From physics to filmmaking: Mark Levinson on his new documentary, The Universe in a Grain of Sand

1
00:00:02,639 --> 00:00:05,040
Hello, and welcome to the Physics World Stories

2
00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:07,839
podcast. I'm Andrei Glessner. In this episode, we're

3
00:00:07,839 --> 00:00:11,059
gonna be hearing from theoretical physicist turned

4
00:00:11,359 --> 00:00:11,859
filmmaker,

5
00:00:12,719 --> 00:00:13,619
Mark Levinson.

6
00:00:15,224 --> 00:00:19,004
His previous films include Particle Fever, which explores

7
00:00:19,144 --> 00:00:21,804
the time at CERN, where physicists

8
00:00:22,344 --> 00:00:22,844
discovered

9
00:00:23,224 --> 00:00:24,285
the Higgs boson,

10
00:00:24,664 --> 00:00:26,285
and The Bit Player,

11
00:00:26,744 --> 00:00:29,629
which tells the story of an often overlooked

12
00:00:29,690 --> 00:00:31,309
genius, Claude Shannon,

13
00:00:31,690 --> 00:00:35,369
the father of information theory. Mark Levinson's new

14
00:00:35,369 --> 00:00:38,189
film, The Universe in a Grain of Sand,

15
00:00:38,250 --> 00:00:39,469
explores the intersection

16
00:00:40,090 --> 00:00:42,030
between science and art.

17
00:00:43,065 --> 00:00:44,365
How do we make sense

18
00:00:44,744 --> 00:00:46,445
of the world around us?

19
00:00:47,625 --> 00:00:50,344
I've often thought about how our perception of

20
00:00:50,344 --> 00:00:52,664
the world is shaped by the tools we

21
00:00:52,664 --> 00:00:54,045
have to observe it.

22
00:00:55,784 --> 00:00:58,699
I see these beautiful connections between

23
00:00:59,079 --> 00:01:01,339
artists and scientists and mathematicians.

24
00:01:01,640 --> 00:01:03,979
They are all creating new representations

25
00:01:04,519 --> 00:01:06,859
of the human experience that are complementary.

26
00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:10,379
What art might inspire how we do science?

27
00:01:10,439 --> 00:01:13,105
What scientific knowledge might inspire how we do

28
00:01:13,105 --> 00:01:15,505
art? Artists see in a way that they

29
00:01:15,505 --> 00:01:17,444
haven't seen before by inventing

30
00:01:17,825 --> 00:01:21,204
tools or techniques to extend their vision. Tools

31
00:01:21,344 --> 00:01:24,064
began really as part of nature. Every tool

32
00:01:24,064 --> 00:01:26,325
we come up with, we discover something new.

33
00:01:26,625 --> 00:01:29,959
How good a craftsman can we be with

34
00:01:29,959 --> 00:01:32,939
our tools to understand the universe more deeply?

35
00:01:34,359 --> 00:01:35,640
What do you make a computer out of?

36
00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:37,659
What do you make glass out of? Right?

37
00:01:37,719 --> 00:01:39,000
How will you build the things of the

38
00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:41,719
future? Once I loved a chemist, and now

39
00:01:41,719 --> 00:01:43,784
I know how the world is made.

40
00:01:44,325 --> 00:01:47,125
Pieces of the Earth extend our sight beyond

41
00:01:47,125 --> 00:01:47,865
our bodies.

42
00:01:48,245 --> 00:01:50,885
The idea for a digital future was that

43
00:01:50,885 --> 00:01:53,525
you could build a binary machine that could

44
00:01:53,525 --> 00:01:56,325
do all the calculations you wanted. That changed

45
00:01:56,325 --> 00:01:58,319
everything. Here's Mark Levinson.

46
00:01:58,719 --> 00:01:59,379
I am

47
00:02:00,159 --> 00:02:01,379
a, I guess, you'd call

48
00:02:01,920 --> 00:02:03,620
physicist turned filmmaker.

49
00:02:04,079 --> 00:02:06,239
I was a theoretical physicist, and I I

50
00:02:06,239 --> 00:02:08,639
like to tell people now I'm a very,

51
00:02:08,639 --> 00:02:10,259
very theoretical physicist.

52
00:02:10,965 --> 00:02:13,844
Really, I've been making films for longer than

53
00:02:13,844 --> 00:02:15,284
I was a physicist, but I did get

54
00:02:15,284 --> 00:02:18,645
my doctorate in, theoretical particle physics and then

55
00:02:18,645 --> 00:02:20,664
somehow thought that was the proper

56
00:02:21,044 --> 00:02:22,585
preparation to become a filmmaker.

57
00:02:23,205 --> 00:02:23,705
I

58
00:02:24,030 --> 00:02:24,530
worked

59
00:02:25,069 --> 00:02:27,629
in fiction film for many years. I was

60
00:02:27,629 --> 00:02:30,509
really interested in telling stories, human stories that

61
00:02:30,509 --> 00:02:32,909
sort of dealt with how the world works.

62
00:02:32,909 --> 00:02:33,409
And

63
00:02:33,709 --> 00:02:35,469
as I was in the fiction world for

64
00:02:35,469 --> 00:02:36,769
many years, but always

65
00:02:37,715 --> 00:02:40,435
thinking about wanting to do something that was

66
00:02:40,435 --> 00:02:41,574
about that overlap.

67
00:02:42,115 --> 00:02:43,814
About 10, 12 years ago,

68
00:02:44,115 --> 00:02:46,354
I heard about a physicist who wanted to

69
00:02:46,354 --> 00:02:49,794
make a film about the Large Hadron Collider,

70
00:02:49,794 --> 00:02:50,615
the big experiment

71
00:02:51,219 --> 00:02:52,919
at CERN outside of Geneva.

72
00:02:53,620 --> 00:02:56,840
And that was my field, actually, and so

73
00:02:56,900 --> 00:02:58,419
I knew what was at stake. And so

74
00:02:58,419 --> 00:02:58,919
I

75
00:02:59,219 --> 00:03:02,259
contacted the physicist and said that, you know,

76
00:03:02,259 --> 00:03:03,539
I could be very interested in this. I

77
00:03:03,539 --> 00:03:05,139
think this could be a human story. I

78
00:03:05,139 --> 00:03:07,224
saw it more as a narrative. I was

79
00:03:07,224 --> 00:03:09,625
not interested in doing a physics film, a

80
00:03:09,625 --> 00:03:12,044
documentary per se. I'd never done a documentary

81
00:03:12,585 --> 00:03:14,664
and didn't really wanna do a science documentary,

82
00:03:14,664 --> 00:03:16,344
but I could see the potential for something

83
00:03:16,344 --> 00:03:18,264
else there. And if he was interested, I

84
00:03:18,344 --> 00:03:20,800
I'd love to take it on. And he

85
00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:20,960
said,

86
00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:24,319
sounds great. And so I did, and that

87
00:03:24,319 --> 00:03:26,259
became particle fever, which

88
00:03:26,719 --> 00:03:27,620
we were

89
00:03:27,919 --> 00:03:28,419
fortunate

90
00:03:29,439 --> 00:03:30,259
to be making,

91
00:03:30,879 --> 00:03:33,280
when they actually discovered the Higgs. Although that's

92
00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:35,965
not what when I started, everybody told me

93
00:03:35,965 --> 00:03:37,564
that they're not gonna be making a discovery

94
00:03:37,564 --> 00:03:40,205
while I'm still shooting, not knowing how long

95
00:03:40,205 --> 00:03:42,444
I'd be shooting and what the progress would

96
00:03:42,444 --> 00:03:44,925
be there, actually. So it ended up having

97
00:03:44,925 --> 00:03:47,805
incredible timing because we were really a pretty

98
00:03:47,805 --> 00:03:48,305
unique

99
00:03:49,439 --> 00:03:51,840
project that followed in real time the discovery

100
00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:54,099
of of, you know, something that was really

101
00:03:54,319 --> 00:03:56,719
foundational in terms of our understanding of the

102
00:03:56,719 --> 00:03:58,719
way the world works. So suddenly, I was

103
00:03:58,719 --> 00:04:01,519
a science documentary maker. I followed that with

104
00:04:01,519 --> 00:04:02,400
a film about,

105
00:04:02,719 --> 00:04:03,620
Claude Shannon,

106
00:04:04,245 --> 00:04:06,344
the father of information theory who,

107
00:04:07,444 --> 00:04:08,885
has to be one of the most,

108
00:04:09,444 --> 00:04:09,944
egregiously

109
00:04:10,245 --> 00:04:12,105
unknown geniuses of our time.

110
00:04:12,485 --> 00:04:14,325
And I admit I didn't know who he

111
00:04:14,325 --> 00:04:16,904
was either when somebody proposed this to me.

112
00:04:16,964 --> 00:04:18,665
I ended up making a film

113
00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:20,919
about him that was a sort of a

114
00:04:20,919 --> 00:04:23,579
hybrid that had scripted components

115
00:04:23,959 --> 00:04:25,419
as well as unscripted.

116
00:04:26,279 --> 00:04:26,779
And,

117
00:04:28,680 --> 00:04:31,095
so sort of keeping my hand in both.

118
00:04:31,415 --> 00:04:32,074
And then,

119
00:04:32,694 --> 00:04:35,014
I made my latest film, which is the

120
00:04:35,014 --> 00:04:37,415
universe in a grain of sand. And as

121
00:04:37,415 --> 00:04:40,055
much out of self justification as anything, I

122
00:04:40,214 --> 00:04:41,194
I've I've been

123
00:04:41,574 --> 00:04:42,954
very interested in

124
00:04:43,269 --> 00:04:45,430
showing the overlap between art and science. I

125
00:04:45,430 --> 00:04:47,050
think there's a lot of parallels

126
00:04:48,310 --> 00:04:50,389
in what they're doing and, you know, how

127
00:04:50,389 --> 00:04:51,449
they approach things.

128
00:04:51,909 --> 00:04:55,129
And so this was an experiment to really

129
00:04:55,669 --> 00:04:56,969
explicitly integrate

130
00:04:57,514 --> 00:04:59,194
science and art. And so I had this

131
00:04:59,194 --> 00:05:00,654
idea of telling a story

132
00:05:01,035 --> 00:05:02,175
that was somewhat

133
00:05:02,555 --> 00:05:05,274
of a technological story and advances in our

134
00:05:05,274 --> 00:05:06,335
scientific understanding,

135
00:05:06,714 --> 00:05:07,214
but

136
00:05:07,514 --> 00:05:10,814
juxtaposing it with the works of artists and

137
00:05:11,035 --> 00:05:11,535
painters,

138
00:05:11,835 --> 00:05:12,975
sculptors, and and

139
00:05:13,410 --> 00:05:14,230
experimental filmmakers

140
00:05:15,090 --> 00:05:17,029
that were not explicitly

141
00:05:18,449 --> 00:05:20,389
designed to explain the science,

142
00:05:20,770 --> 00:05:24,389
but for me captured something about the phenomena

143
00:05:24,850 --> 00:05:26,389
that I thought was

144
00:05:26,770 --> 00:05:27,270
complementary

145
00:05:28,129 --> 00:05:28,629
to

146
00:05:29,214 --> 00:05:32,254
maybe scientific explanations and maybe provided a different

147
00:05:32,254 --> 00:05:34,115
perspective that I think is important.

148
00:05:34,574 --> 00:05:35,475
It's a really

149
00:05:35,935 --> 00:05:38,834
interesting documentary, as you say, with the juxtaposition

150
00:05:39,294 --> 00:05:41,294
of the of the science and the art.

151
00:05:41,294 --> 00:05:43,089
And it's, well, it's a piece of art

152
00:05:43,089 --> 00:05:44,850
in its own right. Right? It doesn't it's

153
00:05:44,850 --> 00:05:47,490
it's not a straight scientific documentary in by

154
00:05:47,490 --> 00:05:48,629
any stretch of the imagination.

155
00:05:49,490 --> 00:05:52,230
And there's not, as you say, not necessarily

156
00:05:52,290 --> 00:05:53,990
a direct link between what's

157
00:05:54,370 --> 00:05:55,889
we're seeing in the art and what your

158
00:05:56,209 --> 00:05:57,670
the the science that's being

159
00:05:58,105 --> 00:06:00,024
talked about. So how did you go about

160
00:06:00,024 --> 00:06:01,964
choosing which art you were going

161
00:06:02,264 --> 00:06:04,125
to depict? It originated

162
00:06:04,585 --> 00:06:07,625
from discussions with, Dario Gill, who was the

163
00:06:07,625 --> 00:06:10,024
head of international research at IBM. We had

164
00:06:10,105 --> 00:06:11,865
I had a friend who worked there, and

165
00:06:11,865 --> 00:06:14,639
he told me that Dario was often

166
00:06:15,100 --> 00:06:18,300
quoting a segment from particle fever in talks

167
00:06:18,300 --> 00:06:20,939
he gave. And the segment he was take

168
00:06:21,100 --> 00:06:22,240
taking was where

169
00:06:22,620 --> 00:06:25,680
one of our physicists in particle fever, Sebastianopoulos,

170
00:06:26,605 --> 00:06:27,585
talks about how,

171
00:06:27,964 --> 00:06:31,004
in his mind, what really distinguishes a great

172
00:06:31,004 --> 00:06:31,504
scientist

173
00:06:32,285 --> 00:06:32,785
is

174
00:06:33,085 --> 00:06:34,545
a modicum of intelligence,

175
00:06:35,165 --> 00:06:36,305
but really

176
00:06:36,685 --> 00:06:39,425
an artistic taste in being able to identify

177
00:06:39,725 --> 00:06:42,225
an important problem that hasn't been solved

178
00:06:42,660 --> 00:06:44,500
and that the time for solving it has

179
00:06:44,500 --> 00:06:45,160
come now.

180
00:06:45,460 --> 00:06:47,000
And that that decision,

181
00:06:48,020 --> 00:06:51,220
was what really was often what distinguished the

182
00:06:51,220 --> 00:06:51,720
most

183
00:06:52,020 --> 00:06:54,920
creative and and impactful scientists.

184
00:06:55,354 --> 00:06:56,095
And so

185
00:06:56,475 --> 00:06:58,074
I I went the first time I went

186
00:06:58,074 --> 00:07:00,074
to Dario's office, I saw he had a

187
00:07:00,074 --> 00:07:02,014
poster of, Glenn Gould,

188
00:07:02,475 --> 00:07:03,694
from when he was recording

189
00:07:04,235 --> 00:07:06,975
the the early version of the, Goldberg Variations.

190
00:07:07,490 --> 00:07:09,110
I thought that well, that's interesting.

191
00:07:09,490 --> 00:07:11,430
Not what I expected necessarily

192
00:07:11,810 --> 00:07:14,769
at the office of the director of I,

193
00:07:15,250 --> 00:07:16,230
IBM Research.

194
00:07:17,089 --> 00:07:19,009
And we just had a very wide ranging

195
00:07:19,009 --> 00:07:22,274
conversation and and about where where technology was

196
00:07:22,274 --> 00:07:25,095
going and about art and science. And so

197
00:07:25,555 --> 00:07:27,235
there was a very loose mandate of what

198
00:07:27,235 --> 00:07:28,754
I want what what the film was gonna

199
00:07:28,754 --> 00:07:30,675
be about. It was they he asked, would

200
00:07:30,675 --> 00:07:33,154
I consider doing a film? I certainly wasn't

201
00:07:33,154 --> 00:07:35,254
interested in doing a film about IBM

202
00:07:35,795 --> 00:07:36,274
or about,

203
00:07:37,370 --> 00:07:40,170
strictly about technology, but I began to see

204
00:07:40,170 --> 00:07:42,649
there could be something broader here. The questions

205
00:07:42,649 --> 00:07:44,649
that are interesting to me are how we

206
00:07:44,649 --> 00:07:46,410
make sense of the world, whether that's from

207
00:07:46,410 --> 00:07:50,110
a scientific perspective or the artistic perspective. Specifically,

208
00:07:50,170 --> 00:07:52,535
what happened is when I got the approval

209
00:07:52,595 --> 00:07:54,914
to start to explore making the film, it

210
00:07:54,914 --> 00:07:57,875
was right really when COVID started. So I

211
00:07:57,875 --> 00:08:00,274
think normally I would have gone and started

212
00:08:00,274 --> 00:08:02,675
to do interviews. I would have just started

213
00:08:02,675 --> 00:08:04,639
to interview people, and it would have been

214
00:08:04,639 --> 00:08:07,620
more scientists and technologists and things like that.

215
00:08:08,079 --> 00:08:10,399
But because I couldn't do that, I had

216
00:08:10,399 --> 00:08:11,699
this idea, and

217
00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:14,579
it is interesting thinking back on where

218
00:08:15,040 --> 00:08:17,600
it really came from, but this idea of

219
00:08:17,600 --> 00:08:21,104
using the works of experimental filmmakers and and

220
00:08:21,104 --> 00:08:21,604
artists.

221
00:08:21,904 --> 00:08:23,345
At one point, I went back and looked

222
00:08:23,345 --> 00:08:26,064
at my hard drives from particle fever because

223
00:08:26,064 --> 00:08:27,904
I actually wanted to find that clip of

224
00:08:27,904 --> 00:08:28,404
Savas,

225
00:08:29,745 --> 00:08:31,664
which in film in the particle fever, you

226
00:08:31,664 --> 00:08:33,605
know, we've cut it, inter intercut it,

227
00:08:34,259 --> 00:08:35,779
and I realized, oh, well, I can I

228
00:08:35,779 --> 00:08:37,460
can use the whole thing? I have the

229
00:08:37,460 --> 00:08:39,940
original on that. And what I discovered is

230
00:08:39,940 --> 00:08:40,440
that,

231
00:08:41,060 --> 00:08:43,560
remembered is that I had had this idea

232
00:08:44,180 --> 00:08:45,800
of maybe using experimental

233
00:08:46,420 --> 00:08:46,920
filmmakers

234
00:08:47,714 --> 00:08:49,714
back on particle fever. There's a couple of

235
00:08:49,714 --> 00:08:50,214
people

236
00:08:50,595 --> 00:08:52,995
that I had talked to. And, again, particle

237
00:08:52,995 --> 00:08:54,534
fever was my first documentary,

238
00:08:55,475 --> 00:08:59,074
and I I guess, unbound by the traditions

239
00:08:59,074 --> 00:09:00,514
of what it had to be, I had

240
00:09:00,514 --> 00:09:03,389
started thinking, well, could I use experimental films,

241
00:09:03,389 --> 00:09:05,169
which I had become

242
00:09:05,549 --> 00:09:08,350
aware of. So my early film preparation was

243
00:09:08,350 --> 00:09:10,990
I was I I I got my doctorate

244
00:09:10,990 --> 00:09:11,649
at Berkeley.

245
00:09:12,190 --> 00:09:14,190
They have an archive there called the Pacific

246
00:09:14,190 --> 00:09:15,009
Film Archive,

247
00:09:15,404 --> 00:09:16,945
which is, you know, this great

248
00:09:17,324 --> 00:09:19,584
cinema tech type place that shows,

249
00:09:20,125 --> 00:09:23,164
a lot of European films and, experimental films

250
00:09:23,164 --> 00:09:25,024
as well. And and so I had

251
00:09:25,565 --> 00:09:26,464
been a volunteer

252
00:09:27,004 --> 00:09:29,004
to project in their research screening room, and

253
00:09:29,004 --> 00:09:30,419
it allowed me to see all sorts of

254
00:09:30,419 --> 00:09:32,419
things, and it exposed me to these filmmakers.

255
00:09:32,419 --> 00:09:35,139
And and it was interesting because, I mean,

256
00:09:35,139 --> 00:09:37,940
in particle fever and in the bit player,

257
00:09:37,940 --> 00:09:39,860
the the Claude Shannon film, I mean, one

258
00:09:39,860 --> 00:09:41,959
of the things I've yeah. I I continually

259
00:09:42,100 --> 00:09:43,720
face is how do you

260
00:09:44,024 --> 00:09:47,225
make science accessible? How do you explain to

261
00:09:47,225 --> 00:09:47,725
laypeople

262
00:09:48,264 --> 00:09:49,084
what science

263
00:09:49,704 --> 00:09:52,125
the science that they may not know? And

264
00:09:52,264 --> 00:09:53,644
it's an evolving thing,

265
00:09:54,424 --> 00:09:57,080
and it's always the the hardest thing about

266
00:09:57,080 --> 00:09:59,159
these films where the films that I make

267
00:09:59,159 --> 00:10:02,120
that involve science are not designed to be

268
00:10:02,120 --> 00:10:05,159
explaining science. They're always I'm I'm looking at

269
00:10:05,159 --> 00:10:06,220
it in terms of

270
00:10:06,600 --> 00:10:08,940
process or people or things like that.

271
00:10:09,965 --> 00:10:11,805
And so I guess I had had this

272
00:10:11,805 --> 00:10:14,045
idea even back then that, you know, from

273
00:10:14,205 --> 00:10:16,305
you see these works of experimental filmmakers.

274
00:10:16,845 --> 00:10:19,165
And, you know, I mean, from very early

275
00:10:19,165 --> 00:10:20,605
on, one of the things they played with

276
00:10:20,605 --> 00:10:22,365
when they when they could actually do things

277
00:10:22,365 --> 00:10:22,860
with

278
00:10:23,820 --> 00:10:26,379
with, you know, with the equipment they had

279
00:10:26,379 --> 00:10:27,120
at the time,

280
00:10:27,659 --> 00:10:28,159
was

281
00:10:28,700 --> 00:10:29,839
superpose images,

282
00:10:31,100 --> 00:10:33,519
and and and create images in film

283
00:10:33,899 --> 00:10:36,220
that are certainly nothing that could actually happen

284
00:10:36,220 --> 00:10:37,579
in real life. You don't see 2 people.

285
00:10:37,579 --> 00:10:38,954
If you saw 2 people standing on top

286
00:10:38,954 --> 00:10:41,595
of each other merged in real life, you'd

287
00:10:41,595 --> 00:10:44,315
totally freak out. But we accepted in film,

288
00:10:44,315 --> 00:10:46,394
and so I started thinking, well, maybe there's

289
00:10:46,394 --> 00:10:47,454
something there. And,

290
00:10:47,754 --> 00:10:49,754
you know, I just had great admiration for

291
00:10:49,754 --> 00:10:52,570
these artists who are making these films, working

292
00:10:52,570 --> 00:10:55,370
as hard as any scientist I know, you

293
00:10:55,370 --> 00:10:57,850
know, often not getting the recognition they deserve.

294
00:10:57,850 --> 00:10:58,990
So what I did was,

295
00:10:59,370 --> 00:11:00,809
as I said, not being able to shoot

296
00:11:00,809 --> 00:11:04,409
anything, I hired 2 professors of experimental film,

297
00:11:04,409 --> 00:11:08,095
avant garde film. We just started meeting virtually

298
00:11:08,235 --> 00:11:11,115
every week, and I told them some of

299
00:11:11,115 --> 00:11:13,195
the ideas. They were not science people, so

300
00:11:13,195 --> 00:11:14,954
I would be I'd be explaining the science

301
00:11:14,954 --> 00:11:16,414
to them and talk about things,

302
00:11:17,754 --> 00:11:18,254
and

303
00:11:18,659 --> 00:11:22,039
they would start suggesting ideas of of filmmakers

304
00:11:22,100 --> 00:11:25,220
to look at, artists and experimental filmmakers. And

305
00:11:25,220 --> 00:11:27,700
so, you know, we would meet, as I

306
00:11:27,700 --> 00:11:30,100
say, once a week, and, I'd look at

307
00:11:30,100 --> 00:11:32,360
things and we discuss them, and then we'd,

308
00:11:33,014 --> 00:11:35,735
they'd evolve a lot more. And and so

309
00:11:35,735 --> 00:11:38,235
at a certain point, I had several 100

310
00:11:38,295 --> 00:11:39,274
artists in

311
00:11:39,735 --> 00:11:40,394
a spreadsheet.

312
00:11:40,774 --> 00:11:42,774
It was exciting. I mean, I was seeing

313
00:11:42,774 --> 00:11:45,595
these things. So so I I started assembling

314
00:11:47,309 --> 00:11:49,089
a canvas of artists

315
00:11:49,470 --> 00:11:51,889
before I actually even had a full narrative.

316
00:11:52,029 --> 00:11:54,589
I mean, I sort of knew, okay. You

317
00:11:54,589 --> 00:11:56,350
know, I was gonna talk you know, at

318
00:11:56,350 --> 00:11:58,190
some level, I wanted to talk about the

319
00:11:58,190 --> 00:12:01,575
development of our classical computers and technical things,

320
00:12:01,575 --> 00:12:04,615
but then, you know, get into how this

321
00:12:04,615 --> 00:12:06,394
has progressed in terms of,

322
00:12:07,095 --> 00:12:09,995
the brain and where things were happening. And

323
00:12:10,455 --> 00:12:12,235
another discovery was that

324
00:12:12,615 --> 00:12:15,495
at IBM, actually, in IBM Research, they were

325
00:12:15,495 --> 00:12:18,250
doing pure scientific research, which I didn't realize.

326
00:12:18,790 --> 00:12:21,269
And so I I could see that this

327
00:12:21,269 --> 00:12:22,009
could possibly

328
00:12:22,870 --> 00:12:23,370
merge

329
00:12:23,910 --> 00:12:26,149
and deal with things with the brain, with

330
00:12:26,149 --> 00:12:29,190
AI, with a quantum where where there was

331
00:12:29,269 --> 00:12:31,504
you know, I I mean, this was 2020,

332
00:12:31,884 --> 00:12:33,105
2019, 2020.

333
00:12:34,365 --> 00:12:36,524
So it was before the huge explosion in

334
00:12:36,524 --> 00:12:39,404
AI, but it was when quantum computing was

335
00:12:39,404 --> 00:12:40,544
starting to take

336
00:12:41,004 --> 00:12:42,924
get get a lot more serious attention than

337
00:12:42,924 --> 00:12:45,269
it had. So so I was looking, again,

338
00:12:45,269 --> 00:12:47,350
looking for art that could do this. And

339
00:12:47,350 --> 00:12:47,850
so,

340
00:12:48,710 --> 00:12:51,529
that went on for months. And then finally

341
00:12:52,309 --> 00:12:53,450
I mean, in the fall,

342
00:12:55,110 --> 00:12:57,004
I had a lot of artists

343
00:12:57,625 --> 00:12:59,705
and no structure. And so then I said,

344
00:12:59,705 --> 00:13:01,304
well, maybe I should write a script and

345
00:13:01,304 --> 00:13:02,985
and, you know, just if I could if

346
00:13:02,985 --> 00:13:04,745
this is gonna tie together, do I have

347
00:13:04,745 --> 00:13:06,985
the elements to put together a film? And

348
00:13:06,985 --> 00:13:09,065
so I just wrote a script, sort of

349
00:13:09,065 --> 00:13:11,610
a narrative of what it could, what the

350
00:13:11,610 --> 00:13:12,590
flow could be.

351
00:13:13,129 --> 00:13:14,269
And, again, not

352
00:13:14,809 --> 00:13:17,210
sure at that point whether this is, is

353
00:13:17,210 --> 00:13:19,290
it a short film? Is it a feature?

354
00:13:19,290 --> 00:13:21,450
Is it who knows what this is? But

355
00:13:21,450 --> 00:13:23,549
just try to put something together

356
00:13:23,850 --> 00:13:25,149
indicating, okay.

357
00:13:25,784 --> 00:13:26,284
Here,

358
00:13:26,745 --> 00:13:28,664
I don't know who's gonna say this, but,

359
00:13:28,664 --> 00:13:30,264
you know, this is something we ought to

360
00:13:30,264 --> 00:13:32,424
do. And I can maybe use this artist's

361
00:13:32,424 --> 00:13:34,424
work here and maybe use this artist's work

362
00:13:34,424 --> 00:13:34,924
here.

363
00:13:35,384 --> 00:13:37,625
At that point, again, I still couldn't shoot

364
00:13:37,625 --> 00:13:38,764
anything. So,

365
00:13:39,220 --> 00:13:42,340
I actually brought in another editor. Melody London

366
00:13:42,340 --> 00:13:44,980
worked with me and we and and basically

367
00:13:44,980 --> 00:13:45,480
said,

368
00:13:46,340 --> 00:13:48,500
does this make any sense? And I recorded

369
00:13:48,500 --> 00:13:51,379
myself doing all the narration because, again, that

370
00:13:51,379 --> 00:13:52,980
was just the easiest just to see. I

371
00:13:52,980 --> 00:13:55,154
needed something to put it together. And and

372
00:13:55,154 --> 00:13:57,674
I think, you know, we put together a

373
00:13:57,674 --> 00:14:00,554
a maybe it was about 15, 16 minute

374
00:14:00,554 --> 00:14:01,054
piece

375
00:14:03,355 --> 00:14:04,095
that people,

376
00:14:04,554 --> 00:14:07,355
were found compelling. It was very different from

377
00:14:07,355 --> 00:14:08,334
anything that

378
00:14:09,600 --> 00:14:11,519
any of us had seen, but there was

379
00:14:11,519 --> 00:14:14,180
something that worked about it. The artwork,

380
00:14:14,980 --> 00:14:17,360
in a sense, I actually had it in

381
00:14:17,360 --> 00:14:19,360
play before I actually had the story in

382
00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:21,540
place, and then it became a real iterative

383
00:14:22,024 --> 00:14:24,764
process as, you know, as it went on.

384
00:14:25,545 --> 00:14:27,705
Yeah. That's really interesting because it I I

385
00:14:27,705 --> 00:14:29,705
mean, it sounds like the film wouldn't be

386
00:14:29,705 --> 00:14:32,105
what it is at all if COVID hadn't

387
00:14:32,105 --> 00:14:33,945
happened. Right? It's that's one of those things.

388
00:14:33,945 --> 00:14:37,669
Another instrumental thing was I had George Dyson,

389
00:14:38,210 --> 00:14:38,710
who,

390
00:14:39,889 --> 00:14:41,970
you know, was a fascinating person who I

391
00:14:41,970 --> 00:14:42,710
had met,

392
00:14:43,970 --> 00:14:46,870
a number of years before briefly because I

393
00:14:47,169 --> 00:14:49,350
actually have a fiction script

394
00:14:49,674 --> 00:14:51,595
that I'm I've been working on that involves

395
00:14:51,595 --> 00:14:54,154
science and art, and I got support from

396
00:14:54,154 --> 00:14:55,295
the Sloan Foundation.

397
00:14:55,754 --> 00:14:56,254
And

398
00:14:57,514 --> 00:14:59,995
George was an adviser on another project at

399
00:14:59,995 --> 00:15:02,495
the Sloan Foundation. So I had met him,

400
00:15:03,320 --> 00:15:03,799
but,

401
00:15:05,080 --> 00:15:06,519
it had not really had a lot of

402
00:15:06,519 --> 00:15:08,840
interaction, but there was there was enough overlap.

403
00:15:08,840 --> 00:15:09,740
George is is,

404
00:15:10,840 --> 00:15:13,399
Freeman Dyson's son. Freeman is a very, very

405
00:15:13,399 --> 00:15:14,620
prominent physicist,

406
00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:15,740
was

407
00:15:16,634 --> 00:15:18,554
at the Institute for Advanced Study. So I

408
00:15:18,554 --> 00:15:20,715
I knew all about Freeman Dyson from my

409
00:15:20,715 --> 00:15:21,215
physics.

410
00:15:22,394 --> 00:15:25,855
And it turns out that, I saw somebody,

411
00:15:27,355 --> 00:15:30,154
in Europe who had been the filmmaker working

412
00:15:30,154 --> 00:15:32,254
with George. And when I told her about

413
00:15:32,360 --> 00:15:33,720
project I was working on, she says, oh,

414
00:15:33,720 --> 00:15:35,639
you know, George is working on a book

415
00:15:35,639 --> 00:15:36,460
called Anologia

416
00:15:36,840 --> 00:15:37,980
about the

417
00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:41,399
fact that in some ways he felt we

418
00:15:41,399 --> 00:15:43,740
were going back to analog, which is something

419
00:15:44,120 --> 00:15:46,600
that Dario had talked about how we were

420
00:15:46,600 --> 00:15:49,105
going that direction. And and it's a fascinating

421
00:15:49,485 --> 00:15:51,345
book. It's a very unusual book.

422
00:15:52,044 --> 00:15:54,225
George is a very interesting person.

423
00:15:54,605 --> 00:15:56,764
He sort of was a renegade, I think,

424
00:15:56,764 --> 00:15:59,164
from traditional science, but has be but is

425
00:15:59,164 --> 00:16:01,424
very, very bright and very understands

426
00:16:01,804 --> 00:16:03,184
a lot about science and

427
00:16:03,539 --> 00:16:04,039
and,

428
00:16:04,820 --> 00:16:06,440
was just looking at that whole

429
00:16:07,539 --> 00:16:09,539
the way the world was evolving. And and

430
00:16:09,539 --> 00:16:12,179
so George sent me a draft. He hadn't

431
00:16:12,179 --> 00:16:14,259
even finished it yet. And and that so

432
00:16:14,259 --> 00:16:16,100
that started to influence the way I was

433
00:16:16,100 --> 00:16:19,080
looking. So, yes, I think having that time

434
00:16:19,514 --> 00:16:20,415
to not just

435
00:16:20,875 --> 00:16:23,434
run and start shooting, but to think about

436
00:16:23,434 --> 00:16:24,254
these things

437
00:16:24,634 --> 00:16:26,654
was very, very significant

438
00:16:27,195 --> 00:16:29,434
in terms of how the film evolved. That

439
00:16:29,434 --> 00:16:31,535
is it has resulted in a very thoughtful

440
00:16:31,919 --> 00:16:34,419
film. Right? I mean, it's it's really interesting

441
00:16:34,879 --> 00:16:37,039
film to watch and, you know, it stayed

442
00:16:37,039 --> 00:16:37,700
with me,

443
00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:40,799
in terms of the concepts that you're talking

444
00:16:40,799 --> 00:16:42,799
about, but also the the imagery in it.

445
00:16:42,799 --> 00:16:44,320
To be perfectly honest, there's a question here

446
00:16:44,320 --> 00:16:46,000
which I'm not quite sure how to ask,

447
00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:46,500
but,

448
00:16:47,485 --> 00:16:48,225
it's sort

449
00:16:48,845 --> 00:16:50,785
of no. Not sort of. It did

450
00:16:51,165 --> 00:16:53,485
take me back to, you know, my early

451
00:16:53,485 --> 00:16:55,565
twenties of listening to a lot of Pink

452
00:16:55,565 --> 00:16:58,625
Floyd and watching experimental film. Right?

453
00:17:00,830 --> 00:17:01,330
Yeah.

454
00:17:01,709 --> 00:17:03,470
Well, my brother has said that this would

455
00:17:03,470 --> 00:17:05,170
be the ultimate trip for him

456
00:17:06,269 --> 00:17:08,210
if if that's what you're alluding to.

457
00:17:08,910 --> 00:17:10,769
Well, I know. Not necessarily.

458
00:17:11,309 --> 00:17:13,069
But that's sort of I I think the

459
00:17:13,069 --> 00:17:14,825
question I wanted to ask really before we

460
00:17:14,825 --> 00:17:16,825
get onto something else, which I wanted to

461
00:17:16,825 --> 00:17:17,964
ask about this is,

462
00:17:18,505 --> 00:17:20,424
is there a concern for you when you're

463
00:17:20,424 --> 00:17:22,664
making something like this? You know, you're talking

464
00:17:22,664 --> 00:17:24,684
about the brain. You're talking about,

465
00:17:25,625 --> 00:17:28,585
quantum things. You're using experimental film that it

466
00:17:28,585 --> 00:17:29,085
might,

467
00:17:29,519 --> 00:17:30,019
you

468
00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:30,940
you

469
00:17:31,359 --> 00:17:34,240
know, without careful handling of it, the science

470
00:17:34,240 --> 00:17:36,960
can become pseudoscience quite quickly. Do is that

471
00:17:36,960 --> 00:17:38,720
something that concerns you when you're making a

472
00:17:38,720 --> 00:17:40,720
film like this? No. I wouldn't say I

473
00:17:40,720 --> 00:17:43,140
was worried that the science would become pseudoscience

474
00:17:46,694 --> 00:17:47,674
Because I think

475
00:17:48,055 --> 00:17:48,875
my guiding

476
00:17:50,214 --> 00:17:50,714
principle

477
00:17:51,575 --> 00:17:53,494
in particle fever and the bit player and

478
00:17:53,494 --> 00:17:54,795
this film has been

479
00:17:55,255 --> 00:17:55,755
that

480
00:17:56,375 --> 00:17:56,875
I

481
00:18:00,359 --> 00:18:02,599
I think it's important that what is said

482
00:18:02,599 --> 00:18:03,500
is accurate.

483
00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:04,380
What's

484
00:18:04,759 --> 00:18:07,660
critical is knowing what to leave out.

485
00:18:08,359 --> 00:18:10,059
And I would rather

486
00:18:11,240 --> 00:18:14,200
leave some leave things out, but have the

487
00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:15,420
things that are in

488
00:18:16,164 --> 00:18:18,884
be accurate. And I I I've tried I'm

489
00:18:18,884 --> 00:18:20,505
pretty careful about that.

490
00:18:22,644 --> 00:18:24,025
In in particle fever,

491
00:18:24,404 --> 00:18:25,144
for sure,

492
00:18:26,644 --> 00:18:28,244
there were a lot of things, some big

493
00:18:28,244 --> 00:18:30,309
things that we just left out. And, I

494
00:18:30,309 --> 00:18:32,630
mean, people ask this. I mean, I, you

495
00:18:32,630 --> 00:18:33,130
know,

496
00:18:33,430 --> 00:18:34,390
I I I do talk to a lot

497
00:18:34,390 --> 00:18:36,869
of people that are making science films. They,

498
00:18:36,869 --> 00:18:38,890
you know, and talk about what the difficulty

499
00:18:38,950 --> 00:18:40,549
is. And I think that what I say

500
00:18:40,549 --> 00:18:41,830
is I think the problem with a lot

501
00:18:41,830 --> 00:18:43,269
of science films is that they try to

502
00:18:43,269 --> 00:18:44,170
explain everything.

503
00:18:44,804 --> 00:18:45,304
And

504
00:18:45,684 --> 00:18:47,845
if there's one advantage I have with a

505
00:18:47,845 --> 00:18:49,065
real science background,

506
00:18:49,684 --> 00:18:50,184
it's

507
00:18:50,724 --> 00:18:53,204
knowing what I think you can leave out

508
00:18:53,204 --> 00:18:54,264
and what is important

509
00:18:54,644 --> 00:18:56,424
and emphasizing that. And so

510
00:18:57,044 --> 00:18:58,504
on this film, too,

511
00:18:59,410 --> 00:19:00,150
I was

512
00:19:00,529 --> 00:19:03,269
very conscious of that. I mean, and

513
00:19:04,130 --> 00:19:05,890
it's a tricky thing. I mean, you know,

514
00:19:05,890 --> 00:19:08,450
I mean, quantum computing in particular was was

515
00:19:08,450 --> 00:19:10,690
a very tricky area in terms of how

516
00:19:10,690 --> 00:19:12,450
much to say. And I went through various

517
00:19:12,450 --> 00:19:12,950
iterations,

518
00:19:14,494 --> 00:19:17,534
trying in some in earlier versions to have

519
00:19:17,534 --> 00:19:19,375
much more. But it's one of those things

520
00:19:19,375 --> 00:19:20,194
where if you

521
00:19:20,894 --> 00:19:23,134
start going down that path, you get into

522
00:19:23,134 --> 00:19:25,855
the weeds very quickly and people can't understand

523
00:19:25,855 --> 00:19:27,934
everything. And so it was about pulling out

524
00:19:27,934 --> 00:19:30,169
what the essence was, which is

525
00:19:30,869 --> 00:19:32,950
which worked well because that's what I was

526
00:19:32,950 --> 00:19:34,470
trying to get with the artist. They're not

527
00:19:34,470 --> 00:19:36,889
gonna explain the absolute details.

528
00:19:37,190 --> 00:19:39,109
They're not gonna, you know, they're not gonna

529
00:19:39,109 --> 00:19:39,849
have things

530
00:19:41,109 --> 00:19:41,769
that particularly

531
00:19:43,285 --> 00:19:45,924
talked about entanglement, for instance, a very, you

532
00:19:45,924 --> 00:19:47,464
know, complicated principle

533
00:19:48,164 --> 00:19:48,964
that is,

534
00:19:49,365 --> 00:19:50,904
exploited in quantum computing.

535
00:19:51,845 --> 00:19:53,365
I I I just decided it would be

536
00:19:53,365 --> 00:19:56,466
better to do less than too much and

537
00:19:56,473 --> 00:19:58,579
and and have things that don't go with

538
00:19:58,579 --> 00:20:01,320
it at all. So my worry was actually

539
00:20:01,380 --> 00:20:02,440
not so much

540
00:20:02,820 --> 00:20:04,900
that it was gonna get into pseudoscience. I

541
00:20:04,900 --> 00:20:06,440
felt the science was

542
00:20:06,900 --> 00:20:07,799
hard there.

543
00:20:09,059 --> 00:20:12,034
That the the two worries were,

544
00:20:12,894 --> 00:20:14,515
is the art too abstract,

545
00:20:16,255 --> 00:20:16,755
and

546
00:20:17,534 --> 00:20:20,115
that that I would be piling abstraction

547
00:20:20,494 --> 00:20:24,095
in scientific concepts and abstraction in art, and

548
00:20:24,095 --> 00:20:27,309
that that was maybe people couldn't get get

549
00:20:27,309 --> 00:20:28,210
those 2 things

550
00:20:28,670 --> 00:20:30,829
at the same time, which I think most

551
00:20:30,829 --> 00:20:32,049
people can't actually.

552
00:20:33,309 --> 00:20:35,070
And so it was something where as I

553
00:20:35,070 --> 00:20:37,630
was constructing the film, I I did find

554
00:20:37,630 --> 00:20:39,490
I had to be very careful about

555
00:20:40,024 --> 00:20:42,345
what voice over I had over images that

556
00:20:42,345 --> 00:20:44,585
were that were very abstract. And I thought,

557
00:20:44,585 --> 00:20:46,825
you know, I could not be expect people

558
00:20:46,825 --> 00:20:48,044
to be understanding

559
00:20:48,585 --> 00:20:51,544
abstract ideas and looking at abstract things where

560
00:20:51,544 --> 00:20:53,804
they're trying to decipher both things at once.

561
00:20:54,950 --> 00:20:57,130
Sometimes it happens still, but

562
00:20:57,589 --> 00:20:58,250
the other

563
00:20:59,029 --> 00:21:00,710
sort of ace in the hole for me

564
00:21:00,710 --> 00:21:01,529
was that

565
00:21:01,830 --> 00:21:04,309
I think I tried to find visuals that

566
00:21:04,309 --> 00:21:05,930
were so compelling

567
00:21:06,549 --> 00:21:07,049
that

568
00:21:07,795 --> 00:21:09,974
for you know, people would tell me that,

569
00:21:11,394 --> 00:21:13,654
even if they didn't understand the science,

570
00:21:14,275 --> 00:21:17,494
they were they were immersed in the visuals

571
00:21:17,555 --> 00:21:19,795
and it and it let them think about

572
00:21:19,795 --> 00:21:20,295
things.

573
00:21:20,929 --> 00:21:22,950
And so I think the key became,

574
00:21:24,849 --> 00:21:26,710
trying to give things enough space.

575
00:21:27,329 --> 00:21:29,089
I don't know if I I I did

576
00:21:29,089 --> 00:21:31,490
still, but definitely, at a certain point, it

577
00:21:31,490 --> 00:21:33,509
was I was trying to, you know,

578
00:21:33,825 --> 00:21:36,065
open things up, just give people a little

579
00:21:36,065 --> 00:21:38,085
bit of time to think about it. So,

580
00:21:39,904 --> 00:21:41,345
I don't know. These are they're all sort

581
00:21:41,345 --> 00:21:43,024
of related to your question. The other the

582
00:21:43,024 --> 00:21:43,524
other

583
00:21:44,065 --> 00:21:46,065
aspect of that, though, is is somewhat the

584
00:21:46,065 --> 00:21:48,740
flip side of your question, which was what

585
00:21:48,799 --> 00:21:51,839
was a a bigger concern for me was

586
00:21:51,839 --> 00:21:54,720
what the artists would think about me using

587
00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:57,539
their work. So I was less concerned about

588
00:21:58,160 --> 00:22:00,400
scientists saying, oh, you got the science wrong

589
00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:01,619
or you made pseudoscience

590
00:22:03,384 --> 00:22:05,005
because I know that,

591
00:22:06,984 --> 00:22:08,444
the basis of the science,

592
00:22:08,984 --> 00:22:10,605
excuse me, was was right.

593
00:22:11,144 --> 00:22:13,224
What I was a little bit worried about

594
00:22:13,224 --> 00:22:15,545
was where what the artist would think about

595
00:22:15,545 --> 00:22:18,619
me excerpting the work, using it in ways

596
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:21,160
that, you know, were not really related to

597
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:22,220
what they had done.

598
00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:26,779
And what was amazing

599
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:30,914
and in retrospect, not so surprising is that

600
00:22:30,914 --> 00:22:33,735
pretty much universally, they had no problems.

601
00:22:34,674 --> 00:22:35,575
And I think,

602
00:22:36,434 --> 00:22:37,255
as I say,

603
00:22:39,235 --> 00:22:39,894
in retrospect,

604
00:22:41,394 --> 00:22:42,855
I think most artists,

605
00:22:44,755 --> 00:22:45,815
do not want

606
00:22:46,450 --> 00:22:48,769
or do not think that their pieces should

607
00:22:48,769 --> 00:22:50,309
have one single interpretation.

608
00:22:51,330 --> 00:22:53,109
They're actually very excited

609
00:22:53,650 --> 00:22:54,390
that people,

610
00:22:55,009 --> 00:22:56,769
you know, I mean, typically artists don't like

611
00:22:56,769 --> 00:22:59,250
to explain their work. They they they it's

612
00:22:59,250 --> 00:23:01,509
about an individual experience. And so

613
00:23:02,625 --> 00:23:05,365
almost everybody pretty much everybody I contacted

614
00:23:05,664 --> 00:23:06,164
were

615
00:23:06,465 --> 00:23:08,625
was excited that I would I I looked

616
00:23:08,625 --> 00:23:10,705
in at this in a serious way. I

617
00:23:10,705 --> 00:23:12,705
mean, it was not exploitive. I was not,

618
00:23:12,705 --> 00:23:14,305
you know, it's not like I was just

619
00:23:14,305 --> 00:23:16,305
throwing their things in there and laughing at

620
00:23:16,305 --> 00:23:18,759
it or or just using it just for,

621
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:20,059
you know, decoration.

622
00:23:22,279 --> 00:23:23,960
I was looking at it and and seeing

623
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:25,480
something in it that they may not have

624
00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:27,240
thought about and maybe gave them something to

625
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:29,880
think about as well. And I think I

626
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:30,940
greatly benefited

627
00:23:32,244 --> 00:23:32,744
from,

628
00:23:35,125 --> 00:23:36,505
Leo Leo Goldsmith

629
00:23:37,204 --> 00:23:37,605
and,

630
00:23:39,125 --> 00:23:41,224
Greg Zinnman, who were my two advisors

631
00:23:41,525 --> 00:23:43,765
because they knew I mean, almost all of

632
00:23:43,765 --> 00:23:45,944
the living artists in the film,

633
00:23:46,700 --> 00:23:49,200
we had a direct contact to through them.

634
00:23:49,259 --> 00:23:50,799
So that paved the way.

635
00:23:51,339 --> 00:23:51,820
And,

636
00:23:52,220 --> 00:23:53,359
and they were all

637
00:23:54,059 --> 00:23:56,559
very excited. They all thought the project seemed

638
00:23:56,940 --> 00:23:59,200
very interesting. It's not what they had thought

639
00:24:00,295 --> 00:24:02,615
that their work would be used for, but

640
00:24:02,615 --> 00:24:04,535
that they were very excited about that. And

641
00:24:04,535 --> 00:24:06,695
for me, I mean, you know, there was

642
00:24:06,695 --> 00:24:07,275
a a

643
00:24:09,815 --> 00:24:12,555
a a a a, you know, very utilitarian

644
00:24:13,015 --> 00:24:15,859
perspective is that I thought, okay. I could,

645
00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:18,099
you know, hire

646
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:20,799
people who do graphics and animation, and I

647
00:24:20,799 --> 00:24:22,480
had done on particle fever and on the

648
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:24,259
bit player, and they did great jobs.

649
00:24:25,599 --> 00:24:27,914
But here were people that had spent, you

650
00:24:27,914 --> 00:24:30,394
know, maybe years of their own life doing

651
00:24:30,394 --> 00:24:32,555
and creating something with so much thought and

652
00:24:32,555 --> 00:24:34,414
intelligence and and

653
00:24:35,195 --> 00:24:38,015
and so striking that that, you know,

654
00:24:39,035 --> 00:24:41,642
it'd be nice to actually take advantage of

655
00:24:41,642 --> 00:24:42,539
that. The other thing that I wanted to

656
00:24:42,539 --> 00:24:43,437
ask you about in terms of filmmaking was

657
00:24:43,437 --> 00:24:45,090
the music, because I think that's extraordinary. Yeah.

658
00:24:45,090 --> 00:24:47,450
The the majority of the music was by

659
00:24:47,450 --> 00:24:49,690
my composer, Robert Miller, and he's been, you

660
00:24:49,690 --> 00:24:52,190
know, a stalwart since particle fever.

661
00:24:54,894 --> 00:24:56,815
And he just he lives here in New

662
00:24:56,815 --> 00:24:59,714
York. He's extremely interested in science.

663
00:25:00,734 --> 00:25:01,954
He actually has,

664
00:25:03,295 --> 00:25:03,795
written

665
00:25:04,255 --> 00:25:04,994
a lot of

666
00:25:05,535 --> 00:25:07,474
music that they use at the

667
00:25:07,934 --> 00:25:09,615
the planetarium here in New York at the

668
00:25:09,615 --> 00:25:11,990
Museum of Natural History, And he just loves

669
00:25:11,990 --> 00:25:13,929
it. And he and he's a real collaborator.

670
00:25:13,990 --> 00:25:15,990
This was a tough a tough one for

671
00:25:15,990 --> 00:25:18,549
him because it went on for a long

672
00:25:18,549 --> 00:25:20,329
time. There was a lot of changes.

673
00:25:22,390 --> 00:25:22,890
And,

674
00:25:23,669 --> 00:25:24,730
we, you know,

675
00:25:25,775 --> 00:25:28,095
we I I put together a temp score.

676
00:25:28,095 --> 00:25:30,335
So, you know, working with the my editors.

677
00:25:30,335 --> 00:25:32,355
I had 2 other editors who had worked

678
00:25:32,414 --> 00:25:33,474
with me on it.

679
00:25:34,974 --> 00:25:37,054
In the end, I took it over. But,

680
00:25:37,054 --> 00:25:37,714
you know,

681
00:25:38,900 --> 00:25:39,720
all of them,

682
00:25:40,500 --> 00:25:43,640
you know, also used various things we had.

683
00:25:43,859 --> 00:25:45,079
I have a, you know,

684
00:25:45,619 --> 00:25:48,419
library of music that has worked. Actually, some

685
00:25:48,419 --> 00:25:50,740
of I I mean, initially, as we're putting

686
00:25:50,740 --> 00:25:52,515
the film together, we're just using temp music.

687
00:25:52,515 --> 00:25:54,674
I mean, just not worrying about rights, not

688
00:25:54,674 --> 00:25:56,914
scoring. But but, in fact, I have quite

689
00:25:56,914 --> 00:25:59,315
a bit of music from Robert from Particle

690
00:25:59,315 --> 00:26:01,394
Fever and the Bit Player, you know, so

691
00:26:01,394 --> 00:26:03,795
I know tonally. I could try things. I

692
00:26:03,795 --> 00:26:05,555
wanted to do something that was different, that

693
00:26:05,555 --> 00:26:08,410
was appropriate, that was, you know, not typical,

694
00:26:08,410 --> 00:26:09,309
just score.

695
00:26:11,130 --> 00:26:11,630
And,

696
00:26:12,809 --> 00:26:15,070
most of the music is is Roberts.

697
00:26:15,529 --> 00:26:17,690
There's a couple of places where we use

698
00:26:17,690 --> 00:26:18,990
the music that was

699
00:26:20,825 --> 00:26:23,404
part of of the of an experimental film,

700
00:26:24,184 --> 00:26:26,424
but a number of them didn't have music

701
00:26:26,424 --> 00:26:28,904
at all, and then Robert composed it. There's

702
00:26:28,904 --> 00:26:30,825
a couple places where we did use the

703
00:26:30,825 --> 00:26:31,325
music,

704
00:26:33,460 --> 00:26:35,940
and, and that was another concern. You know?

705
00:26:36,180 --> 00:26:37,000
But, again,

706
00:26:37,460 --> 00:26:39,460
we I was lucky that everybody went went

707
00:26:39,460 --> 00:26:41,380
along with it. But and Robert just you

708
00:26:41,380 --> 00:26:42,680
know, we have a very

709
00:26:43,059 --> 00:26:45,000
good dialogue and interaction.

710
00:26:45,884 --> 00:26:46,325
And,

711
00:26:46,765 --> 00:26:49,325
I'm I'm I'm excited to hear that people

712
00:26:49,325 --> 00:26:51,805
are responding because I it was a real

713
00:26:51,805 --> 00:26:54,525
process. And right from the beginning, people were

714
00:26:54,525 --> 00:26:56,525
responding even for our temp music. We sort

715
00:26:56,525 --> 00:26:58,684
of even at the temp stage, we were,

716
00:26:58,684 --> 00:27:00,144
you know, using music

717
00:27:00,769 --> 00:27:02,470
that was not typical.

718
00:27:03,009 --> 00:27:05,089
You know, we used I I I actually

719
00:27:05,089 --> 00:27:06,929
use a lot of Kronos and things like

720
00:27:06,929 --> 00:27:07,829
that. And then,

721
00:27:09,009 --> 00:27:11,649
and then Robert comes in and and and

722
00:27:11,649 --> 00:27:13,775
replaces it. And so so,

723
00:27:14,234 --> 00:27:15,994
really, 90% of the music in the film

724
00:27:15,994 --> 00:27:17,455
is is his score.

725
00:27:18,234 --> 00:27:20,795
Of course, we have the Goldberg Variations, which,

726
00:27:22,394 --> 00:27:22,894
was,

727
00:27:23,835 --> 00:27:26,335
very appropriate and right for the scene.

728
00:27:26,910 --> 00:27:28,990
And then we had the, you know, Okay

729
00:27:28,990 --> 00:27:32,210
Go piece, which just again came up incidentally

730
00:27:32,350 --> 00:27:32,850
because

731
00:27:33,309 --> 00:27:35,150
I had no idea that this was gonna

732
00:27:35,150 --> 00:27:36,910
come up. And then Luis says they did

733
00:27:36,910 --> 00:27:38,610
talk about the fact that they they

734
00:27:39,025 --> 00:27:41,265
they made you know, they stored the the

735
00:27:41,265 --> 00:27:43,684
song in DNA and and used it.

736
00:27:44,545 --> 00:27:45,045
So,

737
00:27:46,545 --> 00:27:48,944
but I'm glad that the music resonated because

738
00:27:48,944 --> 00:27:52,085
I wanted something different than, you know, it's

739
00:27:52,940 --> 00:27:53,440
appropriate.

740
00:27:53,900 --> 00:27:56,059
With the Goldberg Variation, go ahead. Just for

741
00:27:56,059 --> 00:27:58,460
those people who maybe don't know what that

742
00:27:58,460 --> 00:28:01,200
is because maybe maybe it's not their world.

743
00:28:01,339 --> 00:28:02,160
Right. So,

744
00:28:03,180 --> 00:28:05,759
Bach wrote these pieces, the Goldberg Variations,

745
00:28:07,875 --> 00:28:08,195
which are,

746
00:28:09,235 --> 00:28:09,975
you know,

747
00:28:10,595 --> 00:28:11,654
32 pieces,

748
00:28:13,075 --> 00:28:15,795
and, you know, supposedly wrote them, you know,

749
00:28:15,795 --> 00:28:18,195
for as as a a a a a

750
00:28:18,195 --> 00:28:19,095
sleep mechanism

751
00:28:19,795 --> 00:28:21,414
for this emperor.

752
00:28:21,869 --> 00:28:22,369
And,

753
00:28:23,470 --> 00:28:25,470
you know, it's interesting. I from what I've

754
00:28:25,470 --> 00:28:27,390
read that they they sort of fell out

755
00:28:27,390 --> 00:28:29,150
of favor for a while. They weren't, you

756
00:28:29,150 --> 00:28:31,950
know, so popular. And then Glenn Gould did

757
00:28:31,950 --> 00:28:32,529
a recording,

758
00:28:33,069 --> 00:28:34,529
the, you know, brilliant,

759
00:28:34,910 --> 00:28:37,569
Canadian pianist in in in in the fifties.

760
00:28:38,164 --> 00:28:39,944
And it was just sort of revolutionary.

761
00:28:40,804 --> 00:28:41,304
And

762
00:28:41,605 --> 00:28:44,585
suddenly, you know, they became accepted and and

763
00:28:44,644 --> 00:28:46,325
and lauded. And, you know, a lot of

764
00:28:46,325 --> 00:28:49,525
people consider the Goldberg Variations to be, in

765
00:28:49,525 --> 00:28:50,984
in some sense over the variations,

766
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:54,200
a record of every human emotion. And, you

767
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,160
know, it's just an incredibly comprehensive thing. And,

768
00:28:57,559 --> 00:28:59,019
Gould did another recording,

769
00:29:00,119 --> 00:29:01,339
25 years later.

770
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:02,940
And,

771
00:29:03,755 --> 00:29:05,535
they're very, very different recordings.

772
00:29:05,914 --> 00:29:08,174
The recording of a very a young brilliant

773
00:29:08,235 --> 00:29:10,634
man and then, you know, somebody who's older

774
00:29:10,634 --> 00:29:13,355
and more mature. And and this was a

775
00:29:13,355 --> 00:29:16,255
very a perfect example of something where

776
00:29:18,450 --> 00:29:19,910
the idea of

777
00:29:20,210 --> 00:29:22,210
what that could represent for the film actually

778
00:29:22,210 --> 00:29:23,190
came from Dario.

779
00:29:23,650 --> 00:29:26,789
And I had talked about the Goldberg Variations

780
00:29:26,930 --> 00:29:27,670
with him.

781
00:29:28,690 --> 00:29:30,734
There's another reason. I'll tell you that

782
00:29:31,134 --> 00:29:32,734
in a second. But,

783
00:29:33,855 --> 00:29:35,855
we were just having dinner and and Dario

784
00:29:35,855 --> 00:29:36,994
pointed out how

785
00:29:37,295 --> 00:29:39,295
this is a perfect how he it was

786
00:29:39,295 --> 00:29:42,015
really his his perspective that was a perfect

787
00:29:42,015 --> 00:29:43,154
example of how

788
00:29:43,535 --> 00:29:44,035
just

789
00:29:44,609 --> 00:29:47,190
digital is not actually including everything.

790
00:29:47,490 --> 00:29:49,750
When you look at it, and it's essentially

791
00:29:50,450 --> 00:29:52,549
you know, I then did the interview,

792
00:29:53,650 --> 00:29:56,470
which is in the film where he essentially

793
00:29:56,529 --> 00:29:57,990
said what he had said

794
00:29:58,434 --> 00:30:00,515
casually at dinner that, look, it's the same

795
00:30:00,515 --> 00:30:01,015
composer,

796
00:30:01,394 --> 00:30:02,455
the same notes.

797
00:30:04,434 --> 00:30:05,974
It's a still it's a piano.

798
00:30:06,434 --> 00:30:09,494
That's all. And they're so different, and that

799
00:30:09,634 --> 00:30:11,335
is a perfect reflection

800
00:30:12,079 --> 00:30:14,400
of what we you know, what you don't

801
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:16,320
get just by a digital recording and a

802
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:17,940
digital record of the notes.

803
00:30:18,559 --> 00:30:20,799
And so it was just so perfect for

804
00:30:20,799 --> 00:30:22,559
the theme and that part of the film

805
00:30:22,559 --> 00:30:24,400
where I was talking about the fact that,

806
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:25,539
you know, digital

807
00:30:26,075 --> 00:30:27,454
has allowed us

808
00:30:27,914 --> 00:30:30,394
to do many things and and and and

809
00:30:30,394 --> 00:30:30,894
certainly

810
00:30:31,355 --> 00:30:33,134
enhanced our ability to,

811
00:30:33,994 --> 00:30:35,755
probe the depths of the universe. I mean,

812
00:30:35,755 --> 00:30:38,734
the ability to digitize and and universalize

813
00:30:39,115 --> 00:30:40,414
and and do

814
00:30:41,750 --> 00:30:42,809
extremely complex

815
00:30:43,269 --> 00:30:46,069
computational things. But we're reaching the limits of

816
00:30:46,069 --> 00:30:47,509
what we can do with that in some

817
00:30:47,509 --> 00:30:48,329
way, and,

818
00:30:49,669 --> 00:30:51,210
and this was

819
00:30:51,509 --> 00:30:54,890
a perfect example of what we are missing

820
00:30:55,349 --> 00:30:55,849
and

821
00:30:58,204 --> 00:31:00,684
what, you know, maybe we need to return

822
00:31:00,684 --> 00:31:02,464
to analog for and what

823
00:31:03,005 --> 00:31:06,544
analog world of art can also bring. So

824
00:31:07,005 --> 00:31:08,304
so it was one of those

825
00:31:08,845 --> 00:31:09,345
perfect

826
00:31:09,884 --> 00:31:11,105
marriages of

827
00:31:11,559 --> 00:31:14,119
an idea that evolved. It wasn't something that

828
00:31:14,119 --> 00:31:15,960
honestly that I had thought of from beginning,

829
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:17,420
but it came out

830
00:31:18,839 --> 00:31:21,320
from my discovery that he was interested in

831
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:23,259
this. And and what was

832
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:26,401
bizarre for me is I I have a

833
00:31:26,401 --> 00:31:26,955
long time

834
00:31:27,735 --> 00:31:28,634
passion project,

835
00:31:29,255 --> 00:31:30,315
which is an adaptation

836
00:31:30,615 --> 00:31:31,115
of,

837
00:31:31,575 --> 00:31:32,315
a a

838
00:31:32,615 --> 00:31:34,075
a novel by Richard Powers,

839
00:31:34,855 --> 00:31:36,555
called The Gold Bug Variations.

840
00:31:37,494 --> 00:31:37,994
And,

841
00:31:38,690 --> 00:31:40,849
Richard Powers has gotten a lot of attention

842
00:31:40,849 --> 00:31:43,250
now because, his book, The Overstory, won the

843
00:31:43,250 --> 00:31:45,650
Pulitzer, and he's he's got a lot of

844
00:31:45,650 --> 00:31:47,670
attention. This is an older story,

845
00:31:48,289 --> 00:31:50,069
and The Gold Bug Variations

846
00:31:50,450 --> 00:31:51,509
is a

847
00:31:52,664 --> 00:31:54,904
story that it the the title is a

848
00:31:54,904 --> 00:31:57,784
pun. It's based on The Goldberg Variations, but

849
00:31:57,784 --> 00:32:00,265
also The Gold Bug, which was a short

850
00:32:00,265 --> 00:32:03,164
story by Inger Allan Poe about cryptography.

851
00:32:04,700 --> 00:32:06,220
For me, it's like so many of my

852
00:32:06,220 --> 00:32:07,680
worlds coming together because,

853
00:32:08,539 --> 00:32:09,680
the Goldberg Variations,

854
00:32:11,180 --> 00:32:13,980
the Gold Bug was Claude Shannon's favorite story,

855
00:32:13,980 --> 00:32:15,580
which was the subject of my you know,

856
00:32:15,580 --> 00:32:17,180
he was the subject of my second film,

857
00:32:17,180 --> 00:32:18,799
the bit player. In fact,

858
00:32:19,475 --> 00:32:22,434
Powers quotes something about Shannon in the Gold

859
00:32:22,434 --> 00:32:23,255
Bug Variations.

860
00:32:23,875 --> 00:32:26,855
And and the story, you know, revolves around

861
00:32:26,914 --> 00:32:28,775
a scientist in the fifties

862
00:32:29,075 --> 00:32:29,575
who,

863
00:32:31,634 --> 00:32:34,134
basically was sort of, you know,

864
00:32:35,559 --> 00:32:36,059
monomaniacally

865
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:38,220
trying to figure out,

866
00:32:39,319 --> 00:32:40,619
the code for DNA,

867
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:42,200
and he gets,

868
00:32:42,679 --> 00:32:43,179
derailed

869
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:44,220
by,

870
00:32:45,079 --> 00:32:47,159
a woman in the lab, a married woman

871
00:32:47,159 --> 00:32:48,460
in the lab who

872
00:32:49,154 --> 00:32:49,654
introduces

873
00:32:50,115 --> 00:32:50,934
him to,

874
00:32:51,475 --> 00:32:54,355
Bach and music and the Goldberg Variations. And

875
00:32:54,355 --> 00:32:55,894
he begins to think that

876
00:32:57,475 --> 00:32:59,654
perhaps that's gonna be the key to understanding

877
00:33:00,275 --> 00:33:00,775
things

878
00:33:01,660 --> 00:33:04,400
in life and love that he can't understand,

879
00:33:05,099 --> 00:33:08,059
in a lab. So so there's this whole

880
00:33:08,059 --> 00:33:10,859
background when I saw that, you know, Dario

881
00:33:10,859 --> 00:33:13,019
had this. I I had already been working

882
00:33:13,019 --> 00:33:14,559
on the old bug variations,

883
00:33:15,099 --> 00:33:16,079
but it really

884
00:33:16,865 --> 00:33:19,125
pulled together a lot a lot of interests

885
00:33:19,424 --> 00:33:20,965
and and themes for me.

886
00:33:21,664 --> 00:33:23,765
So is that is that passion project

887
00:33:24,384 --> 00:33:25,365
coming to fruition?

888
00:33:25,664 --> 00:33:27,744
I, you know, I've I've been working on

889
00:33:27,744 --> 00:33:29,365
this off and on for years,

890
00:33:29,664 --> 00:33:30,164
and,

891
00:33:31,919 --> 00:33:35,299
I get derailed myself by other projects. So

892
00:33:35,359 --> 00:33:38,079
I had, actually first discovered the novel before

893
00:33:38,079 --> 00:33:40,159
Particle Fever. At the time, it was not

894
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:42,960
the rights weren't available, but I made contact

895
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:44,099
with Richard Powers.

896
00:33:44,494 --> 00:33:46,095
And I made particle fever, and then I

897
00:33:46,095 --> 00:33:48,095
went back and the rights were available. And

898
00:33:48,095 --> 00:33:49,475
I actually wrote a script,

899
00:33:49,855 --> 00:33:52,015
and, and it got a lot of attention

900
00:33:52,015 --> 00:33:54,174
that got Sloan gave me a grant. I

901
00:33:54,174 --> 00:33:54,894
went to,

902
00:33:55,375 --> 00:33:56,835
it got selected for the Sundance

903
00:33:57,215 --> 00:33:58,355
screenplay lab

904
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:00,420
and developed it. And

905
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:02,820
and then, the bit player

906
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:05,039
came and and that there was a sort

907
00:34:05,039 --> 00:34:06,960
of a time pressure on that because we

908
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,039
wanted to do something around the centennial of

909
00:34:09,039 --> 00:34:09,780
Claude Shannon.

910
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:12,925
And and then I, you know,

911
00:34:13,545 --> 00:34:15,224
finished that and went back to the gold

912
00:34:15,224 --> 00:34:16,125
bug. And then,

913
00:34:16,425 --> 00:34:18,265
and then this came up, and and it

914
00:34:18,265 --> 00:34:20,265
seemed like, you know, something that,

915
00:34:20,744 --> 00:34:22,265
I didn't think was gonna take that long,

916
00:34:22,265 --> 00:34:23,545
and I didn't know what was going on

917
00:34:23,545 --> 00:34:24,640
with it. So,

918
00:34:25,500 --> 00:34:27,840
anyway, I am now committed

919
00:34:28,219 --> 00:34:28,719
that

920
00:34:29,420 --> 00:34:31,360
I'm this is gonna be the next project.

921
00:34:31,420 --> 00:34:32,239
And so,

922
00:34:32,539 --> 00:34:34,619
yeah. So so I'm I'm hoping it is,

923
00:34:34,619 --> 00:34:35,360
and and,

924
00:34:36,219 --> 00:34:38,505
Richard Powers has been great. He's been very

925
00:34:38,824 --> 00:34:39,404
supportive of it

926
00:34:39,704 --> 00:34:41,944
because in some sense, the story is about

927
00:34:41,944 --> 00:34:43,484
a scientist who discovers

928
00:34:44,105 --> 00:34:46,984
art and music and love. And so that,

929
00:34:46,984 --> 00:34:48,525
you know, that transition

930
00:34:48,984 --> 00:34:52,204
from pure science to art and science

931
00:34:52,664 --> 00:34:53,625
is something that,

932
00:34:54,559 --> 00:34:56,800
you know, is something that I've explored and,

933
00:34:57,679 --> 00:34:59,460
I am excited about it.

934
00:35:00,079 --> 00:35:01,760
Yeah. No. I I feel like,

935
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:04,559
we should probably talk about that again when

936
00:35:04,559 --> 00:35:06,639
that's actually out. So let's let's make that

937
00:35:06,639 --> 00:35:07,644
promise. Yeah.

938
00:35:08,344 --> 00:35:11,545
There's this, analog and and digital thing, which

939
00:35:11,545 --> 00:35:12,284
is particularly,

940
00:35:13,065 --> 00:35:15,885
interesting, obviously, in the light of artificial intelligence.

941
00:35:16,664 --> 00:35:18,585
One of the things we're very interested in

942
00:35:18,585 --> 00:35:21,269
in neuroscience is capturing what it is like

943
00:35:21,349 --> 00:35:23,590
to have some experience. That's where the power

944
00:35:23,590 --> 00:35:25,210
of art lies is to communicate

945
00:35:25,590 --> 00:35:26,090
experiences

946
00:35:26,390 --> 00:35:28,869
in terms of symbols and strokes. And that's

947
00:35:28,869 --> 00:35:31,929
something that current AI technology can't yet do.

948
00:35:32,390 --> 00:35:33,929
My daughter's 13

949
00:35:34,469 --> 00:35:34,969
and

950
00:35:36,485 --> 00:35:38,405
not alone in the fact of being a

951
00:35:38,405 --> 00:35:40,644
13 year old girl, big Taylor Swift fan

952
00:35:40,644 --> 00:35:42,805
and that sort of thing. But she just

953
00:35:42,805 --> 00:35:45,364
wants vinyl. You know? She wants she she's,

954
00:35:45,364 --> 00:35:47,144
you know, she will listen to,

955
00:35:48,005 --> 00:35:49,925
the digital things, particularly in the car and

956
00:35:49,925 --> 00:35:51,125
that sort of thing, but if she's at

957
00:35:51,125 --> 00:35:53,030
home, she'll put the vinyl on. She wants

958
00:35:53,030 --> 00:35:53,769
that whole

959
00:35:54,309 --> 00:35:56,869
experience of that, to do that. That's part

960
00:35:56,869 --> 00:35:58,170
of what she wants. And,

961
00:35:59,670 --> 00:36:01,369
I at the same time,

962
00:36:01,829 --> 00:36:04,230
as that in my work, I'm seeing because

963
00:36:04,230 --> 00:36:07,364
I lecture in wildlife filmmaking and science communication

964
00:36:07,424 --> 00:36:09,264
and things. And I was recently at the

965
00:36:09,264 --> 00:36:12,385
festival about wildlife filmmaking called Wildscreen, which happens

966
00:36:12,385 --> 00:36:14,304
here in Bristol. And there was a panel

967
00:36:14,304 --> 00:36:15,844
about artificial intelligence

968
00:36:17,039 --> 00:36:17,940
in filmmaking.

969
00:36:19,119 --> 00:36:21,199
And, you know, there's some aspects of it,

970
00:36:21,199 --> 00:36:23,619
which I think are, you know, pretty delightful,

971
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:25,680
cleaning up audio. That's pretty good. I don't

972
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:27,199
have a problem with that. But when it

973
00:36:27,199 --> 00:36:29,680
becomes into sort of the creative aspect of

974
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:29,954
it,

975
00:36:31,075 --> 00:36:33,954
you know, the storytelling of it, it it

976
00:36:33,954 --> 00:36:34,835
seems like it's

977
00:36:36,355 --> 00:36:37,094
I mean,

978
00:36:37,635 --> 00:36:39,555
do you have a sense of whether we're

979
00:36:39,715 --> 00:36:41,394
AI is ever going to give us an

980
00:36:41,394 --> 00:36:41,894
experience

981
00:36:42,275 --> 00:36:43,015
like that,

982
00:36:43,430 --> 00:36:44,329
the 2 different

983
00:36:45,269 --> 00:36:47,989
recordings of the Goldberg Variations. You know, I

984
00:36:47,989 --> 00:36:48,970
mean, it's interesting

985
00:36:49,750 --> 00:36:50,250
because,

986
00:36:51,510 --> 00:36:53,530
as I said, when I started this,

987
00:36:53,910 --> 00:36:54,710
AI was

988
00:36:55,505 --> 00:36:57,184
you know, it was an important thing, but

989
00:36:57,184 --> 00:36:58,565
it was way before

990
00:36:58,945 --> 00:37:01,824
the huge explosion of, you know, these large

991
00:37:01,824 --> 00:37:04,545
language models that everybody that embraced, you know,

992
00:37:04,545 --> 00:37:06,885
with the chat GPT and things like that.

993
00:37:07,344 --> 00:37:09,425
That took over while we were, you know,

994
00:37:09,425 --> 00:37:11,250
as I was trying to finish the film,

995
00:37:11,329 --> 00:37:12,769
I actually had to do a little bit

996
00:37:12,769 --> 00:37:13,510
of modification

997
00:37:14,130 --> 00:37:16,550
because when I was doing the original interviews,

998
00:37:17,170 --> 00:37:19,750
what was really big were something called generative

999
00:37:19,889 --> 00:37:22,769
adversarial networks. That was not the large language

1000
00:37:22,769 --> 00:37:24,610
model. It was it was about a sort

1001
00:37:24,610 --> 00:37:26,070
of an iterative process,

1002
00:37:26,375 --> 00:37:28,214
but it was a different it was not

1003
00:37:28,214 --> 00:37:30,694
the large language models. I was worried that

1004
00:37:30,694 --> 00:37:33,094
talking about these GANs, that was the word

1005
00:37:33,094 --> 00:37:34,394
everybody was using, GANs,

1006
00:37:35,255 --> 00:37:37,355
felt a little out of date. The underlying

1007
00:37:37,494 --> 00:37:40,019
idea of neural networks, though, is the same.

1008
00:37:40,099 --> 00:37:41,860
I mean, the the basis of them is

1009
00:37:41,860 --> 00:37:42,519
the same.

1010
00:37:42,820 --> 00:37:43,320
But

1011
00:37:44,019 --> 00:37:46,039
what I also realized is that

1012
00:37:46,659 --> 00:37:49,000
my my film has a perspective

1013
00:37:49,539 --> 00:37:51,780
about that, I think, which is my own

1014
00:37:51,780 --> 00:37:54,914
perspective as well. We should see AI as

1015
00:37:54,974 --> 00:37:58,094
another tool and just it's another step in

1016
00:37:58,094 --> 00:38:00,194
in some sense are merging with

1017
00:38:00,655 --> 00:38:01,155
nature

1018
00:38:01,614 --> 00:38:02,114
and

1019
00:38:02,414 --> 00:38:04,194
and and understanding it. And I

1020
00:38:04,494 --> 00:38:06,034
personally, I don't

1021
00:38:06,420 --> 00:38:06,920
see

1022
00:38:07,219 --> 00:38:10,039
AI as an existential threat to creativity.

1023
00:38:10,739 --> 00:38:13,319
I see it as another tool

1024
00:38:13,699 --> 00:38:14,839
that artists

1025
00:38:15,139 --> 00:38:17,139
are going to use and are using just

1026
00:38:17,139 --> 00:38:18,599
like scientists are.

1027
00:38:19,005 --> 00:38:21,105
There's dangers. But to

1028
00:38:21,804 --> 00:38:24,125
deny it, it's like saying I don't want

1029
00:38:24,125 --> 00:38:26,284
to understand that. You can't go back. I

1030
00:38:26,284 --> 00:38:27,885
mean, and there's just such a history of

1031
00:38:27,885 --> 00:38:29,585
this as we know. I mean, when photography

1032
00:38:29,644 --> 00:38:31,484
was discovered, people thought it was the end

1033
00:38:31,484 --> 00:38:32,144
of painting.

1034
00:38:32,510 --> 00:38:34,909
And what happened? They discovered they they they

1035
00:38:34,909 --> 00:38:36,670
came out with new techniques. They came out

1036
00:38:36,670 --> 00:38:38,769
with abstraction. They came out with impressionism.

1037
00:38:40,030 --> 00:38:42,030
You know, and we've had that, obviously, you

1038
00:38:42,030 --> 00:38:43,550
know, there's 2 in the film and TV

1039
00:38:43,550 --> 00:38:45,630
world. You know? Oh my gosh. Videotapes. What's

1040
00:38:45,630 --> 00:38:47,974
gonna happen to film? And then DVDs

1041
00:38:49,235 --> 00:38:51,635
and and and now and digital. And I

1042
00:38:51,635 --> 00:38:52,454
think that,

1043
00:38:52,994 --> 00:38:54,835
you know, in some sense, what what Savas

1044
00:38:54,835 --> 00:38:55,974
Demopoulos said is

1045
00:38:56,434 --> 00:38:58,515
it's it's it's it's about how you use

1046
00:38:58,515 --> 00:39:00,515
it. It's about knowing how to use it.

1047
00:39:00,515 --> 00:39:02,550
And I think there's a lot of people

1048
00:39:02,550 --> 00:39:03,690
that are using AI.

1049
00:39:04,150 --> 00:39:05,829
Yes. I mean, if people are just using

1050
00:39:05,829 --> 00:39:08,489
it instead of and as a crutch,

1051
00:39:09,110 --> 00:39:09,610
okay,

1052
00:39:09,989 --> 00:39:11,690
that's not good. But,

1053
00:39:12,309 --> 00:39:13,130
it's about

1054
00:39:15,265 --> 00:39:16,864
the the idea. I mean, coming up with

1055
00:39:16,864 --> 00:39:18,144
the idea of it. I mean, I say

1056
00:39:18,144 --> 00:39:19,204
I you know,

1057
00:39:20,545 --> 00:39:23,585
the the concept of creativity, I think, is

1058
00:39:23,585 --> 00:39:24,085
very

1059
00:39:25,985 --> 00:39:26,724
it's very

1060
00:39:27,210 --> 00:39:27,710
difficult

1061
00:39:28,489 --> 00:39:32,109
to define exactly, but, you know, any conventional

1062
00:39:33,530 --> 00:39:36,329
criterion would say it's about making connections that

1063
00:39:36,329 --> 00:39:37,070
are unexpected

1064
00:39:37,609 --> 00:39:39,309
and and, you know,

1065
00:39:41,974 --> 00:39:42,474
original

1066
00:39:43,414 --> 00:39:43,914
juxtapositions.

1067
00:39:45,414 --> 00:39:45,914
I,

1068
00:39:46,775 --> 00:39:47,835
you you know, I

1069
00:39:48,535 --> 00:39:50,715
is that something a computer can do? I

1070
00:39:50,855 --> 00:39:51,355
I

1071
00:39:52,055 --> 00:39:53,414
I mean, I I don't know what does

1072
00:39:53,414 --> 00:39:55,175
happen what happens in human brain. It's all

1073
00:39:55,175 --> 00:39:57,170
about those things as well. But,

1074
00:39:57,549 --> 00:39:58,049
you

1075
00:39:58,510 --> 00:40:00,769
know, are we going to it's about who's

1076
00:40:00,909 --> 00:40:02,750
deciding what you're gonna do, what you're going

1077
00:40:02,750 --> 00:40:05,650
to paint. That's the that's the human element,

1078
00:40:05,789 --> 00:40:07,869
the the imagination. I mean, as I say

1079
00:40:07,869 --> 00:40:09,069
at the end of the film, I mean,

1080
00:40:09,069 --> 00:40:11,565
it's that imagination now. Are we gonna be

1081
00:40:11,565 --> 00:40:12,784
at a point where, like,

1082
00:40:13,244 --> 00:40:15,405
you know, you turn on your computer or

1083
00:40:15,405 --> 00:40:17,085
you wake up in the morning and your

1084
00:40:17,085 --> 00:40:19,565
computer announces, I have an idea that I'm

1085
00:40:19,565 --> 00:40:21,804
gonna paint a woman in this background and

1086
00:40:21,804 --> 00:40:23,025
with this sort of background.

1087
00:40:24,700 --> 00:40:26,780
That, you know, I don't think we're there

1088
00:40:26,780 --> 00:40:28,860
yet. I mean and and I don't know

1089
00:40:28,860 --> 00:40:29,840
if that's coming,

1090
00:40:30,860 --> 00:40:32,160
that it will have

1091
00:40:32,700 --> 00:40:33,200
that

1092
00:40:33,739 --> 00:40:34,719
sense of

1093
00:40:35,180 --> 00:40:35,680
motivation

1094
00:40:36,059 --> 00:40:37,280
and and and

1095
00:40:38,694 --> 00:40:40,454
and and and and and idea of what

1096
00:40:40,454 --> 00:40:42,214
to do. I mean, again, it it it

1097
00:40:42,214 --> 00:40:44,054
really it's a it's a odd way that

1098
00:40:44,054 --> 00:40:46,474
the Sadas' comment resonates as well as

1099
00:40:47,174 --> 00:40:47,674
the

1100
00:40:48,054 --> 00:40:48,614
the I

1101
00:40:49,255 --> 00:40:50,635
coming up with the idea

1102
00:40:51,094 --> 00:40:52,315
of what to do

1103
00:40:52,929 --> 00:40:54,469
is is the real

1104
00:40:55,969 --> 00:40:56,469
boundary.

1105
00:40:57,650 --> 00:40:59,750
How you get there, what it does afterwards,

1106
00:41:00,369 --> 00:41:01,590
well, that's a matter

1107
00:41:01,890 --> 00:41:03,890
even that's gonna be guided. So I I,

1108
00:41:03,890 --> 00:41:04,550
you know,

1109
00:41:05,594 --> 00:41:07,695
I I think there's a lot of social

1110
00:41:07,755 --> 00:41:10,094
political questions. I mean, you know, I think

1111
00:41:10,155 --> 00:41:12,554
it's a it's a huge worry, you know,

1112
00:41:12,554 --> 00:41:14,734
in terms of fakes and things like that.

1113
00:41:15,355 --> 00:41:16,655
But in terms of

1114
00:41:17,114 --> 00:41:19,275
what is actually created or what can be

1115
00:41:19,275 --> 00:41:20,574
created and artists,

1116
00:41:21,309 --> 00:41:24,269
I I I think it's a it's a

1117
00:41:24,269 --> 00:41:26,029
great addition. I mean, it's a, you know,

1118
00:41:26,029 --> 00:41:27,089
you look at these early

1119
00:41:28,429 --> 00:41:31,150
pioneers in in computer graphics. I mean, I

1120
00:41:31,150 --> 00:41:31,549
love these

1121
00:41:32,190 --> 00:41:33,889
you know, finding this thing. I mean, Lillian,

1122
00:41:34,269 --> 00:41:35,934
Schwartz, to me is just, you know, it's

1123
00:41:35,934 --> 00:41:38,194
amazing what she did. And but, you know,

1124
00:41:38,414 --> 00:41:40,094
what was great was that one clip we

1125
00:41:40,094 --> 00:41:42,335
have where she says, okay. We have to

1126
00:41:42,335 --> 00:41:43,934
figure out how to move this pixel from

1127
00:41:43,934 --> 00:41:45,614
here to here. That's what it was at

1128
00:41:45,614 --> 00:41:46,514
that level.

1129
00:41:46,974 --> 00:41:49,315
But then Stan Vanderbeek saying, you know, recognizing

1130
00:41:49,730 --> 00:41:51,569
it's another tool. It's like, oh, I've got

1131
00:41:51,569 --> 00:41:52,789
the hammer sitting

1132
00:41:53,089 --> 00:41:54,849
here. It's like a hammer, you know, but

1133
00:41:54,849 --> 00:41:56,130
we just don't know how to use it.

1134
00:41:56,130 --> 00:41:58,389
And and, you know, in some sense, I

1135
00:41:58,769 --> 00:42:01,329
I was hoping the film also sketches this

1136
00:42:01,329 --> 00:42:01,829
progression

1137
00:42:02,210 --> 00:42:05,315
from that to the work of people like,

1138
00:42:05,695 --> 00:42:08,594
Rafik Anadol, you know, doing these, you know,

1139
00:42:09,534 --> 00:42:11,795
dream. He actually calls them hallucinations

1140
00:42:12,175 --> 00:42:13,715
and things like that. And

1141
00:42:15,295 --> 00:42:15,795
so

1142
00:42:16,094 --> 00:42:17,235
I think the film,

1143
00:42:18,014 --> 00:42:19,260
I hope, has

1144
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:20,380
a

1145
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:21,500
perspective

1146
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:24,599
on AI and art and creativity. It's, you

1147
00:42:24,599 --> 00:42:25,579
know, that is,

1148
00:42:26,119 --> 00:42:29,420
oh, okay. It's it's like we discovered electrons.

1149
00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:30,760
You know? And what what can you do

1150
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:33,375
with electrons? And you discovered, you know, that

1151
00:42:33,375 --> 00:42:35,215
this is the way certain things work and

1152
00:42:35,215 --> 00:42:35,715
that,

1153
00:42:36,815 --> 00:42:38,034
you know, there are compromises

1154
00:42:38,414 --> 00:42:40,594
when you digitize something, which

1155
00:42:40,894 --> 00:42:41,954
we always know,

1156
00:42:42,494 --> 00:42:43,795
because it's an approximation

1157
00:42:44,094 --> 00:42:46,515
and it's very useful. Sometimes digital,

1158
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:49,000
nobody wants to go back to, you know,

1159
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:50,380
having to handwrite

1160
00:42:50,679 --> 00:42:51,179
manuscripts

1161
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:52,300
all the time.

1162
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:54,219
But,

1163
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:56,300
so,

1164
00:42:57,079 --> 00:42:58,199
anyway, I think,

1165
00:42:59,079 --> 00:42:59,559
I I was

1166
00:43:01,204 --> 00:43:03,045
it was the direction the film was going,

1167
00:43:03,045 --> 00:43:04,025
and I think it's

1168
00:43:04,565 --> 00:43:06,585
maybe even stronger now that

1169
00:43:07,844 --> 00:43:09,945
there's so much interest in AI and,

1170
00:43:10,405 --> 00:43:12,244
you know, I I I mean, I very

1171
00:43:12,244 --> 00:43:14,244
deliberately did not want to get into the

1172
00:43:14,244 --> 00:43:16,320
political social aspects of it. I think that's

1173
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:18,420
another film, and I'm sure there's probably

1174
00:43:19,599 --> 00:43:21,440
hundreds of films that are being made about

1175
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:22,180
that now.

1176
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:24,500
But I wanted to

1177
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,140
look at it from this other perspective of,

1178
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:29,715
you know, that artists and scientists, not just

1179
00:43:29,795 --> 00:43:32,215
it's not just scientists that are using technology.

1180
00:43:32,275 --> 00:43:34,215
It's artists as well. Some aren't,

1181
00:43:34,515 --> 00:43:36,675
but I I think you can't not be

1182
00:43:36,675 --> 00:43:38,835
affected by it. And for some, you know,

1183
00:43:38,835 --> 00:43:41,075
they may not be explicitly using computers or

1184
00:43:41,075 --> 00:43:42,215
AI, but

1185
00:43:42,849 --> 00:43:44,929
to use it to clean things up or

1186
00:43:44,929 --> 00:43:47,349
to, you know, I don't know, create new

1187
00:43:47,809 --> 00:43:51,089
colors or suggest new juxtapositions that they may

1188
00:43:51,089 --> 00:43:53,409
not have thought about. I mean, I I

1189
00:43:53,409 --> 00:43:55,510
I think that's all good.

1190
00:43:56,045 --> 00:43:57,885
You know? They have to still sit down

1191
00:43:57,885 --> 00:43:59,485
in the morning and decide what they're gonna

1192
00:43:59,485 --> 00:44:00,224
work on.

1193
00:44:00,765 --> 00:44:02,765
Yeah. Yeah. No. Fair enough. Fair enough. I

1194
00:44:02,765 --> 00:44:05,005
do there's there's this other thought that I

1195
00:44:05,005 --> 00:44:07,644
have, which is about the Goldberg Variations and

1196
00:44:07,644 --> 00:44:09,005
the 2 different versions. Do you think if

1197
00:44:09,005 --> 00:44:11,130
you'd made this film part of more the

1198
00:44:11,289 --> 00:44:13,449
changes in the world making the the content

1199
00:44:13,449 --> 00:44:15,449
of the film different, do you think if

1200
00:44:15,449 --> 00:44:17,289
a younger version of you made this film,

1201
00:44:17,289 --> 00:44:19,130
it would be a different film? I, yeah,

1202
00:44:19,130 --> 00:44:20,650
I don't think I was ready to make

1203
00:44:20,650 --> 00:44:22,589
this film when I was younger.

1204
00:44:23,449 --> 00:44:24,509
I think that,

1205
00:44:27,625 --> 00:44:29,464
in fact, actually, the interesting thing, and I

1206
00:44:29,464 --> 00:44:31,864
don't have the I'm not sure myself what

1207
00:44:31,864 --> 00:44:34,025
the answer is yet is how is making

1208
00:44:34,025 --> 00:44:37,005
this film gonna change the Gold Bug variations,

1209
00:44:37,385 --> 00:44:39,484
which I wrote as a script years ago?

1210
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:42,160
And is it going to change the way

1211
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:44,000
I make that and look at it? Because

1212
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:44,400
this was a

1213
00:44:45,680 --> 00:44:47,360
you know, I mean, a lot of people

1214
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:49,280
have said it's I I think it's a

1215
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:52,180
pretty unique film in terms of

1216
00:44:52,485 --> 00:44:55,525
that mixture that I just said I'm not

1217
00:44:55,525 --> 00:44:58,085
gonna just do explanatory animations. I'm gonna just

1218
00:44:58,085 --> 00:45:01,365
put in things that are associative, that are

1219
00:45:01,365 --> 00:45:03,224
visually rich and stimulating.

1220
00:45:04,164 --> 00:45:04,664
And

1221
00:45:07,610 --> 00:45:10,170
is that something now that I will that

1222
00:45:10,170 --> 00:45:12,570
will make me think differently about this? So

1223
00:45:12,570 --> 00:45:15,150
I I don't think in fact, very explicitly

1224
00:45:15,690 --> 00:45:17,690
to your answer, I guess I answered it

1225
00:45:17,690 --> 00:45:18,190
because

1226
00:45:18,664 --> 00:45:21,005
I looked at you know, when I discovered

1227
00:45:21,065 --> 00:45:22,744
that back on particle fever, I was looking

1228
00:45:22,744 --> 00:45:24,585
at these things. I wasn't ready to put

1229
00:45:24,585 --> 00:45:26,344
them in. They weren't right. I don't think

1230
00:45:26,344 --> 00:45:28,445
they were right. I think particle fever

1231
00:45:29,304 --> 00:45:32,025
ended up particle fever ended up being such

1232
00:45:32,025 --> 00:45:33,484
a a compelling,

1233
00:45:34,500 --> 00:45:36,119
dramatic narrative story.

1234
00:45:38,019 --> 00:45:40,340
I never really went that far with, you

1235
00:45:40,340 --> 00:45:42,179
know, like, putting an abstract art. I think

1236
00:45:42,179 --> 00:45:44,019
that was it would have been the wrong

1237
00:45:44,019 --> 00:45:46,019
place, but I think I wasn't ready for

1238
00:45:46,019 --> 00:45:46,760
it either.

1239
00:45:47,539 --> 00:45:49,574
Especially at that time, I think, you know,

1240
00:45:49,574 --> 00:45:51,574
I hadn't made a documentary. I think, you

1241
00:45:51,574 --> 00:45:53,815
know, I I I was okay. You have

1242
00:45:53,815 --> 00:45:55,894
to do certain things. We need more explanatory

1243
00:45:55,894 --> 00:45:57,734
animations. And I think I think that was

1244
00:45:57,734 --> 00:45:59,914
the right decision. I don't regret it.

1245
00:46:01,414 --> 00:46:02,054
And then,

1246
00:46:02,375 --> 00:46:03,675
and then the bit player,

1247
00:46:05,469 --> 00:46:06,130
you know,

1248
00:46:06,750 --> 00:46:07,650
had these,

1249
00:46:08,030 --> 00:46:09,869
you know it was already a jump because

1250
00:46:09,869 --> 00:46:11,489
it was a mixture of narrative,

1251
00:46:11,789 --> 00:46:12,849
fictional or not.

1252
00:46:13,390 --> 00:46:15,469
And I think there was something I felt

1253
00:46:15,469 --> 00:46:16,769
in making this film.

1254
00:46:17,390 --> 00:46:19,329
I think I felt a sort of freedom.

1255
00:46:20,315 --> 00:46:22,255
In some sense, I felt

1256
00:46:25,034 --> 00:46:28,335
most artists like in a sense that I

1257
00:46:29,275 --> 00:46:30,894
I because when you remove

1258
00:46:31,355 --> 00:46:33,054
the necessity of explaining

1259
00:46:33,355 --> 00:46:34,494
something explicitly,

1260
00:46:35,500 --> 00:46:36,320
It's a

1261
00:46:37,180 --> 00:46:40,000
broad canvas, actually. I mean, it's it's exactly

1262
00:46:40,059 --> 00:46:41,900
what are the things where, you know, the

1263
00:46:41,900 --> 00:46:42,400
choices.

1264
00:46:43,019 --> 00:46:44,079
It's it's incredibly

1265
00:46:44,539 --> 00:46:46,079
freeing, but it's also

1266
00:46:46,460 --> 00:46:48,300
it can be daunting because, you know, you

1267
00:46:48,300 --> 00:46:51,244
could almost put anything in. I mean, for

1268
00:46:51,244 --> 00:46:53,085
me, everything had to rest there had to

1269
00:46:53,085 --> 00:46:54,784
be a reason there. But,

1270
00:46:55,484 --> 00:46:55,984
I

1271
00:46:56,284 --> 00:46:57,984
I I think this is

1272
00:46:58,525 --> 00:47:01,724
clearly my most visual film. I mean, it

1273
00:47:01,724 --> 00:47:03,984
represents it's very different from the others.

1274
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:06,260
But I think it took a

1275
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:08,880
while to get there. I think I had

1276
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:09,380
to

1277
00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:11,920
be established enough to have the freedom to

1278
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:13,219
do something like this.

1279
00:47:13,519 --> 00:47:15,360
I had to have the support of somebody

1280
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:16,099
who basically

1281
00:47:16,559 --> 00:47:18,000
allowed me to do it. I mean, I

1282
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:20,735
would have been hard to do that with,

1283
00:47:20,735 --> 00:47:21,394
you know,

1284
00:47:22,094 --> 00:47:23,795
particle fever or the Bit player.

1285
00:47:25,295 --> 00:47:25,795
So,

1286
00:47:26,575 --> 00:47:28,655
yeah, I I think I wasn't maybe ready.

1287
00:47:28,655 --> 00:47:30,175
And but as I say, for me, the

1288
00:47:30,175 --> 00:47:32,869
really interesting question is, am I gonna do

1289
00:47:32,869 --> 00:47:35,030
anything different, you know, with the gold bug,

1290
00:47:35,030 --> 00:47:37,989
which I have been approaching as, you know,

1291
00:47:37,989 --> 00:47:40,869
a a, you know, a linear sort of

1292
00:47:40,869 --> 00:47:43,030
narrow well, it actually has 2 time periods.

1293
00:47:43,030 --> 00:47:45,244
It's not entirely linear, but it was, you

1294
00:47:45,244 --> 00:47:45,985
know, basically

1295
00:47:47,324 --> 00:47:47,824
straightforward

1296
00:47:49,085 --> 00:47:49,585
storytelling.

1297
00:47:50,925 --> 00:47:51,425
And

1298
00:47:52,684 --> 00:47:55,505
I'm not sure myself yet, you know, what

1299
00:47:56,765 --> 00:47:57,265
Amazing.

1300
00:47:57,819 --> 00:47:59,339
I'll tell you what, let's talk about that

1301
00:47:59,339 --> 00:48:01,179
again when we talk again when that, when

1302
00:48:01,179 --> 00:48:03,980
that's available. But but speaking of films being

1303
00:48:03,980 --> 00:48:06,460
available, what's the life of the universe in

1304
00:48:06,460 --> 00:48:08,059
a grain of sand? How does a film

1305
00:48:08,059 --> 00:48:09,980
like this get out there? How can people

1306
00:48:09,980 --> 00:48:11,739
see it? What what does it that look

1307
00:48:11,739 --> 00:48:13,974
like? Yeah. That's also I mean, we're still

1308
00:48:13,974 --> 00:48:15,574
working on it. I mean, it's just started

1309
00:48:15,574 --> 00:48:17,094
to go you know, I have taken it

1310
00:48:17,094 --> 00:48:19,275
around to some festivals. I don't think it's

1311
00:48:19,494 --> 00:48:20,715
it's a, you know,

1312
00:48:21,094 --> 00:48:23,655
it's a what I'm finding is it's a

1313
00:48:23,655 --> 00:48:25,574
tricky film. I think for a lot of

1314
00:48:25,574 --> 00:48:27,014
festivals, they don't know what to make of

1315
00:48:27,014 --> 00:48:27,860
it. So,

1316
00:48:28,239 --> 00:48:30,820
I mean, luckily, I have certain, you know,

1317
00:48:31,119 --> 00:48:33,599
connections and background from my other films. So

1318
00:48:33,599 --> 00:48:34,760
we did show it,

1319
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:37,119
at, you know, it showed it a couple

1320
00:48:37,119 --> 00:48:39,440
of science oriented things, and they had a

1321
00:48:39,440 --> 00:48:41,619
great screening at at CERN in Geneva,

1322
00:48:42,364 --> 00:48:43,644
where there's a you know, they have a

1323
00:48:43,644 --> 00:48:45,724
whole program about science and science and the

1324
00:48:45,724 --> 00:48:46,224
arts.

1325
00:48:46,525 --> 00:48:48,464
So we had a great screening there.

1326
00:48:49,324 --> 00:48:49,885
And then,

1327
00:48:50,364 --> 00:48:52,605
what was very nice is it got selected

1328
00:48:52,605 --> 00:48:55,324
for the Vancouver International Film Festival. And so

1329
00:48:55,324 --> 00:48:56,944
that was the first big broad

1330
00:48:57,539 --> 00:49:00,420
general festival, not just documentaries, not just science.

1331
00:49:00,420 --> 00:49:03,559
And so we had 3 really great screenings.

1332
00:49:03,780 --> 00:49:04,360
I mean,

1333
00:49:04,660 --> 00:49:06,420
what I'm finding is look. The film is

1334
00:49:06,420 --> 00:49:07,239
not for everybody,

1335
00:49:07,619 --> 00:49:10,199
but for people that are interested in science

1336
00:49:10,894 --> 00:49:12,355
or and or art,

1337
00:49:12,815 --> 00:49:15,454
I'm finding that there's a lot of interest

1338
00:49:15,454 --> 00:49:17,074
and there's a lot of people

1339
00:49:18,014 --> 00:49:20,434
that that we have really good comp discussions

1340
00:49:20,494 --> 00:49:22,255
afterwards. So what we've tried to do at

1341
00:49:22,255 --> 00:49:23,635
a couple places at CERN

1342
00:49:24,420 --> 00:49:27,380
and Vancouver, and then also we also now

1343
00:49:27,380 --> 00:49:29,219
just recently had our big premiere in New

1344
00:49:29,219 --> 00:49:30,980
York. It was part of the Imagine Science

1345
00:49:30,980 --> 00:49:33,139
Film Festival, and and it was the opening

1346
00:49:33,139 --> 00:49:33,880
night event.

1347
00:49:34,260 --> 00:49:36,500
And what's been really great is at a

1348
00:49:36,500 --> 00:49:38,295
number of them, we've had, people that are

1349
00:49:38,295 --> 00:49:39,815
on the science side and people of the

1350
00:49:39,815 --> 00:49:41,275
artists. So a couple of the artists

1351
00:49:41,815 --> 00:49:43,175
whose work is in the film have been

1352
00:49:43,175 --> 00:49:45,255
on the panels, and those have been really

1353
00:49:45,255 --> 00:49:45,755
fascinating.

1354
00:49:46,135 --> 00:49:48,534
And so, you know, I'm still I'm trying

1355
00:49:48,534 --> 00:49:49,914
to take it around to those

1356
00:49:50,454 --> 00:49:51,594
venues. I think

1357
00:49:52,099 --> 00:49:52,599
that,

1358
00:49:53,380 --> 00:49:56,119
you know, is there theatrical?

1359
00:49:56,500 --> 00:49:59,699
I you know, theatrical for any film is

1360
00:49:59,699 --> 00:50:01,320
dubious these days. Documentaries,

1361
00:50:01,699 --> 00:50:02,199
less.

1362
00:50:02,579 --> 00:50:05,534
There is a program that Sloan supports called

1363
00:50:05,614 --> 00:50:07,775
Science on Screen that I participated in where

1364
00:50:07,775 --> 00:50:08,755
they subsidize

1365
00:50:09,775 --> 00:50:10,994
screenings of,

1366
00:50:12,414 --> 00:50:14,815
you know, films at Art House Theater. So

1367
00:50:14,815 --> 00:50:16,034
I'm trying to do that.

1368
00:50:16,655 --> 00:50:18,655
The my ace in the hole is that

1369
00:50:18,655 --> 00:50:19,635
I have a distributor

1370
00:50:20,079 --> 00:50:21,760
that that people that did particle,

1371
00:50:22,159 --> 00:50:23,219
the the bit player.

1372
00:50:23,599 --> 00:50:25,940
It's a European company called Off the Fence,

1373
00:50:26,079 --> 00:50:28,639
and they're real distributors. You know them? Yeah.

1374
00:50:28,639 --> 00:50:30,960
And so they've taken it. And so they

1375
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:32,579
are now they took it to Midcom.

1376
00:50:33,199 --> 00:50:34,019
They are,

1377
00:50:34,559 --> 00:50:36,954
you know, I'm getting them all the materials.

1378
00:50:37,335 --> 00:50:39,894
So they they're pretty good at getting, you

1379
00:50:39,894 --> 00:50:40,295
know,

1380
00:50:40,775 --> 00:50:42,855
getting it out there. So so I have

1381
00:50:42,855 --> 00:50:44,074
that. And

1382
00:50:44,375 --> 00:50:45,675
meanwhile, I have

1383
00:50:46,054 --> 00:50:48,789
the freedom to try to exploit the theatrical

1384
00:50:48,789 --> 00:50:51,369
because they mostly do online and broadcast.

1385
00:50:52,630 --> 00:50:54,869
But so I'm trying to start to line

1386
00:50:54,869 --> 00:50:57,530
up things. I think that the film has

1387
00:50:57,670 --> 00:51:00,309
an interesting potential that my other ones didn't,

1388
00:51:00,309 --> 00:51:02,324
which is the art museum world.

1389
00:51:02,885 --> 00:51:03,784
And so,

1390
00:51:05,684 --> 00:51:08,484
I'm talking to art because a number of

1391
00:51:08,484 --> 00:51:10,505
art museums are showing some of the artists.

1392
00:51:10,804 --> 00:51:13,045
In fact, actually, one interesting thing is a

1393
00:51:13,125 --> 00:51:15,464
the director of programs at the Exploratorium

1394
00:51:15,764 --> 00:51:16,664
in San Francisco.

1395
00:51:17,364 --> 00:51:17,864
He

1396
00:51:18,860 --> 00:51:20,860
contacted me, and he said that I didn't

1397
00:51:20,860 --> 00:51:23,360
even realize they actually have their own archive

1398
00:51:23,420 --> 00:51:24,960
where he said that we have

1399
00:51:25,420 --> 00:51:25,920
probably

1400
00:51:26,619 --> 00:51:27,760
80, 85%

1401
00:51:28,219 --> 00:51:30,940
of the experimental filmmakers works that are in

1402
00:51:30,940 --> 00:51:33,255
the film. They have original prints for. And

1403
00:51:33,255 --> 00:51:36,234
so he's very excited about doing something. And,

1404
00:51:36,855 --> 00:51:37,514
you know,

1405
00:51:37,894 --> 00:51:38,875
I'm trying to

1406
00:51:39,255 --> 00:51:39,994
think about

1407
00:51:41,014 --> 00:51:43,574
art museums. My ideal would be finding an

1408
00:51:43,574 --> 00:51:44,315
art museum

1409
00:51:44,775 --> 00:51:47,500
that would, you know, have screening a screening

1410
00:51:47,500 --> 00:51:49,199
or screenings and have

1411
00:51:49,579 --> 00:51:51,980
a gallery show of the artists in the

1412
00:51:51,980 --> 00:51:53,900
film that, you know, would correlate with it.

1413
00:51:53,900 --> 00:51:55,599
That sounds amazing. Yeah.

1414
00:51:56,139 --> 00:51:57,980
So so that's one of the things we're

1415
00:51:57,980 --> 00:51:59,760
working on. We had I mean,

1416
00:52:00,275 --> 00:52:02,035
the the London Science Museum, we had a

1417
00:52:02,035 --> 00:52:03,954
great screening of particle fever. I don't know,

1418
00:52:03,954 --> 00:52:05,635
you know, if they'd be interested in something

1419
00:52:05,635 --> 00:52:07,875
like this. But so I think it's gonna

1420
00:52:07,875 --> 00:52:09,335
be a, you know,

1421
00:52:11,074 --> 00:52:13,260
a a double sort of effort with off

1422
00:52:13,260 --> 00:52:13,920
the fence

1423
00:52:14,219 --> 00:52:16,300
doing, you know, what they do, which is

1424
00:52:16,300 --> 00:52:18,219
great to have a company behind it that

1425
00:52:18,219 --> 00:52:20,860
can do that. And then us, you know,

1426
00:52:20,860 --> 00:52:23,980
individually sort of trying to go to, you

1427
00:52:23,980 --> 00:52:26,159
know, drum up interest in

1428
00:52:26,525 --> 00:52:29,025
museums and art museums, science museums,

1429
00:52:30,125 --> 00:52:32,125
all those sort of places. But, you know,

1430
00:52:32,125 --> 00:52:33,885
it also could even I mean, I think

1431
00:52:33,885 --> 00:52:35,965
even at universities, I mean, you know, in

1432
00:52:35,965 --> 00:52:36,785
various departments.

1433
00:52:37,244 --> 00:52:39,644
I mean, a film professor here at NYU

1434
00:52:39,644 --> 00:52:41,085
said it could almost be like the basis

1435
00:52:41,085 --> 00:52:42,980
of a course, you know, an experimental film.

1436
00:52:42,980 --> 00:52:43,480
And

1437
00:52:43,859 --> 00:52:45,539
and and then other people have been saying

1438
00:52:45,539 --> 00:52:46,980
the technology part of it. You know, a

1439
00:52:46,980 --> 00:52:49,460
lot of people people in computers, they don't

1440
00:52:49,460 --> 00:52:50,599
even know about,

1441
00:52:51,059 --> 00:52:53,000
how how, you know, semiconductors

1442
00:52:53,460 --> 00:52:55,000
were ever made, and it,

1443
00:52:55,460 --> 00:52:56,280
you know,

1444
00:52:56,635 --> 00:52:58,795
gives a different perspective. Yeah. No. It's really

1445
00:52:58,795 --> 00:53:00,474
inter I mean, I I, you know, I

1446
00:53:00,474 --> 00:53:02,474
sat down to watch it. I was gonna

1447
00:53:02,474 --> 00:53:04,715
watch it with my daughter, but she ended

1448
00:53:04,715 --> 00:53:06,394
up needing to do some homework, so I

1449
00:53:06,394 --> 00:53:07,535
watched it on my own.

1450
00:53:07,914 --> 00:53:09,434
In fact, I'm not sure it's quite right

1451
00:53:09,434 --> 00:53:10,875
for her. It's definitely right for my wife

1452
00:53:10,875 --> 00:53:12,679
who's a musician, a

1453
00:53:13,059 --> 00:53:14,019
violinist. So,

1454
00:53:15,059 --> 00:53:15,460
that,

1455
00:53:15,859 --> 00:53:17,380
well, we will watch it together at some

1456
00:53:17,380 --> 00:53:18,739
point. But, yeah, it sounds like there's a

1457
00:53:18,739 --> 00:53:20,099
there's a home for it. You know, if

1458
00:53:20,099 --> 00:53:20,920
you're a science

1459
00:53:21,300 --> 00:53:23,880
interested person, you'll find it at science museums,

1460
00:53:24,019 --> 00:53:26,119
science film festivals, and art

1461
00:53:26,525 --> 00:53:28,144
person. You'll find it in art,

1462
00:53:28,684 --> 00:53:31,164
museums and galleries. And, if you like Pink

1463
00:53:31,164 --> 00:53:31,664
Floyd

1464
00:53:32,125 --> 00:53:34,684
and experimental film, you'll find it online. So

1465
00:53:34,684 --> 00:53:37,005
that's Yeah. One of the the goals for

1466
00:53:37,005 --> 00:53:39,005
me is really to to sort of really

1467
00:53:39,005 --> 00:53:41,449
merge those worlds in terms of getting from

1468
00:53:41,449 --> 00:53:43,309
one to be interested in the other. And

1469
00:53:43,690 --> 00:53:46,009
I have found even in the film world,

1470
00:53:46,009 --> 00:53:48,409
the interesting thing is I have people that,

1471
00:53:48,409 --> 00:53:50,889
you know, I'm I'm I'm very close with

1472
00:53:50,889 --> 00:53:53,449
and I really respect in terms of their

1473
00:53:53,449 --> 00:53:53,949
film

1474
00:53:54,465 --> 00:53:54,965
knowledge

1475
00:53:55,345 --> 00:53:56,565
who told me that,

1476
00:53:57,425 --> 00:53:59,744
honestly, they never really were very interested in

1477
00:53:59,744 --> 00:54:01,744
experimental film and video art and things like

1478
00:54:01,744 --> 00:54:03,285
that. And this has made them

1479
00:54:03,585 --> 00:54:04,945
want to look at it in a different

1480
00:54:04,945 --> 00:54:07,445
way, which is fantastic, you know. And

1481
00:54:07,820 --> 00:54:10,139
one amusing thing is that I I'm used

1482
00:54:10,139 --> 00:54:11,519
to having to try to

1483
00:54:12,619 --> 00:54:15,260
deal with people who don't understand science with

1484
00:54:15,260 --> 00:54:16,400
explaining the science.

1485
00:54:16,699 --> 00:54:19,260
And I've had the fun opposite this time

1486
00:54:19,260 --> 00:54:20,699
a couple of times where some of the

1487
00:54:20,699 --> 00:54:22,860
scientists have said, I don't really understand the

1488
00:54:22,860 --> 00:54:24,045
art. You know?

1489
00:54:24,744 --> 00:54:26,425
And they said, it looks cool. I think

1490
00:54:26,425 --> 00:54:28,824
it's really interesting, but, you know, I love

1491
00:54:28,824 --> 00:54:30,824
that idea that, you know, they're now the

1492
00:54:30,824 --> 00:54:32,105
ones that have to be able to deal

1493
00:54:32,105 --> 00:54:34,605
with abstraction in a way that they yeah.

1494
00:54:34,664 --> 00:54:35,159
Really.

1495
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:37,559
That so you'd made the move a long

1496
00:54:37,559 --> 00:54:39,960
time ago from physics into film. Any regrets

1497
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:41,639
on that? No. I don't think so. You

1498
00:54:41,639 --> 00:54:44,119
know, when I when I was making particle

1499
00:54:44,119 --> 00:54:44,619
fever,

1500
00:54:46,599 --> 00:54:48,280
and the first time I went to CERN,

1501
00:54:48,280 --> 00:54:50,619
I it was a very odd feeling because,

1502
00:54:50,905 --> 00:54:52,905
first of all, I was a theorist. And,

1503
00:54:52,905 --> 00:54:54,105
you know, as one of the big points

1504
00:54:54,105 --> 00:54:56,025
we make in part in particle fever is

1505
00:54:56,025 --> 00:54:57,325
that there's such a difference,

1506
00:54:57,945 --> 00:55:00,905
in terms of the cultures and worlds. And

1507
00:55:00,905 --> 00:55:02,285
and even in

1508
00:55:03,065 --> 00:55:05,360
particle theory, there are people that are closer

1509
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:07,680
to experiment, people that do so called model

1510
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:09,680
building, and then there are people that are,

1511
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:11,519
like, out on the edge. I was out

1512
00:55:11,519 --> 00:55:13,940
on the edge. I mean, for me, I

1513
00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:16,019
I I joked that I had almost

1514
00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:18,820
less I almost had more experience

1515
00:55:19,119 --> 00:55:19,619
with

1516
00:55:20,815 --> 00:55:21,875
experimental physicists.

1517
00:55:22,815 --> 00:55:25,695
I did have more experience and interactions with

1518
00:55:25,695 --> 00:55:28,094
experimental physicists when I was making particle fever

1519
00:55:28,094 --> 00:55:29,555
than when I was studying physics.

1520
00:55:30,974 --> 00:55:32,574
And when I went to CERN for the

1521
00:55:32,574 --> 00:55:34,574
first time, it was interesting because the theorists

1522
00:55:34,574 --> 00:55:36,710
all sit at a table, one table together,

1523
00:55:36,710 --> 00:55:39,369
you know, and mostly it's experimentalists. And

1524
00:55:39,670 --> 00:55:40,949
I I have to say at a certain

1525
00:55:40,949 --> 00:55:41,449
point,

1526
00:55:41,750 --> 00:55:43,510
I was thinking, wow, I could have been

1527
00:55:43,510 --> 00:55:44,969
on the other side of the table.

1528
00:55:45,349 --> 00:55:47,030
And, you know, you get I got caught

1529
00:55:47,030 --> 00:55:48,650
up in their stories and,

1530
00:55:49,574 --> 00:55:52,215
I did sometimes think, maybe maybe I should

1531
00:55:52,215 --> 00:55:53,514
have stayed in physics.

1532
00:55:54,135 --> 00:55:55,815
But I think the key for me was

1533
00:55:55,815 --> 00:55:57,195
when I finished the film,

1534
00:55:57,655 --> 00:55:59,255
I was thinking I wanted to make another

1535
00:55:59,255 --> 00:56:01,574
film. I I was not thinking I'm gonna

1536
00:56:01,574 --> 00:56:03,514
go back and look at, you know,

1537
00:56:04,619 --> 00:56:07,980
new models of of supersymmetry or things like

1538
00:56:07,980 --> 00:56:10,619
that. So so I and I I think

1539
00:56:10,619 --> 00:56:10,780
that

1540
00:56:12,219 --> 00:56:13,280
no. I'm I'm

1541
00:56:14,780 --> 00:56:15,339
I'm I'm

1542
00:56:16,684 --> 00:56:18,525
I think I've made the right choice. You

1543
00:56:18,525 --> 00:56:20,204
know, I think I'm doing, you know, maybe

1544
00:56:20,204 --> 00:56:21,885
straddling this world. And,

1545
00:56:23,005 --> 00:56:25,164
and in particular, I mean, the universe and

1546
00:56:25,164 --> 00:56:26,784
grain of sand for me was

1547
00:56:27,244 --> 00:56:29,405
it was a discovery process. I mean, it

1548
00:56:29,405 --> 00:56:30,545
was really the most

1549
00:56:31,329 --> 00:56:33,170
in that sense. It was like, you know,

1550
00:56:33,170 --> 00:56:35,089
what is this film going to be? What

1551
00:56:35,089 --> 00:56:35,589
works?

1552
00:56:36,050 --> 00:56:37,269
I mean, there's something

1553
00:56:37,650 --> 00:56:38,150
incredibly

1554
00:56:38,849 --> 00:56:41,269
there was something incredibly satisfying with

1555
00:56:41,650 --> 00:56:44,775
finding a piece of art that, wow, look

1556
00:56:44,775 --> 00:56:46,875
at what how this works and, you know,

1557
00:56:46,934 --> 00:56:48,795
what does it show? And so

1558
00:56:49,335 --> 00:56:52,394
I you know, it's creatively been very

1559
00:56:53,335 --> 00:56:53,835
gratifying.

1560
00:56:54,695 --> 00:56:55,195
And,

1561
00:56:56,214 --> 00:56:57,195
now now

1562
00:56:57,815 --> 00:56:59,355
I don't have any regrets.

1563
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:01,840
From my point of view as someone who's

1564
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:02,659
watched the film,

1565
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:06,400
I'm glad that you, that you moved on

1566
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:08,320
from from politics. Well, I don't I don't

1567
00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:09,920
think this film would exist. I don't think

1568
00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:10,900
your other films,

1569
00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:14,085
in this area would would exist if you

1570
00:57:14,085 --> 00:57:17,204
hadn't done that. Right? This is art made

1571
00:57:17,204 --> 00:57:18,905
by you. And, you know,

1572
00:57:19,204 --> 00:57:20,724
some people don't think film is art, but

1573
00:57:20,724 --> 00:57:23,284
they're wrong. And, you know, this is art

1574
00:57:23,284 --> 00:57:25,625
made by it's it's made by

1575
00:57:26,005 --> 00:57:26,505
you,

1576
00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:27,659
and it is

1577
00:57:28,039 --> 00:57:30,679
your Yeah. Voice in it to sort of

1578
00:57:30,760 --> 00:57:31,500
to some extent.

1579
00:57:31,880 --> 00:57:34,119
And the physics still happens anyway, so I'm

1580
00:57:34,119 --> 00:57:36,440
glad you moved on. Yeah. It's interesting that,

1581
00:57:36,440 --> 00:57:37,880
you know, that would took me a while

1582
00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:40,974
to embrace that, that it is my voice.

1583
00:57:40,974 --> 00:57:42,974
And because when I recorded myself initially, it

1584
00:57:42,974 --> 00:57:45,155
was, you know, out of necessity.

1585
00:57:45,454 --> 00:57:47,054
I never thought it would stay in there.

1586
00:57:47,054 --> 00:57:49,135
And then, you know, more and more people

1587
00:57:49,135 --> 00:57:51,215
said, no. It it's your story. You need

1588
00:57:51,215 --> 00:57:52,914
to be doing this. And,

1589
00:57:53,534 --> 00:57:55,269
you know, I worked for years when I

1590
00:57:55,269 --> 00:57:57,190
was in the narrative world. My my day

1591
00:57:57,190 --> 00:57:58,469
job was I was,

1592
00:57:58,949 --> 00:58:01,190
doing ADR recording. I would work with actors

1593
00:58:01,190 --> 00:58:03,750
in postproduction to redo lines. And I actually

1594
00:58:03,750 --> 00:58:05,670
developed a very good a close relationship with

1595
00:58:05,670 --> 00:58:06,569
Anthony Meguela.

1596
00:58:06,945 --> 00:58:08,625
So I worked with him on on English

1597
00:58:08,625 --> 00:58:10,324
Patient and Talented Mr. Ripley

1598
00:58:10,704 --> 00:58:12,644
and Cold Mountain. And and he

1599
00:58:12,945 --> 00:58:14,164
was very much

1600
00:58:14,465 --> 00:58:16,144
you know, he knew I wanted to, you

1601
00:58:16,144 --> 00:58:18,144
know, direct my own films, and I had

1602
00:58:18,144 --> 00:58:21,105
ideas. And he he very, very strongly said,

1603
00:58:21,105 --> 00:58:22,244
Mark, you you

1604
00:58:22,630 --> 00:58:24,949
you need to do something that is unique,

1605
00:58:24,949 --> 00:58:25,670
that respect

1606
00:58:26,150 --> 00:58:28,010
reflects your own unique

1607
00:58:28,389 --> 00:58:28,889
background.

1608
00:58:29,710 --> 00:58:30,210
And,

1609
00:58:31,190 --> 00:58:33,670
sadly, he he died before I made particle

1610
00:58:33,670 --> 00:58:35,449
fever, but I I think,

1611
00:58:36,204 --> 00:58:38,844
you know, I still feel that influence and

1612
00:58:38,844 --> 00:58:41,085
that that compulsion that he he pushed me

1613
00:58:41,085 --> 00:58:43,565
in that direction to say, yes. Okay. That's

1614
00:58:43,804 --> 00:58:45,824
you know, I'm not gonna just do some

1615
00:58:45,885 --> 00:58:47,964
comedy or something like that. I love comedies,

1616
00:58:47,964 --> 00:58:50,670
but that's, you know, what I have to

1617
00:58:50,670 --> 00:58:53,630
offer is something different. So I I felt

1618
00:58:53,630 --> 00:58:55,969
like this, in some sense, was the culmination.

1619
00:58:56,030 --> 00:58:56,530
But

1620
00:58:56,829 --> 00:58:58,130
but the gold bug variations,

1621
00:58:58,829 --> 00:59:01,230
that's gonna be that'll be the other side

1622
00:59:01,230 --> 00:59:02,315
of it, I hope. And,

1623
00:59:02,954 --> 00:59:05,994
yes. We'll we'll we'll you'll see what happens

1624
00:59:05,994 --> 00:59:08,235
with that. I'd like to thank Mark Levinson

1625
00:59:08,235 --> 00:59:09,755
for talking to me for this episode of

1626
00:59:09,755 --> 00:59:11,994
the Physics World Stories podcast. And I'd also

1627
00:59:11,994 --> 00:59:14,075
like to thank Mark for making the universe

1628
00:59:14,075 --> 00:59:15,295
in a grain of sound,

1629
00:59:15,619 --> 00:59:17,619
which you can find out more about and

1630
00:59:17,619 --> 00:59:19,160
find out when there are screenings

1631
00:59:19,539 --> 00:59:22,099
near you or indeed on the Internet on

1632
00:59:22,099 --> 00:59:23,400
grain of sound movie.com.

1633
00:59:24,820 --> 00:59:27,539
Hopefully, there'll be a future episode where Mark

1634
00:59:27,539 --> 00:59:29,304
will join us again to talk about that

1635
00:59:29,304 --> 00:59:32,824
Gold Bug variations project he's working on. But

1636
00:59:32,824 --> 00:59:33,324
2025

1637
00:59:33,785 --> 00:59:36,344
is the international year of quantum science and

1638
00:59:36,344 --> 00:59:36,844
technology,

1639
00:59:37,144 --> 00:59:37,644
because

1640
00:59:38,105 --> 00:59:39,485
it marks the centenary

1641
00:59:40,025 --> 00:59:41,085
of Werner Heisenberg's

1642
00:59:41,385 --> 00:59:44,125
efforts to develop the mathematical formulation

1643
00:59:44,639 --> 00:59:47,119
of quantum phenomena. We'll look at that in

1644
00:59:47,119 --> 00:59:50,000
January, but until then I hope whatever you're

1645
00:59:50,000 --> 00:59:52,319
doing or celebrating this December and wherever you

1646
00:59:52,319 --> 00:59:54,420
are in the world, you have a wonderful

1647
00:59:54,480 --> 00:59:57,059
time, and thank you very much for listening.