nfb.ca/seances

Seances presents a new way of experiencing film narrative, framed through the lens of loss. In a technical feat of data-driven cinematic storytelling, films are dynamically assembled in never-to-be-repeated configurations. Each exists only in the moment, with no pausing, scrubbing or sharing permitted, offering the audience just one chance to see this film before it disappears.

The project was born from the mind of one of the world’s foremost outré directors, Guy Maddin, who has long been haunted by the idea that 80% of films from the silent era have been lost. Driven by the desire to reincarnate this vanished history, an abundance of these films have been reimagined by Maddin and brothers Evan and Galen Johnson, with the express goal of combining and recombining them to create infinite narrative permutations.

In this trio’s inimitable ethos and aesthetic – which takes the language and spirit of early sound cinema and runs it through a filter of their invention, bound up in history, melodrama and bromance-infused neuroses – Seances has been co-created by the NFB as a web-based and installation-based film experience. In both iterations, the audience has an opportunity to influence the film they are about to see, but it will be the only instance of that particular film that will ever exist. There is only that moment to watch.

Seances presents a new way of experiencing film narrative, framed through the lens of loss. In a technical feat of data-driven cinematic storytelling, films are dynamically assembled in never-to-be-repeated configurations. Each exists only in the moment, with no pausing, scrubbing or sharing permitted, offering the audience just one chance to see this film before it disappears.

The project was born from the mind of one of the world’s foremost outré directors, Guy Maddin, who has long been haunted by the idea that 80% of films from the silent era have been lost. Driven by the desire to reincarnate this vanished history, an abundance of these films have been reimagined by Maddin and brothers Evan and Galen Johnson, with the express goal of combining and recombining them to create infinite narrative permutations.

In this trio’s inimitable ethos and aesthetic – which takes the language and spirit of early sound cinema and runs it through a filter of their invention, bound up in history, melodrama and bromance-infused neuroses – Seances has been co-created by the NFB as a web-based and installation-based film experience. In both iterations, the audience has an opportunity to influence the film they are about to see, but it will be the only instance of that particular film that will ever exist. There is only that moment to watch.

The NFB has worked with Nickel Media in marrying a dense cinematic language with the latest in cloud-based video/audio compositing technology. The proprietary software allowed Maddin and the brothers Johnson to apply algorithmic methods to their storytelling, presenting a completely new method of filmmaking.

Seances is at once anachronistic and completely of its time. It spans a vast historical breadth, from early cinema all the way to present-day with its impressive and unique application of technology, and along the way achieves unexpected profundity and a surprising depth of emotion. It’s humorous and touching and gripping and gorgeous: a testament to loss and ephemerality in the age of the Internet.

Each time the user conjures up a new film for its one-time-only viewing, he or she participates directly in its eternal loss. This examination of loss within a form that contributes to loss is a paradox further magnified by today’s Internet-driven mindset, in which everything is only and forever a click away. Within this absurd contradiction exists a truth: That which is fleeting and fragile becomes more precious and valuable. Just like the many lost works from the first half-century of film.

The Seances experience is powered by the latest in cloud computing and by an indefatigable film-generating-and-destroying machine that deliberately creates films only to destroy them after their one and only viewing.

This machine was built using a heavily customized version of Nickel Media’s cloud-based video/audio compositing and compilation software, Imposium. The proprietary software runs on Amazon AWS Cloud formation, feeding audience demand through 500 or more virtual machines capable of rendering any number of videos per hour – a first in generative film. Through the algorithmic film direction of Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson and the NFB, these virtual machines dynamically sequence and juxtapose a range of film fragments, creating the potential for hundreds of thousands of unique narratives. Each resulting video becomes a nested “Russian Doll” film within a film within a film – each with its own unique title and story.

Whenever a film is conjured through the Seances website or installation, it plays without option of pausing. And once it’s over it becomes permanently erased from the system, joining the graveyard of lost films. That particular title can never be seen again.

Seances not only advances the notion of data-driven storytelling, but it pushes the very limits of cinematic narrative cohesion, again and again and again. Cinema manqué infinité!

Seances was filmed at the Phi Centre in Montreal and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris with a stellar cast of Canadian and international actors. It reimagines the lost works of such cinematic legends as Alice Guy‐Blaché, Alexander Dovzhenko, Jacques Feyder, Benjamin Fondane, Alfred Hitchcock and more.

The Seances website is part of the larger Seances Storyworld, which was created by award-winning filmmakers Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, in collaboration with interactive video and app development firm Nickel Media and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. The Seances Storyworld also includes the 2015 award-winning feature film The Forbidden Room, Maddin’s grand ode to lost cinema, as well as a communal viewing installation at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.

Seances can be found at nfb.ca/seances.

Using data-driven storytelling wizardry, Seances offers the audience just one chance to see this film before it disappears.

This is your one chance to see this film.
Never before seen films, never to be seen again.

The National Film Board (NFB) is a Canadian public media organization that creates and produces interactive, VR, documentary and animation works relevant to our social fabric. Recent projects include Hadwin’s Judgement (Feature Doc), The Forbidden Room (Feature), Circa 1948 (Storyscapes 2014), Stories We Tell (Feature Doc), Insomnia (Storyscapes 2013), Me and My Moulton (Oscar Finalist), Bear 71, Welcome to Pine Point and The Enemy VR (Storycapes 2015), which represent only a fraction of an immense body of work that’s been co-created, produced and co-produced with artists, filmmakers, designers and programmers.

We co-created Seances primarily for the opportunity to work once again with the renowned Guy Maddin. The NFB has always blazed a trail in marrying new technology to storytelling potential, and we immediately recognized that a partnership with an artist like Maddin – perhaps the best example of a filmmaker who might have been born 50 years too late and is making the best of it – could result in something utterly unique.

Though his work recalls the silent film days of cinema, Maddin has always been very forward-looking in his use of technology, which for this project is combined with the heroic efforts of Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson. Behind the experience of the website and the installation lies an amazing set of programming and development work: tech that’s been put in service of a story that could only have emerged from a collaboration with this singular trio of talent.

Nickel Media is an Emmy Award-winning creative tech agency whose culture-shifting work like takethislollipop.com has thrilled millions online. By casting audiences directly into videos, the agency’s content-generating technology blurs the line between fantasy and reality, giving rise to a whole new approach to storytelling. For Seances, Nickel Media adapted its proprietary content rendering platform to create the world’s first and only “video-creating-and-destroying machine.” By dynamically sequencing and juxtaposing film fragments, the platform is able to generate a virtually infinite number of never-before-seen videos that, once viewed, can never be seen again. Nickel Media is based in Halifax, Canada and can be reached at www.jnickel.com.

Imposium is the premier dynamic content rendering platform used by industry-leading filmmakers. It puts audiences into the story by generating compelling individualized videos based on dynamic data from user inputs, social media, and other personalized sources. Internationally recognized, the proprietary technology is developed specifically to immerse viewers in custom entertainment to create unforgettable moments for trusted brands, global agencies, international networks, and world-famous film studios. Filmmakers and storytellers can now unleash their creative ideas with a simple content generation solution that has the power to serve millions. Imposium was created by Nickel Media, makers of the Emmy Award-winning smash-hit “Take this Lollipop”, which has garnered over 200 millions hits to this day. For more information about Imposium’s game-changing features and how you can use it for your next big idea, please visit imposium.com or jnickel.com.