When director Gary Hustwit introduced the film along with a brief explanation of his technique, he told us, "as Brian Eno would say...for the next 90 minutes -- just surrender."
This documentary used a unique, cutting-edge method to tell the story of Brian Eno, a visionary musician and artist. Eno, the well-known producer for projects by U2, David Bowie and Talking Heads, discusses his own creative process and artistic projects over the decades. The sequences were composed of interviews with Eno, vintage photos and film footage from recording sessions and performances and lots of great music.
The "New Frontier" element of this bio-doc is that Hustwit used generative software which re-mixes the sequences every time the film is shown. Brendan Dawes, the creative technologist, explained that there were 52 quintillion (that's 52 followed by 18 zeros!) possible variations. He said some of the sequences were pinned so that they appeared in every version but the rest is left up to the algorithm.
Interestingly, one of the crew said she'd seen multiple versions and not only had she liked every one of them, they delivered different messages depending on the presentation. "Eno" is a super interesting project and subject.