker
So it's it's, like, based on kind of like a fairy tale. So it's it's very much... um in that vein. Like it's, you know, it's not aimed only at children. i mean, there's plenty of adults that that also love it, um but it's definitely child friendly. It's one of Norstein's child friendly films, which are kind of his earlier work Which is in a way why Tale of Tales is so, I think why it made such a big impact when it came out. Because it was just not that.
00:11:04
Speaker
It was clearly not for kids, basically. um Like there's there's there's not a lot of other ways to say it. I mean, it's it's not not for kids. It's not like it's super gory or anything like that, but it's it's definitely not a classical narrative. that Yeah, it doesn't hold your hand. It doesn't hold your hand, no.
00:11:27
Speaker
And yeah, this this film, when it came out in 1979, it won like loads of awards. And I can't remember what the award was, but it was adjudicated best animated short film of all time. I mean, in 1979. Yeah.
00:11:41
Speaker
yeah So it had a big impact at the time. And yeah, indeed, Miyazaki is a fan. And so much so that they afterwards collaborated on something. So um I forget what it was, but Miyazaki invited Nordstein to come to Tokyo and work on something. I think it was called Windy Days. It was like ah a part of a compilation of like short snippets from various directors.
00:12:10
Speaker
And I think Nurshin has spent a lot of time in Japan since. So, yeah. Can you give a little synopsis of Tale of Tales? Yeah. So it's it's hard to give a synopsis. its it It has as kind of its central character, this little gray wolf that anyone Russian, I'm told, will recognize as the character in this lullaby that is also sung in the film. ah Throughout the film, there's this...
00:12:40
Speaker
lullaby that I think also starts, starts off the film when there's like a mother singing this lullaby to this baby. And in the lullaby, there's a story of this little gray wolf will come, you know, like if you don't go to sleep kind of kind of thing. Yeah. um So that there's, yeah, yeah. Russian danger. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's also, I mean, a lot of children's songs are kind of dark, you know, but it's an adorable looking wolf.
00:13:11
Speaker
Yes. So there's this kind of cute little wolf, which which is interesting because it's in the same vein as Hedgehog in the Fog with with these animal characters. So I think that's also interesting. Like I imagine people might have been kind of lulled into a false sense of security when starting to watch this film because they're like, oh, it's another cute little animal story. Yeah.
00:13:31
Speaker
um And then it subverts that. Yeah, exactly. And this character is, you know, this this wolf character recurs throughout, but he's he's not in the whole movie. and There's other things happening. There's other like scenes and and kind of storylines, but he's kind of the central motif, so to speak. And he he ends up interacting in some of these other scenes throughout the film.
00:13:57
Speaker
And he ends the film also. So that's kind of the the thread that connects throughout the film. But actually, it's I would say it's a film made of like weaving motifs.
00:14:11
Speaker
And there's there's the wolf, and then there's another... kind of world where there's, it's this very stark contrasty black and white world with a poet that has writer's block and is like trying to write something and his cat, like making fun of him and this fisherman family. And it it kind of has this idyllic aura.
00:14:37
Speaker
There is ah an ox that is skipping rope with a little girl. Yeah. He looks like a Maurice Sendak character, that ox. Yeah, yeah. And it's it's so... um It's got this
Cultural Specificity in Animation
00:14:49
Speaker
kind of Alice in Wonderland kind of absurd, surreal quality, um which I think is really... um like fun. Like, I think that's one of the reasons why this film is so good at what it does because it it really has these ways of reeling people in and it's completely unapologetic. Like it's completely not explained why there's this like dancing ox playing playing skipping rope with this little girl that's kind of bullying him. um
00:15:21
Speaker
But it's like, it's totally just like accepted. It's just like, yep, here's an ox playing skipping rope with a little girl. And, and you know, and it's not it's not like addressed. None of it is addressed. None of it is needs to be addressed. Now, do you think that's because the filmmaker is expecting the audience to be literate and not have to have that stuff explained?
00:15:44
Speaker
I think there is a lot of stuff that I think is very culturally specific. So like if if you're Russian, especially of his age or older, then I think he's he's like in his late seventy s now. and orine I think he was born right in like right at the end of World Right. So I think if you are Russian and older, especially, there's a lot of things you will recognize that I only learned about after reading about the film.
00:16:14
Speaker
Like, for example, there's a shot of like a glass of liquid and like a little bit of food. Like in the sequence, there's this sequence to do with soldiers.
00:16:24
Speaker
where um this is another kind of recurring motif. There's this tango dance in in ah in a square with all these couples dancing. And then at a certain point, the music stops and poof, poof, poof, all the men disappear.
00:16:40
Speaker
and the women are left standing, immobile, with no dance partner. And then the the men you can see the men go off to war. And all the all the compositions are very like inventive. So like...
00:16:53
Speaker
There's no rules of you know perspective or or composition being followed. like the The men are kind of floating off in the sky. And then in that sequence, then there's this shot of this little liquid and and and food underneath some dripping leaves, dripping with water.
00:17:13
Speaker
So if you're Russian, you will recognize this as a glass of vodka and and some bread, which is an offering to people who've died. that that is traditionally done.
00:17:24
Speaker
like Stuff like this that like... ah And there's these different shots of... um That's kind of repeated throughout the film. There's a shot of all these little tables that have been taken out of homes and set up on the street outside. And then a long tablecloth on all these little tables as kind of like, it looks like it's set up for some kind of community event. And apparently that's something that used to happen all the time in the forties in Moscow, when they would have some big events, like a dinner or something, everybody would bring their bedside tables out and like line them up to make one big table because, you know, no one had a big enough piece of furniture.
00:18:05
Speaker
stuff like that that ah that i think yeah if you were from that time in that place you would recognize it so like i think that's also why it's so successful because everything is so specific that it you can really tell that these are memories of his that he remembers like people doing this and he remembers like the wooden house being a certain way with like this wooden kind of culverting so everything is very specific and it so it feels very like real yeah Like whatever it is, i don't necessarily understand what it is, but it feels very true for some reason to to whoever made this film, you know? And I think that's like the the basic reason why it's so successful, I think, as a film.
00:18:51
Speaker
Yeah, it it strikes me that it it comes from ah a kind of art making where, like in the past, take a James Joyce novel, for example. you know These were people who were creating very complex art that weren't necessarily understandable upon first reading. You had to be kind of immersed in that type of literature or that type of art or world to understand it or be willing to do the work to understand it Whereas now what we see all around us typically by virtue of perhaps Hollywood or whatever, there's a lot of handholding. you know Everything is explicit as opposed to implicit. And this comes from a very different kind of art.
00:19:33
Speaker
and And I think that the art that you do is is also of that school. And so I wonder if we've lost something and you know in Western art or North American art.
00:19:43
Speaker
I think there's still there's still people out there that appreciate it um you know I'm one of those people. like i I agree with you. And that's also why I love Tale of Tales is because it lets me kind of try to figure it out.
00:20:02
Speaker
So it gives me this, this gift of being able to interpret it the way I want, but it's, it's not, I don't find it frustrating.
Value of Open Interpretation in Film
00:20:12
Speaker
Like I find that it gives me enough information and enough repeated shots and clues that I feel like, you know, my mind is going all the time when I'm watching it. I'm like, Oh yeah, this, this is like the thing. And then we saw the fish over here and now there's another fish here. And like, You know, there's this sequence and in the snow with this little boy eating an apple. And it it has a very different bright look compared to the rest of the film, which is kind of earthy, muted tones. And this little boy is eating an apple and he looks up into the trees where there's these crows sitting. And the camera tracks up to the branches. And then he's also there on the branch, eating, sharing his apple with the crows. So there's this unrealistic like doubling of this little boy. But immediately you're like, oh, well, that must be like his imagination. like He's imagining himself up there with the crows.
00:21:10
Speaker
And you're I'm not like hung up on, is it a twin? Why is there suddenly a double little boy? you know It's more like instinctual. yeah and and it ah But it still allows me that freedom to interpret it. It's not telling me what's going on with this doubling.
00:21:27
Speaker
But it's it's kind of giving me the atmosphere and the the vibe and everything for me to reach the conclusion that maybe this is a dream scenario of the little boy that he's up there in the tree with the crows.
00:21:44
Speaker
So I feel supported by the filmmaker. I don't feel like a drift at sea, like completely abandoned and like, great, now I'm expected to watch this 30 minute piece of nonsense. And like, it's completely unrealistic to expect any viewer to put it together themselves or, you know, I don't feel like that with Tale of Tales. But of course, that's a personal, subjective, taste level thing. Because I know people who watch Tale of Tales and do feel that way. Like for them, it's not enough. They need more clues and they need more handholding.
00:22:20
Speaker
But for me, it's the perfect amount. It's the perfect balance. And if it was any more handholding, I would be disappointed. I would feel like what a lost opportunity. you know i i i was about to have this magical moment where I feel part of it. like I feel like I'm kind of writing it.
00:22:42
Speaker
as I'm watching it because I'm putting it together. So if you just tell me what's going on, it's a completely passive experience for me and it's so boring. Yeah, it destroys the and mystery. Yeah, exactly. So for me, it's the perfect balance, but of course that's that's different for everybody. And it's also, I think, a generational thing. Like, I think it's also like what people are used to and, you know, a cultural thing. So it's it's a hard thing to...
00:23:11
Speaker
work with, like to make your own work with this in mind, because, you know, you never know exactly who's going to be watching your film and like where they come from and what type of ah background of film they have, you know, in terms of what have they seen before. So all I can do is make work that I would want to see.
00:23:34
Speaker
because and you know trying to do anything else is, I think, a losing battle. That's such great advice for any artist, basically. Just yeah create what you would like to see, what you would like you create what you need to see that you're not seeing.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean, i don't I don't know how you can do anything else truthfully. so Although it can be painful. I recently had the experience oh yes of a family member reading one of my books, and and basically the way they phrased it up was, so I read your book, Joe.
00:24:03
Speaker
I got through it. Oh, good good for you. You got through it. And then I read another book, and it was even worse than yours. What? You know? Yeah. Because this particular book was science fiction and science fiction is famous for having kind of a threshold of entry. If you're not informed in the genre, you might find it challenging. And I think that kind of applies to these films as well. You know, so I wasn't too put out. I was more amused than anything. You were not able to get past the yeah threshold of entry. Yeah. It's not your cup of tea. whichches a people Yeah, this is a really interesting question because it's also like, what do you owe the audience for? Do you owe it to them to like give them a chance to get there?
00:24:47
Speaker
but yeah but then you also don't want to treat them like like idiots either. yeah so yeah it's like I don't like being treated like as if, oh, well, this person doesn't respect me at all. like they They think I'm a total idiot, that I'm not going to be able to do this myself.
00:25:06
Speaker
So they're like telling me everything. But then again, yeah, if you're someone like your relative who's really kind of feeling left out because they they don't have that ah information that they think they need. That's also not good. So yeah, it's a really tough situation. And his defense, like, you know, this man is not an illiterate man. The very next thing he did was handed me the man of La Mancha and said, I think you will enjoy this.
00:25:30
Speaker
you know the So I couldn't console myself with the knowledge that he's not a reader. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's when I start to think about asking for feedback from people at the right time and the right people from the right people. Yeah.
00:25:48
Speaker
It's about the audience. Audience is a funny thing, right? Because you can't create art for every audience. every Audiences have their own likes and dislikes. And then there's also...
00:26:02
Speaker
Some people just don't have the ability to to suspend their disbelief. It's just not it's not baked in for some people. and yeah And, you know, that's fine. And there's art for those people.
00:26:13
Speaker
And it's it's okay to create art that's not for those people. I think that's okay. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. and but You do have to give your audience a chance. Exactly. Right. So it's about, it's about figuring out who is your audience actually. And like, which people do you ask for feedback from that that is in your audience. So like, you know, okay, if this person doesn't get it, then maybe I do need to adjust something.
00:26:41
Speaker
ah Because this person is really, I thought this was my audience. so Yeah. So do you have like a Tale of Tales filter? Like you ask your beta watchers to see if they've heard of it or Miyazaki maybe or something like that? yeah You know, i i don't.
00:26:59
Speaker
It's quite obscure, even within like the animation and film community that I am a part of. I mean, there there are definitely some diehard fans that know it very well. um But like in my circle of of artists and filmmakers that I interact with here in Rotterdam, yeah, I don't know if anybody has seen it. is It is quite niche. um But they might they might love it once they watch it. It's just they haven't come across it yet, you know?
00:27:28
Speaker
So let's connect it to your work. So it did strike me as in the same vein, although your work is, i would say, just a hair more accessible. I'm thinking in particular of your film House, about the the last house that you lived in. and about the nature of time. It was a little bit more accessible also because you had some narration from people who had lived in the house with you.
00:27:54
Speaker
Would you say there's much of an impact of a Tale of Tales on your work? And if so, what would that be? I mean, I hope there is Tale of Tales was really the first film that I watched when I basically first discovered like experimental animation. i was I was at Art Academy and I was doing like a conceptual fine art course.
00:28:18
Speaker
And i ended up discovering experimental animation and I went to the Art Academy library and looked everything up. So I basically...
00:28:30
Speaker
learned through books and DVDs everything about like Norman McLaren and the NFB and Caroline Leaf and William Kentridge and Jans Vanckmeyer and Yuri Norstein.
00:28:41
Speaker
And I also really liked ah Jans Vanckmeyer's Dimensions of Dialogue, which is 1982 film. that is very symbolic and it it has like three different sections and one of them is like different heads kind of made up of different things, like one head made up of school supplies and one head made up of like metal things and then each head like eats the other head. and like regurgitates a different head with no conventional narration narrative. um It's yeah, very materials based kind of weird fairy tale esque symbolic films.
00:29:24
Speaker
And then Yuri Nordstein, of course, I loved Hedgehog in the Fog. I was like, oh my God, how did he do the fog? Like, you know, like I was, I got really caught up in and like the technique and everything. And then I saw Tale of Tales and I was like, oh,
00:29:38
Speaker
Huh. Okay. That's great. yeah Because I think I had never seen a work like that. I had never seen a work like what we're just describing, a work that really leaves room for interpretation and is so rich.
00:29:55
Speaker
and so engrossing that you are willing to put in the effort to interpret it yourself. And I didn't, you know, I, I wasn't, I hadn't been particularly into animation before that, but,
00:30:12
Speaker
or film, I mean, other than, you know, everybody being into film, like everybody. So this was really eye opening to me. Tale of Tales. You were primed for it at that time. I was primed. I was really I think I watched it at the right time, you know, and it really influenced, like, I think the student film that I made as my graduation film, which was like kind of a ah weird meditative, like stream of consciousness style.
00:30:40
Speaker
film. I think that idea of of having, feeling like you have the freedom to do something kind of stream of consciousness, I think that came from Tale of Tales. Because without it, I don't know that I would have had the like confidence to do that. To be like, yeah, you know what? It's just going to be this like series of shots and I know how they're connected, but it's not actually that important.
00:31:07
Speaker
That was my graduation film. So I think it it did influence my work ah at the right time. So like, I'm sure it still comes through in in the recent work also.
00:31:18
Speaker
But i'd I'd have to think about it a little bit with with How Now House, because How Now House is, like you said, it's it's a bit more grounded and something like really specific. It's It's about these grand ideas, like about time and time overlapping in one place and and how how it's so um intriguing for us to think about.
00:31:43
Speaker
other people who've lived in your house before you. ah But it's also impossible for us to really know what it was like for them. But this attempt to visualize the different times overlapping, that's what that film was. So it it use it it's addressing these grand themes, but it's actually through quite a concrete, like accessible keyhole, so speak. Yeah, I love that.
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah, which is like one real house, like the real people who live real scientists talking about time and how time works. So there's a lot of um like footholds for people to to get to these grander ideas. You're not holding their hand so much as you're giving them something to hang on to, to understand it. And did i recognize the voice of Carl Sagan in there?
00:32:35
Speaker
ah No, you're thinking of the other film. I'm sorry. Okay. Yeah. 1976 Search for Life has archival audio of like documentaries from the 1976 NASA mission to Mars.
00:32:50
Speaker
And Carl Sagan is in some of those. Yes, that's right. I'm sorry. i watched them back to back and yeah, I'm conflating the elements. Sorry about that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, i mean Carl Sagan has a great voice. And ah as soon as you're researching, you know, 1970s NASA documentaries, he comes up a lot. So it's it's kind of hard to avoid him.
00:33:09
Speaker
um But no, How Now House has... um all the All the dialogue is spoken by actors or non-professional actors, but they're all based on real either real interviews with real people or real writings. um And the voice of the scientist in the film, which is read by an actress, is the real work of Carlo Rovelli, this theoretical physicist. who is still working today. I mean, he's like in his prime um and has published a couple very accessible, popular books about time. um And he gave me his blessing to use the words in the film for which I'm very grateful.
00:33:49
Speaker
I want to compliment you too on, I'm a career sound guy. That's what I used to do for a living. I really liked your use of sound in your, your films. I mean, it was all ah technically expert and, and evocative. So the sound. Well, that's, that's great. Yeah. I mean, how now house I worked with the composer,
00:34:09
Speaker
Ruben van Asselt, who also did the sound design, um which was a big challenge because there was all these different sound recordings of all these different voices that were not professionally recorded in a studio. And he also did the music and like cleaned it all up and and put it all together. And in 1976, it Pekic who also did the color grading and some of the cinematography, he also did the sound mix, which was also a big challenge because it was this collage of different archival audio and also my own voiceover. So there was like a lot of different elements. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I'm i'm definitely very thankful for um being able to collaborate with experts on the audio side because that is not ah my field of expertise.
00:35:00
Speaker
and There was a lot of people involved in in these films too, like looking at the credits at the end. it's and Yeah, especially Hound Out House because there's so many voices. So yeah, we spent a long time finding people with like specific accents.
00:35:16
Speaker
And luckily, they only had to say a few sentences each. Now, was that a house in Rotterdam or is that somewhere else? Yeah, no, it's in Rotterdam. It's in the ah northern neighborhood. um And I lived there for 10 years. And like you find out in the film, it's it's a shared now it's a shared house with four bedrooms. So there's like a high turnover.
00:35:40
Speaker
And even back then, I discovered through the research, there was also a high turnover from when it was first built, because it was always it was one house, but two apartments. And this was kind of a um like affordable type of apartment built in the 1920s. So they they were small. There wasn't a lot of space. So like you can kind of see like as soon as these couples start having kids, then they move out and because it's just not big enough. But it meant there was also a high turnover, you know. So there was like a lot of residents to choose from and research, which is not necessarily the case. You know, like where I live now is a small place from 1937, I think it only ever had
00:36:24
Speaker
you know, maybe four or five residents the whole time just because you know, so one one person lived here for 35 years. yeah exactly and then And then the next person lived here for 20 years and then, you know, you're basically up to today. So it was a rich story, this one house. It had a lot um to mine.
00:36:44
Speaker
And then of course, even in my own tenure tenure, ten year tenure tenure, there was a lot of housemates as well. So there was there was a lot to to process for sure.
00:36:57
Speaker
Yeah, lot can happen in 10 years. Yes. Yeah. And you do, you do hear some stories in the film. How do you pick your, your projects? Um, I guess it's, it's all, it's all just part of the flow. It's all part of the the flow of the artistic practice and combined with things being nudged forward or things being developed more extensively because of uh,
00:37:27
Speaker
funding I've received for that project. So, or the funding that I've applied for and not received, but the application process made me develop the project further anyway. and So it's, it's kind of um a natural river flow with certain deviations that are kind of planned because of these practical things like funding, which is great. Like it's totally, it's it's actually quite an essential part of the process.
Impact of Funding on Projects
00:38:00
Speaker
So it it really makes me focus on one thing and develop it further, or it makes me develop it enough to realize that it's still not quite there yet and it needs even more development. So then i I might work on it on my own time until I'm ready for the next application for it. but i normally have like two or three things happening at the same time that are at different stages also because of the funding application like system and again the time involved i imagine it's varies by project but how long does it take to build a film like that
00:38:35
Speaker
Yeah, it really does vary. How Now House, I think I worked on it on and off for like three or four years because i I started doing this research like a while back. And then I was like going to the city archive and I did a couple artist residencies where I was able to focus on it and the research.
00:38:55
Speaker
And then i got a bit of funding enough to do some like animation experiments. And then I got some more funding, and then actually it all came together quite quickly. And I think we shot the film and did all the post-production within like three or four months. Oh, wow. Which is very like specific to this film because the film, there's some replacement animation that I was able to shoot on my own like over, you know, like a week in the house. So that's that's quite fast for for animation. And then the rest was live action footage, which was quickly recorded. And then it took freaking forever to rotoscope. But that is also quite fast for animation.
00:39:42
Speaker
Whereas the film I'm working on now is this kind of different science fiction story. And I think I've been working on it for like nine years on and off. And the animation technique is a different technique and it's just extremely time consuming. So I think I will be animating it probably for like two and a half years. Wow. When it's finally finished. it's It's a longer film. It's like 20 minutes, but still it's just like a completely different technique that just happens to be very time consuming. hope you're in love with it because that's a lot of time to spend with it.
00:40:16
Speaker
I am in love with it most of the time. Well, of course, yeah. You're going to have your bad days too. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, some days are really, really like great and inspiring. And it's like, yes, this is why I'm doing it. And then other times you're just like, what was I thinking? Why? do you make your of living as an animator? Do you do this full time? i mean,
00:40:43
Speaker
Like barely, i guess. ah I mean, I live very economically, shall we say. So that's the first thing. ah my My bar is pretty low.
00:40:54
Speaker
And i ah i do i do have side gigs that that sometimes I'll do more of if if I'm having a low. Yeah. So like I do do animation for hire for different projects. um If it, if it comes in and if it's a good fit, ah which is not that often to be honest, because so what I do is that, you know, it's this kind of handmade stuff and it's quite expensive.
00:41:21
Speaker
So if it comes in and it's great, I've also been doing a bit of like directing other people doing animation. So that's good. Cause it's like less of a time commitment for me.
00:41:33
Speaker
So yeah, i'm I'm happy to do the commissioned work. It's great. It's a great way to kind of try different things and, um you know, take a break from this crazy long film.
00:41:44
Speaker
Or I also have like weird side jobs that have nothing to do with this. Or I do teaching. But i but i do so I do spend most of my time doing the arts funding applications.
00:41:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And is that why you're in Rotterdam? Is because that's a good place to be for this kind of work or? yeah basically. I mean, you know, depending on the type of art you do, there might be other places that are better. You know, um each country has a different public arts system. But where I was living before, I was living in Seattle in the U.S. And There just wasn't that much public arts funding. There was some, and there still is, you know, some public arts funding. And there's a lot of great people making great work there.
00:42:33
Speaker
But i I just felt that it it wasn't enough to actually be able to have a chance of spending yeah most of your time on it. And yeah, so that's one of the reasons why I made this big switch. And like, you know, the Dutch system also has its own peculiarities. It's not like super easy to to start getting the funding or anything. Like you still have to kind of learn the system and it it can be complicated. and There's a lot of like hoops you have to jump through, but at least there's there's more funding to begin with, so you have a better shot at it. Of course, having said that, there's less funding now than there used to be here. So you know if you're Dutch, you're not happy with the way things are because you remember how things were 15, 20 years ago, where there was like so a lot more money for the arts.
00:43:23
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, coming from the US again, like your bar is pretty low. so yeah, I mean, and also to be honest, the the Netherlands is one of the places I was able to legally move to because of a special visa that they have for US American freelance. Yeah. So it's it's also not really, there wasn't a lot of other options.
00:43:45
Speaker
I mean, now that I have the permanent residence card, I could in theory move to like Belgium or Germany, but it wouldn't make sense because I'd have to start all over with their funding systems. So now I'm pretty plugged into the Dutch system.
00:43:58
Speaker
And do you speak Dutch? My Dutch is okay. My Dutch is okay. It's yeah it's not like amazing and I don't practice enough, but yeah, it's it's good enough to get by. must be hard to get practiced because everyone speaks english English in benevolence. Yeah. Yeah. You have to be really, really hardcore yeah and insist.
00:44:19
Speaker
Yeah. So, but it's it's good enough. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm happy to... speak dutch in professional situations or with anyone who would rather speak dutch so it's great that's awesome now switching back juri norstein my understanding is that he has been at work on a project for a long time ah do you know anything about that well it's called the overcoat and it's a adaptation of this google book
00:44:51
Speaker
Or sorry. um i don't know much about it. i just know what everybody else knows, which is that he's been working on it for more than 30 years. Yeah, I think he just had, I think it's a feature length film, which is why it's so expensive. And I think he just kind of hit some funding roadblocks and um His wife, who was also his collaborative partner, who does who creates all the artwork for his films, I think there was like some health issues. So I don't know what's happening with it. Yeah. I mean, I think he's still working on it.
00:45:27
Speaker
That must be very frustrating to you know be working on something for so long without knowing for sure that you're ever even going to complete it. Yeah. And especially if you're Yuri Norstein, you know, it's like if he can't get the funding, you know, for this passion project of his, then like there's no hope for any of us.
00:45:47
Speaker
i don't I don't know what the state is right now of like basically public arts funding in Russia for for this type of work. Yeah, but but he's so he's so beloved like all over the world. So who knows? maybe Maybe it's also one of those things where, you know, he's not sure he wants to make it. anymore Which does happen. I mean, that's kind of the danger with working on a project for that long. Is that then like, you know, halfway through you're like, you know what?
00:46:15
Speaker
I don't want to do this anymore. But I don't know if that's the case with him. I hope not. Obviously, I would love to see this film. but But it is a danger after 30 years. The danger of falling out of love with your work, yeah. Is higher. Yeah, yeah. Indeed. Indeed. So I hope that doesn't happen with this film I'm working on So as we come to the um the closing of our our chat, you're working on this film. Do you have any other great passion projects that you're really keen on un pursuing?
Future Projects and Availability
00:46:48
Speaker
I mean, there's definitely a couple projects that are currently on the back burner um that I would love to get back to I'm also starting a new project with a collaborator based on a poem that we will hopefully, it's a smaller scale project. So hopefully that all that'll happen like within the next six months. And then there's a feature film that I've been developing for years that is definitely on the back burner for now.
00:47:17
Speaker
And another project related to this like ancestor of mine who died in a hospital in Genoa in 1871 and something about that that I still clearly need to develop.
00:47:32
Speaker
But it's it's something I would love to have time to get back to at some point. And where can people see your work now? All of my earlier work from like 2022 and before is on my website or on my YouTube or Vimeo. So you can just Google my name and then find it. The 1976 will be online next summer.
00:47:54
Speaker
um So you just have to wait a little bit longer for that one. And then How Now House is still going around festivals. So hopefully it's coming to a film festival or animation festival near you or video art festival.
00:48:08
Speaker
That's also been happening, which is good. And we can link to all that stuff from our notes page. We can and we will. yeah Yes. Mark, any final thoughts, questions? Just wonderful. i just I managed not to raise Prague, but now going to do I'm going out myself. Because You thought were talking about Prague. Because I lived in Prague for a year. And as I was watching the first few minutes of this movie, I'm like, I think I've seen this before. Because there was all all kinds of Soviet animation still on the airwaves when I was there in 1993. Oh, I bet. I bet. Yeah. And it was culturally quite a shock.
00:48:43
Speaker
oh Oh, yeah? Well, it was. Yeah. Because I just, I had, you know, it was 1993. I'd never seen anything like some of this stuff. And it is so evocative and strange if you've never experienced it before.
00:48:55
Speaker
So thank you for reminding of this. Yeah, guess that's true. Yeah. And I mean, you know, the Czech Republic has, of course, like Jans van Kmeijer and carol zeman and like all these amazing people it's such an amazing film community too like it's it's amazing yeah yeah yeah super inspiring like this this idea of like um
00:49:18
Speaker
There's like, there's no rules you have to follow. As long as you are justifying them for yourself in your own mind, then you can do whatever you want. Like that, that kind of freedom comes through, I think, in this work, ah which I appreciate very much.
00:49:35
Speaker
People have to check out your work then. still'll get Yes. If you, if you are my audience, if you're listening and you're like, yes, I agree. Then you are my audience. Please check out my work. Yes.
00:49:48
Speaker
Tess Martin, thank you very much for being on our podcast, Recreative. Thank you for having me.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:50:16
Speaker
You've been listening to Recreative, a podcast about creativity and the works that inspire it. Recreative is produced by Mark Rainer and Joe Mahoney for Donovan Street Press Inc.
00:50:27
Speaker
in association with Monkey Joy Press. Technical production of music by Joe Mahoney, web design by Mark Rainer. You can support this podcast by checking out our guests' work, listening to their music, purchasing their books, watching their shows, and so on.
00:50:43
Speaker
You can find out more about each guest in all of our past episodes by visiting recreative.ca. That's re-creative.ca. You can contact us by emailing joemahoney at donovonstreetpress.com.
00:50:57
Speaker
We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening.