This week’s Staff Pick Premiere, “DONT KNOW WHAT,” from filmmaker, artist and curator Thomas Renoldner experiments with the film medium in both a hypnotic and humorous way. Through a single shot, Renoldner explores how far he can push recorded sound and visual movement by creating a magical experience with the surprising results that come from editing.
After filming himself saying the simple declaration that “I don’t know what I am doing,” Renoldner then spent three years editing his film. Relying only on cuts and repetition, Renoldner transformed his speech into a musical instrument and the sounds of his movement became the rhythm of a drum. With these edits, he was also able to play with his body by turning his human form into an object that at times appears wildly abstract. We at Vimeo hadn’t seen the boundaries of filmmaking played with in such a clever and entertaining way before, so reached out to Renoldner in advance of the release of “DONT KNOW WHAT” to learn more about his philosophy and technique.
On being the subject of your own films:
“It gives me the freedom to do whatever I want. I can treat myself as badly as I like. It would be more difficult to work with another person and then make him or her appear strange or ridiculous.”
On being a curator and a filmmaker:
“Being a curator and watching hundreds of films every year for at least 25 years has been influential to understand what I don’t want to repeat. I do reference some of the films I have seen as a curator, but I call what I’m doing ‘slapstick avant-garde film,’ which comes from the fact that I am bored by classical avant-garde film and therefore try to combine that film genre with the opposite of it: entertainment cinema.”
On the importance of this film:
“Cecilia Traslavina Gonzalez, a good friend of mine, expressed it by saying, ‘The film has many layers that range between tragedy and comedy.’ I don’t want to talk too much about it, but I would like to say – and I haven’t said this publicly before – that this is the first film I finished after I went through terrible times with a disease. So, for me personally, it was very important to make this film. It is a statement expressing my huge joy about being alive.”
On developing a unique editing style:
“One strict principle was to always edit image and sound simultaneously, so every sound you hear comes exactly from the very moment when the image was recorded.
My first step was to concentrate on editing the sound. I started with the first part of the film when I say the sentence ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’ I made a lot of surprising discoveries and was guided by building different rhythmic structures with these micro-segments to compose music.
Since the image was edited at the same time, I also discovered strange effects or funny moments in the image. In the second step, I focused more on the image, and started to pick interesting or outstanding visual moments and the sound had to follow.”
On taking risks:
“I had many doubts when I worked on this film. I remember when I discovered the fast eye moment and the funny sound that it made, I was afraid that people might say my film is silly. I had to laugh out loud but I was quite insecure about using this profane effect. I was afraid to risk my reputation as a serious filmmaker. But that danger then seemed also challenging and I decided to try.”
On making work that feels essential:
“You have to burn. You must strongly feel and believe that art is something you have to do, even if you can’t clearly tell why. Like you would be missing something essential in your life. If you feel that, all is fine. The rest is technique, which you can learn.”
