Mrs. Benz: Voyage of Discovery combines escape room puzzle mechanics with environmental storytelling with exquisite attention to detail in order to tell the story of Bertha Benz, the the wife of the founder of Mercedes Benz, as she steals his car to take first ever road trip. I speak with director Eloise Singer and producer Siobhan McDonnell about they come to VR via film, how they created a stunning imaginal archival film scene, how they used environmental design as an expression of character, and a sneak peak into some their transmedia plans to expand this story beyond VR into a podcast series, film, and into other formats as well.
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Music: Fatality
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR Podcast. It's a podcast that's looking at the structures and forms of immersive storytelling and the future of spatial computing. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash Voices of VR. So continuing on in my series of Venice Immersive 2022, today's episode is about Mrs. Benz with Eloise Singer and Siobhan MacDonald. So Eloise and Siobhan both come from the film world and they're applying their storytelling skills into the story of Mrs. Benz, who is the wife of the founder of Mercedes-Benz. And she takes the very first road trip as she steals her husband's car to do this promotional thing. in order to get more attention to this invention of her husband. The piece itself is combining a lot of escape room puzzle mechanics in the first part, and then it's doing a lot of environmental storytelling, creating a whole context for you to understand different dimensions of each of these characters as you go through this experience of both putting together this car and going on the world's first road trip. So that's what we're covering on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Eloise and Siobhan happened on Saturday, September 3rd, 2022. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:29.352] Eloise Singer: I am Eloise Singer. I am a director in storytelling and an exec producer and a producer, but mainly focusing on directing at the moment.
[00:01:40.439] Siobhan McDonnell: Hi, I'm Siobhan McDonald. I'm an immersive producer and I work in predominantly VR immersive storytelling.
[00:01:49.524] Kent Bye: So maybe could each give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into working with VR and immersive storytelling.
[00:01:55.469] Eloise Singer: Sure, we both come from film so I started off working at Pinewood Studios and I was working on various productions such as Ready Player One and The Crown and British Bake Off etc and then I moved into freelance production on film as well. and then in about 2017 I started my own company, Singer Studios, and I produced a film that we sold to Amazon and then I exec produced Billy Piper's directing debut which premiered at Venice called Rare Beasts and then I'm now exec producing a film with Piers Brosnan called The Last Rifleman and working in Immersive as well as actually I'm directing a three-part documentary series as well. It's quite a lot happening.
[00:02:40.530] Siobhan McDonnell: And yeah, my journey's been through film as well. My heart lies in documentaries. My background was in anthropology. That's what I studied. And I first started in immersive storytelling with Nonny de la Pena's early work at Sheffield. Like, this must be 2010, 2011, where it was kind of conjoining audio from a mobile phone with immersive visuals. And so I've kind of been following immersive storytelling, particularly documentaries, since then. And then I went into the big bad world of features, and I worked at Warner Brothers, which was incredible, sort of working on feature films like Wonder Woman, Fantastic Beasts, and then Warner Brothers started to use VR actually for some execs there and for some training, and it reignited my, my god, I really do love this format. So then I stepped back into documentary, worked freelance in documentaries again, and started working in immersive storytelling, particularly around factual stories.
[00:03:31.881] Kent Bye: And Eloise, what was your introduction to VR or immersive storytelling then, coming from film, what was the entry point for you?
[00:03:38.498] Eloise Singer: It's interesting, I think it was Siobhan. So Siobhan and I are really really good friends and we've known each other for quite a long time and she has always loved VR and I think from that I've picked up the love of it from her and she is so enthusiastic about it and it's rubbed off. So I first sort of stepped into VR during the pandemic actually and I had a story called The Pirate Queen which we were developing into a film and because of the pandemic everything stopped so Creative England offered me a grant or I actually applied for a grant to make it into a VR prototype so I made the Pirate Queen into a VR experience and that got selected for Raindance Film Festival and got nominated for a bunch of awards and won Best Debut at Raindance and that kind of then paved the way for what has then ensued. But I think it was a really interesting experience because I never really thought about VR before Siobhan. and before the pandemic and then going into that world and thinking why am I making this story in VR and that experience and then stepping into the shoes of these characters and going on these journeys and realizing the power of VR is an incredible thing. So that's how it began.
[00:05:04.610] Kent Bye: Maybe you could give a bit more context as to this project that you have here at Venice called Mrs. Benz.
[00:05:09.249] Eloise Singer: For sure. So Mrs. Benz is the origin story of the world's first car. And it's about a woman who stole her husband's invention, the motor wagon, and went on the world's first road trip across Germany. And it's an amazing piece of untold history that we're very proud to bring to light.
[00:05:28.599] Kent Bye: Yeah. And so what was the first step of discovering the story? And then maybe just talk about the catalyst of the project where, where it began and what the process was that you ended up here at Venice.
[00:05:38.418] Eloise Singer: It started in the depths of the internet. I was just doing some research for a couple of different narratives and projects and I was literally on Wikipedia and found the story of Bertha Benz and I started researching it more and more and more and then I started asking people around me and I was like oh did you know that the world's first car was like the longest road trip And the first road trip was embarked on by a woman. And people were like, no, that's nothing. And I was like, yeah, no, it's true. She was called Bertha Benn. She went on the world's first road trip. And people were just like, I don't believe it. And so after that, I was like, this story just has to be told. People need to know what happened. So at that point, I was like, right, let's make it.
[00:06:18.774] Kent Bye: And then where did you come into this story after Eloise had found this story on Wikipedia? Where did you come in into this whole process?
[00:06:26.428] Siobhan McDonnell: I think it started to really gain traction and as the research developed it was quickly apparent that actually this is not just her taking the car, there's a whole series of events after she takes the car and she takes it on the world's first road trip which is incredible and we can go into more detail in a sec but I think I came in as it was building into this much larger story and it has scope to grow and that's obviously Eloise's forte is storytelling and bringing that into VR. was like, this is bringing people and audiences to a place that you wouldn't ordinarily be able to experience. I love VR. I've worked on an AR project and a VR project myself. previously, so it seemed like quite a good fit to jump in. I've obviously worked on and off with Singles Studios as well in documentary for a while, so to jump into a VR story that's about a woman that got forgotten by history, shall we say, and allow an audience to put them in a headset and really experience that first-person perspective seemed like a really natural fit and something that I was, I can't stress enough, very excited to jump on board with and produce. And it's been not just a passion project, it's really it's felt empowering to make as well and see people's reaction has been incredible.
[00:07:39.397] Kent Bye: I'm curious how you approached the structure or the forms of the story because there's environments that have a lot of detail so there's a lot of passive environmental storytelling I'd say where it's a part of the environment to just kind of set a specific place in time and just all the objects and the artifacts that are there. but it's also a core mechanic of like an escape room puzzle mechanic. And then there's like the narrative that is underlying it along the way. And so as you're starting to have your experiences from film, which is much more passive and linear, and you have a lot of control over the framings and the shots and the pacing and the timing, but this is pivoting into more of an open world environmental storytelling, but also puzzle mechanics. And so how did you go from the film into what you ended up here? Like, how did you start to piece together what the final structure was here?
[00:08:26.768] Eloise Singer: It's a very, very, very good question. I think I've always loved escape rooms. They've always been a thing for me and actually, I was thinking about this this morning, I used to write like little puzzle games when I was younger, which definitely has rubbed off in some capacity. But when we first started developing the project, it was very much a narrative. and it didn't feel as interactive as it could have. So we really refined that and we worked on the idea of, okay, if this is going to be an interactive experience, why is it interactive? And the first thing that came to mind obviously was, well, you have to drive the car. It wouldn't be an experience without driving the world's first car. So we sort of worked backwards from that. And then it was like, OK, well, if you need to drive the car, then what are you going to do in the workshop? Because obviously the story is that she wakes up and she steals the car. So to give it that agency, we were like, OK, well, she needs to fix an engine. Okay, so if you need to fix an engine, then you need the blueprint. So we worked backwards on it, which actually, usually most of my stories we do work backwards on anyway. So it became sort of a puzzle-based game through that. And equally with the Pirate Queen, which is our other project, it's very much a puzzle-based game as well. So we learnt a lot from the Pirate Queen that we adopted into Mrs. Burns. The narrative itself is something obviously that is our bread and butter. Storytelling is something that we've done for a while and yeah, we love it. So telling that story through VR was a really, really nice format and I think what we really wanted to do was convey this character arc of her waking up and having the agency to go on this adventure. and, I don't know if I can ruin the ending, but at the ending feeling like you are somewhat sidelined, which is how she was. She was literally sort of forgotten from history, so that was something that we really wanted to convey.
[00:10:19.869] Kent Bye: It's interesting the fact that you had known about the story and people aren't generally aware and how you kind of metaphorically representing that in the end. But there's a lot of other types of immersive stories through 360 video and were there any experiences as you were coming onto this project it sounds like you were immersed into this VR realm and helping introduce Eloise into this different experiences. Were there any touch points or things that you were taking as inspiration or starting from as you look at the wider stuff that's already been out there in terms of the different structures and forms of immersive storytelling and escape room mechanics in VR?
[00:10:56.091] Siobhan McDonnell: Well, I have to say I've been more in the immersive storytelling narrative camp than the gameplay camp and very quickly transitioned into more of the gameplay through Pirate Queen and Ben's. So that's been a really interesting journey for me and a slightly newer one. Things like the room VR, the detective, what's the I expected to die. Some incredible puzzle-based VR games. But narratively, I mean, the key, Gloomy Eyes, I'm trying to think of slightly earlier VR stories, immersive stories. Oh gosh, actually, no. To be honest, my background started in 360 video, and I think that's coming on from Nonny de la Pena's journalistic approach, and Clouds Over Sidra, and some, actually, 360 video, because of documentary background. was where I entered probably into immersive storytelling more so than VR and then entered into the virtual world. So it was quite a natural progression I suppose to come from the 360 video of that kind of, I would say the realness of being immersed in a real place to then coming into a digitally constructed world. But now having the level of detail that gives such a level of realism that actually there's not a huge amount of difference. And so I think probably that background of 360 video documentaries, journalistic experiences, fed into influences that then probably influenced part of my help in supporting this project.
[00:12:22.873] Eloise Singer: I could probably jump in with some references as well. I think, for me, I was very much inspired by The Room. Just from an art point of view, I was obsessed with how beautiful it looks and the fact that you really feel like you're in another world. And also the puzzle mechanics in The Room are brilliant. It's a great game. I think also Red Matter is a much more narrative, interactive experience that also has really high-level art style. There's also, I mean here there's Peaky Blinders which is a sort of based on a well-known TV series obviously and that's a really interesting experience in terms of seeing a lot more IP from film and TV being now made into games. Same as Star Wars ultimately but definitely The Room and Red Matter were sort of the big two takeaways I missed.
[00:13:14.557] Siobhan McDonnell: And Doctor Who, I really enjoyed Doctor Who.
[00:13:18.802] Kent Bye: Yeah, and so there's a part of the experience of having this environment that has a lot of things that are embedded into the environment. So that attention to detail, the puzzle mechanics causes you in some ways to look around and pay attention to the room. So you're solving a puzzle, but through the solving of the puzzle, you have to really pay extra attention to the world around you. And when I did it, I was just taking that as an opportunity to really look at and investigate and interrogate the environment and to see what kind of clues were in the environment maybe before the puzzle were leading me and I was just taking in and I really appreciated being transported into that place. And so maybe you could talk about that process of environmental design, environmental storytelling, of translating this and allowing the audience member to, at their own pace, look at the world and take in as much as they want in terms of all the little details.
[00:14:03.903] Eloise Singer: Definitely, it's a part of the immersive storytelling process that I absolutely adore. And I learned a lot of it from documentary filmmaking as well, which is that with documentaries, especially with talking heads, so when you interview someone, immediately you want to create an environment around them. which tells the audience who that person is and it's about thinking about that character that you're sitting in that room and what it is that you can show visually that depicts that character and we're all individual and we all express ourselves in different ways so whenever we think about a room in VR we think okay whose room is this so for example our first room is a workshop It's Carl's workshop. OK, so what would Carl have in this workshop? So there are photos of his family on the wall. Was he messy? Yeah, we decided that he was a bit messy. So we put out lots of different papers on desks and things like that. He wasn't a neat person. We thought, OK, he's obviously obsessed with reading, so we put loads of books on the walls. And it was all those sorts of details of thinking about the character first, and whose room this was, and how they would interact in that space to make it believable for us the player. So for example the clock is really important because Karl was obsessed with clocks and he designed the engine on the grandfather clock so that was something that we had to include in the story. And then when you walk into the workshop it's a lot more ordered and that's because you can feel that perhaps Bertha was working with Karl in that space and everything was a lot more put together and a lot more ordered and there was more regime effectively to that environment. And so I think it's about basically finding out who your characters are and how they would express themselves and how they would embody that environment and then visually showing that to allow the player to really feel like they're in that space.
[00:15:59.095] Kent Bye: Yeah, and there was larger contextual things connected to news articles of the competition of Dahmer, who was also working on similar projects and almost like jealousy, or at least trying to compete in a way that he wasn't just alone in trying to create this car, but there were others out there in the field. And I'm curious to hear a little bit more about whether or not that was trying to set a larger context for the story of creating some narrative tension, some urgency for him to produce the car.
[00:16:25.940] Eloise Singer: Definitely, Daimler was very much in the picture and he was building his version of the motorwagen at the same time as Benz was and Daimler's was actually a four-wheeled motorwagen whereas Benz's was only three so Daimler had a lot more money, had a lot more prestige, he was the big player whereas Benz was very much the underdog and we really wanted to convey that and give the player the sense of urgency to make sure that they really felt the stakes that were at risk and what Ben's and the Ben's family were facing because it wasn't just the fact that Carl had crashed this machine into a wall and the Ben's reputation was in tatters it was also that there were other inventors who were coming up and basically trying to make claim and effectively be the ones to launch the world's first car so There were huge stakes, plus the fact that the family were in complete financial ruin as well, so conveying that both visually and through newspapers to remove exposition and feel like you were uncovering these bits of information was really important to us.
[00:17:36.615] Kent Bye: Yeah, it's interesting to see how you can set a little bit more of that context of the backstory of, you know, you're thrown into a place, but what's the history that's leading up to that point and being able to leave artifacts that are driving to the core of the narrative. And, you know, you have a film that you actually reconstructed, which I thought, you know, as I saw it, I realized that at first I thought it was like, oh, this is an archival film. But then as I looked, it took a split second, be like, no, that's actually animated. And you've like recreated this whole archival scene. And so maybe you could talk about that as a process of, You know, you mentioned the crashing into this wall, and it felt like a specific aesthetic that you were able to use to do an imaginal reconstruction of an event where there's no other document other than what was reported in print media. Maybe very little photos or film or anything else, but you were able to translate that into a moving image that would set a broader context for the dynamics of the story as it's unfolding.
[00:18:29.954] Eloise Singer: Very much. I mean, I really wanted to convey a sense of magical realism in this space as well. So that's why when you first enter the workshop, you walk over to a magic lantern and you turn that and that portrays a film. So the idea is that we're able to depict elements of the story and take the sort of realism aspect and make it larger than life. So for us, that aspect of Carl crushing the car is quite comical as well. And we really I think it's quite funny watching that cutscene because you can imagine at the time how chaotic and ridiculous the whole thing was but also then comedy and tragedy go together. He crashed a car! And then on the back step of that is the fact that the family was then thrown into tatters. So for us that cutscene was really, really important and I was hugely inspired by the world's first film and looking at that and wanting to convey that in an animation and make that as photorealistic as possible and there are people who come up and they're like oh my gosh that was a great film where did you find it and that's sort of the best compliment we could have on it because it was quite a painstaking process and we were very specific with how we wanted it to look and what the backdrop was going to be and very much the use of the camera in that as well because It's quite static which means that as an audience watching it you want to keep them engaged and so we were quite smart with how we moved the camera and how you felt like you were in the audience watching that cut scene by how we positioned the camera but we don't have any cuts in that cut scene because they wouldn't have been able to cut and reset at the time and that was really important to us as well so making it feel very fluid but also keeping that single sort of frame ultimately. So there was a lot of work involved in it and it's part of the massive experience that I'm most proud of.
[00:20:30.057] Kent Bye: Yeah, and there was a little detail that I noticed that we talked about a little bit afterwards, which was the dates on the newspaper, where I noticed it was 1888, and that you had a newspaper clipping of the crash in 1888, but then in talking to you afterwards, talking about how it was actually in 1886, and so maybe you could talk about that process of deciding when to change specific dates in order to fit the overall tension of the narrative that you're trying to tell.
[00:20:52.590] Eloise Singer: Definitely. This is one for Shiv, because she has all of the answers with dates, and I think she'll be able to win really well with this.
[00:20:59.591] Siobhan McDonnell: Yeah, so the newspapers, for example, happened in 1886 when he obviously launched the patent and he launched the vehicle. And then we had the newspaper in July 12th that that's when the crash had happened. So there are... Of 1888? Of 1886. And so then we do fast forward that we're placed in 1888 because you don't know how long those papers have been on the desk. And so to create that urgency that we are now at this time before the Paris Expo, which was the following year, we needed to get this car out on the road. So in terms of chronology, the newspapers about the crash are in the right period and the Paris invite that when they're invited to the Paris Expo is not dated. So I think in terms of setting the frame for The urgency that we need to get this car out on the road this morning, that's why we've woken up. We need to steal the car now because, you know, Daimler's going to pip us to the post. We pushed it forward to 1888. And the gap in between, actually, is the period that Karl kind of really lost a lot of confidence in his invention and didn't feel that this car was safe. And then you see Bertha really taking the bull by the horns and saying, right, you know, it's now or never, which is part of what she tries to explain in the voiceover that you hear.
[00:22:14.536] Eloise Singer: Yeah, so I guess, effectively, when you step into Bertha's shoes, you step into the workshop in 1888, on the day, or night even, that she goes on this journey. And as you're going through the workshop, you're picking up items that tell you the backstory. So, for example, the cutscene that plays out, that's something that happened in 1886. When you pick up the newspaper, it's what happened in 1886 that they've just kept. But the letter that you pick up, which is an investor's letter, is dated 1888, because we're trying to immerse ourselves in this time as well, and it's kind of, you're looking at all of the sequence of history that has played out in the last two years to accumulate to this point, which is that he crashed a car, the family went into financial ruin, They had rivals like Daimler coming up and trying to compete with them and all those factors together are your stakes. That's what you have to lose. And so we accumulated that to then allow the player to then take the agency to go on this journey.
[00:23:17.178] Kent Bye: Is it known what date that she actually went on the road trip?
[00:23:20.872] Eloise Singer: Yes, Siobhan has it. It's August 1888, from my understanding, but I just want to check because it could be July. August the 5th. August the 5th, 1888. Okay.
[00:23:33.288] Kent Bye: Okay, so we're set into 1888 and then looking at all this historical information. So yeah, then there's some other driving scenes and everything where I guess there's the long version and the shortcut where I find that when I'm turning left and right that that can be a motion sickness trigger and so like when I was driving the car whenever I turn left and right it's basically like when you do a turn and yaw and turn your head left or right that If you have it automatically, then that can be, for me at least, a big trigger. I do click turns when I'm normally in locomoting around, and so smooth turn gets a little motion sick. So there is a little bit of that smooth turning that happens. And so, yeah, I'd be curious to hear a little bit about that process of not only designing the actual road trip, but also the environment and everything else that's around there. Because it felt like I was also transported into a neighborhood of a very specific place and time.
[00:24:21.379] Eloise Singer: Very much. And I am the first to admit that I get incredibly bad motion sickness. So I do snap turns as well. Siobhan gets terribly bad motion sickness as well. So we are literally the test. We are the litmus test of motion sickness. And it's been really nice that everyone who's tried the experience has said that they haven't felt any motion sickness, which is very heartwarming, ultimately. But in terms of kind of where you are when you go on the adventure, We wanted to recreate the environment that she would have seen when she was driving the car. So you're sort of going through the countryside of Germany, ultimately, in 1888, and you can look around and see different houses that were inspired by the houses that were in Germany in 1888. And the idea is that, effectively, you are transported in time, which I just think is the coolest thing ever, and that's why VR is ultimately one of the greatest art forms. I geek out.
[00:25:17.662] Siobhan McDonnell: I was just going to say, there was a really nice note yesterday when someone was playing, and it was a husband and wife from a very famous Italian acting family. Apparently, they had heard about the experience and came down to try it. And they were, A, blown away, but it landed for her because she'd seen the animation video where, obviously, they have seen Carl Benz crash. And then it wasn't until she was in the car and the voiceover, there's a part that says, someone says, oh, is she going to end up like Carl? And she realized for that moment, everything is at stake here. am I going to this up? Like, can I make it? And it was like the joining of the stories of everything coming together in that one line. And it was just really powerful. And she said for her, that's when the stakes really raised when she was trying to drive to Paris and realize what was at stake. And so, yeah, transporting into that world very much so. It's just a nice anecdote I hadn't told you about. But yes, she really enjoyed it.
[00:26:06.873] Eloise Singer: Do you want to talk about the production process of how we did the car and the spline? Oh, gosh.
[00:26:12.943] Siobhan McDonnell: Yes. Reiterating your point, there was obviously a lot of caution around, are we going to cause motion sickness here? And we've actually found going a bit faster. So the car is on a spline so that it can't deviate too far from the road. So in terms of turning, there's limited turning that you can actually do on the road. And when it comes to the edge of the road, it slows to a stop. So people are not crashing into things for obvious reasons. But actually going a bit faster we realised helped with feeling like you're making more progress, B, it sort of was more exciting, but C, it also helped with nausea. It felt better when you were moving at a speed that your brain could compute. We timed it. It's quite challenging to time it so that we knew how fast people would get to the end and know that they'd be able to have enough chunks of the story along the route because people obviously will travel at different times and if you've got an indeterminate amount of time, how do you know how much VO, how much story you can fill in that time? On top of that you've also got the shortcut for people who perhaps are not enjoying the drive, so it was quite a careful balancing between how much progress you can make with how much story we can fit into that time frame.
[00:27:16.727] Eloise Singer: I think as well the biggest risk with this project was the driving because it was so unknown to us and we were so concerned about motion sickness and truthfully I didn't think it was going to work. I was terrified. So when I got into headset and I tested it for the first time, I literally turned shift and I was like, that was incredible. Like that, my reaction, I was glowing. I was absolutely beaming. I just turned and I was like, that was awesome. That was so much fun. I didn't feel sick. That was literally one of the best moments that I've had in VR. It was, yeah, it was great. It was such a breakthrough moment for us and this project. It was huge.
[00:27:57.134] Siobhan McDonnell: At the early testing, do you remember, it was also to do with calibration of the player and the audience member, so calibrating it correctly in the car so that, as you say, you don't feel sick. Our early tests, things have been calibrated differently. So then when we centered the player differently in the car, the position and where they were sat it actually completely transformed the driving experience and that's why we were pleasantly very pleasantly surprised that oh god we've done something that feels really good when we had major concerns as yeah justifiably had concerns.
[00:28:30.339] Kent Bye: I guess the other transition from the first scene of Mr. Benz's office, but then into the workshop, where you actually see the architecture of the car, the blueprints and engine, and that you have to piece things together a little bit, but to be engaged in constructing the car to some degree or putting in some missing parts. forcing the player to really pay attention to the unique architecture of that because obviously cars look way different now in 2022 and three-wheeled and just the way I was like, oh wow, how does that even work? It was kind of an interesting moment to see how it was actually constructed and to be engaged in that and to have it start and kind of see it move around. And you could very easily just jump into the car and go. It's very likely that's probably what actually happened when Mrs. Benz woke up. She just probably was able to hop in and just take off. But in order to allow the user to really interact and engage with this and really pay attention. So I'd love to hear about that process of trying to take this unique form and structure of a car and have people pay attention and engage with it more.
[00:29:31.083] Eloise Singer: I mean, that's exactly it, Kent. We were fascinated by this machine because it doesn't look anything like a car today. And even the fact that the engine doesn't sit on the front of the car, it's on the back of the car. It's so interesting watching people experience it and they always go to the front of the car to try and find the engine. they didn't really realise that the engine is sitting on the desk next to you because an engine back then is so different to what an engine looks like now and we were so in awe of this machine and this engine that we thought oh my gosh people need to appreciate it too and as you say it would have just been so easy. for someone just to jump in the car and drive off and for us we wanted to convey how complicated it was and what detail went into building this machine and the love and the painstaking love that went into it and the fact that they really loved this contraption and they believed in it and so allowing the player to be able to put the cog into the engine and actually initially when we first wrote it it was very complicated and we were encouraging the player literally to build the whole engine and we realized that actually it was really quite hard. But the engine itself is constructed to be an exact replica of that first engine. and again it's one of the pieces of art that I'm completely amazed by and I think that our team and our lead artist Will did such a fantastic job of building that because there's so much detail and even when you're driving the car if you look behind you we've animated the engine so you can see the engine whirling because it was the heart you know it was the heart of the car and it was the beating drum ultimately and for us we wanted to convey this notion that you need to build it to be able to experience it
[00:31:19.405] Kent Bye: When I think about the different qualities of presence of these different experiences here at Venice and for Mrs. Ben's experience I felt like the core takeaway was that I just was left with the puzzle mechanics escape room kind of dynamics as a genre it feels like it fits into that but there's also a lot of environmental storytelling and research to be able to actually do the two rooms that you created as well as the the outside and then you know just all the different artifacts and everything and so I'd love to hear a little bit more about your research process of how do you dive into someone's life like that how do you reconstruct a moment in time and what the types of things that you were trying to create in these two different rooms that were trying to really have some authenticity of transporting you into these two different locations and Mr. Benz's office and workshop.
[00:32:02.873] Eloise Singer: For sure. I mean, so this project started as a film. So I've been researching it since we began the development of the film, which was about three years ago. And when we first began, we pulled everything and anything that we could find from the internet to begin with. So started with Wiki, as you know. and then we went down rabbit holes of different articles and we came across obviously the Mercedes-Benz website and they have a huge amount on Bertha which is brilliant so we dived into a lot of that and then on top of that we found Carl's book which he wrote which is sort of his memoir and we end the piece with a quote from his memoir which is incredibly poignant and it's something that really stayed with me after reading it and then on top of that we started sort of looking into what the world was like in Germany at the time and coming across how much pressure they were under from the church because at the time the church believed that these inventions were literally the work of the devil and that was another stake that they were facing and it was sort of this societal pressure to not be working on these machines because they were the devil. And you can imagine at the time how thrown out of society they were and really what an adventure Bertha was going on knowing that so many people in the community would be shocked at what she was doing not only for driving this contraption which ultimately in itself was also incredibly dangerous it was a bit like going on the world's first spaceship because people had never seen this machine before they'd never heard these sounds of this contraption before and there was a woman in a carriage without any horses the horse's carriage driving along the road, which wasn't even a road, it was a path because they didn't have roads at the time. I mean, it was an extraordinary thing that she was doing. So that wider context of the barriers that they were facing, the world that they were living at the time was really important to conveying the pressures that they were under and birth was under taking this out into the world.
[00:34:14.336] Kent Bye: Yeah, as I look at this piece, there's the two characters of Mr. Benz and Mrs. Benz. And with Mr. Benz, you have a lot more ability to flesh out his character because it's his office and his workshop that he's working on. But for Mrs. Benz, it's a little bit more challenging to elaborate on her character because you're embodied as Mrs. Benz. You're playing as the protagonist, as Mrs. Benz. And so you kind of have voiceovers that are coming in. You know, I'm reminded of this quote from Martin McKee where he talks about how story's all about character being revealed by these individual characters being posted to these different situations under pressure and that the choices they make is revealing their essential character. And the more intensity of the pressure, the more of the essential nature of the character that's being revealed. And so as you think about the characters of Mr. Benz and Mrs. Benz, wondering if you could elaborate on how you were thinking about each of these characters and how their character is being revealed and how that's unfolding over time throughout the course of the story.
[00:35:11.722] Eloise Singer: For sure. One thing that we really wanted to convey was their relationship. And we were obviously in a position where we were just with Bertha, you know, Carl never appears in the workshop. And so we wanted to convey their relationship through her VO and her voiceover and try and depict what she was thinking in relation to the actions that Carl had taken. So, for example, when the cut scene plays out and her agency and determination and conveying that through voiceover and when she picks up the letter or the invite to the Paris World Fair you hear how Carl reacted to that at the time but then you hear Bertha's response to Carl so you get an insight into that dynamic and that relationship because I think ultimately Similar to how actions demonstrate personality, relationships and how you interact with another person shows your personality as well. So when you drive out of the workshop, Bertha says, I promise you'll thank me for this later, Karl. And we really wanted to convey the idea that she wasn't doing this in spite. She was doing this because she loved him and she loved his invention and she was proud of him. And she wanted to show the world this invention that he had worked so hard on. And that's why she was doing it.
[00:36:28.696] Kent Bye: I don't know if you have any other thoughts?
[00:36:30.880] Siobhan McDonnell: No, I'm just very moved by your last bit that you were just saying, so I'm really caught up in that at the moment. A slightly controversial thought actually was earlier we were talking about the very sort of natural or perhaps sometimes organic way that you give the player autonomy. And actually it's a slightly controversial point is that whilst we give the audience autonomy to a degree, it is very curated. You know, we do have to show people the way and I think much like documentary, it's perhaps a myth that it's more organic and reveals itself in real time. where actually it's quite heavily curated and it's perhaps a myth that it's as freeform as sometimes it might feel and that's a huge testament I think as well to your storytelling in how you bring audiences or bring players through that but they don't feel like it. It's guiding someone through a story in a really natural organic way but it is heavily curated and well thought through and I think we hadn't really touched on that or celebrated that because that's complex. You know, how do you foresee what someone's going to do next? And honestly, this experience and being here, people will do anything and everything because everyone has a different experience of when they're in VR, what they want to touch, what they want to explore, their natural curiosity. And so, yeah, that's, I think, testament to the storytelling that Singer do and manage to curate that in immersive is tricky, but powerful. Yeah.
[00:37:54.059] Eloise Singer: Yeah, I think it's allowing the audience to feel like they can experience it how they want to experience it but they're not going to get frustrated or confused or lost. I always want to feel that you can get through the story and really enjoy it and get to the end. That's really important for me. And so if people get frustrated or lost and they're like, oh, I'm just going to give up, that's the worst. So for me, it's allowing the audience to be able to go on this journey with this character and to feel empowered just as she did as well. And leading them through the story and guiding them, but allowing them to pick up objects and fix things and put things together and drive the world's first car. and feel how she did at the time, which was going on this incredible journey, is really satisfying as a creative.
[00:38:44.657] Kent Bye: Have you experienced any anxiety of watching other people play your experience here at Venice?
[00:38:49.578] Eloise Singer: Oh my god, I cannot. I mean, you know that I left. Yes, I have. I get the worst anxiety of all time watching anyone and everyone play this experience. Usually I just have to go on a walk every time. I mean, we're very lucky that this experience has sold out, so I'm walking a lot. But yeah, I can't do it. I can't do it. I think it's really tricky because I'm so proud of it and I'm so proud of our team and what they've done and they've achieved. And I just want everyone to have the most perfect experience. So if something just looks like it's not going right, I need to leave. And I just come back at the end and I just watch them smile as they take off the headset and that's good for me.
[00:39:36.151] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think for me, as I'm into these worlds, sometimes I want to just kind of take a little leisurely stroll. So I apologize if that created any anxiety.
[00:39:44.723] Siobhan McDonnell: It's actually really lovely watching Kent play because you're so thorough and you go through the experience. So there are some parts that people haven't experienced. So you open the Bible and you see what's in there. And that's factual. That came from a note from a family Bible, which also sets a massive context of Bertha as a character. So her parents or her father had written, you know, another girl, another girl, unfortunately, another girl. And then eventually they had a son. She was part of a large family. And that set the precedent for her to grow up and kind of having that relationship. She wanted to study mechanical engineering. She wasn't allowed. She loved getting her hands dirty. And so it's great watching you. I really enjoy watching people play it because I don't get anxiety. I love to see how people, human behavior probably, I love how people do things differently. And your curiosity was really great to watch and your thoroughness of exploring all of the spaces and picking up all of those bits that perhaps not all of the audience saw.
[00:40:35.921] Kent Bye: Well, a lot of escape rooms or other places, especially in VR, if you can pick up an object, you can usually do something with it. And then it's sort of a director's choice to see how much of the other stuff that you can actually interact with. And so I appreciated that I was able to interact with other stuff that weren't a part of the core narrative, but that were still adding to the overall being immersed into the world. So I even forgot that there was a Bible there because it was a part of the core narrative. But now, yeah, I remember all the signatures and everything. just kind of like trying to piece together that moment in time because I'm being transported into that moment and so but yeah you said that you like to observe people I imagine that with the background in anthropology that's kind of like your thing is to watch people do things and try to bracket yourself and see their behaviors and you know I'm reminded of how there's different branches of anthropology of like visual anthropology through photos and films but I feel like there is going to be potentially a new form of anthropology of like spatial anthropology of being able to actually capture photogrammetry, actual real-time spaces, but also this process of reconstructing spaces that no longer exist. And so I'd love to hear any of your thoughts from your background in anthropology of what's it mean to try to document things that are the actual real, or I would call physical, reality that is in the world versus going back and constructing a reconstruction of another place in time. And I'm sure there's ethics of that, but also there's the whole form of anthropology of expanding into these more spatial forms. I'd love to hear any thoughts on that.
[00:42:02.526] Siobhan McDonnell: Yeah, that's really interesting. And when I was getting into it, I remember there was a study where they had a group of children who had experienced VR. And this was about memory and how it sort of affects our neural pathways. And it resonates to a different level when you're obviously fully immersed in an experience. And they asked these children a year later, you know, have you done these life experiences? The experience that they had done in VR was swimming with dolphins, and then when asked a year later if they had done, you know, tick the box for these experiences they had done, they thought they had swam with dolphins. And so I think being in a physical space, in a virtual space, sorry, being in a virtual space, I think because of the way it's changing our memory and our cognition to that space. I think, yes, there's a huge chapter that's opening up in terms of our behaviors in VR. There's etiquette behaviors in VR chat, so there's a whole other conversation to be had about avatar behavior, avatar interactions. I think there's going to be ethnographic studies on avatars, you know, if not already, I'm sure it's in play. And so, behaviorally, and why I come back to your first point of perhaps why I enjoyed watching people play the experience so much, is it's the connection between the virtual and the real that I love watching. And it's that when the penny drops of, ah, I can do that. And it's almost bringing it back to a very early stage of, even when we're children, we start, you know, babies start screaming and they're like, wow, I made a noise. It's that, ah, I'm being brought into being. I exist. And you get to exist now in the virtual world. And so seeing people join the dots like that. I really enjoy and part of that I suppose, again another part of why I'm so drawn to VR and immersive storytelling is the power of play and thinking about Nicole Lazzaro's four pillars of fun and play in VR and I think that taps into something that's very innate in all of us. which again I think perhaps loops back in a nice clean circle in having storytelling and then play and that kind of game puzzle mechanic joined together because I think it taps into something that is ubiquitous in humans.
[00:44:04.013] Kent Bye: Yeah, well, I really enjoyed the experience, and like I said, there's the puzzle mechanics, but also just the attention to detail, the environmental design, I think is a thing that I was really struck by. It reminded me of The Room and Red Matter, the level of visual fidelity, but sometimes the challenge of puzzle games, especially the critique that I have in, say, The Room or Red Matter, is a lot of times the puzzle mechanics aren't necessarily tied into the narrative in a direct way. It's sort of like just you're doing this completely separate thing and then as a reward you get a bit of narrative. But I feel like in this piece you're able to really tie together and have a motivation for what you're doing for the puzzle mechanic and why that would be an actual reason that fits into an overall narrative. A lot of times in VR escape rooms and puzzle games, they're completely separate of just trying to figure out a fun mechanic, but it has nothing to do with what is unfolding in the story. So I feel like tying those together actually makes it a more solid experience in that way.
[00:44:55.516] Eloise Singer: Thank you. That really means a lot and that's literally exactly what we're trying to do and what we wanted to achieve. So the fact that that's how you felt is really affirming to us. So thank you very much.
[00:45:08.327] Kent Bye: Awesome. And finally, what do you each think is the ultimate potential of virtual reality and immersive storytelling, and what it might be able to enable?
[00:45:18.109] Eloise Singer: That's a really good question. Immersive storytelling is the future. There's no doubt about it. And for me personally, I'm really excited about the idea of creating story worlds. So at Singer, what we do is we create stories that are told through podcast, film, and immersive. And for me, a character like Mrs. Benz, being able to literally step into her shoes and drive the world's first car through VR, with then the opportunity to listen to a podcast on her story that may be investigating how IP was created at that time and what other stories around IP and inventions were being brought to life at that time. is really interesting and following her from that point of view and then jumping into a film and watching the story of Mrs. Benz in a film is really interesting and really exciting so personally I think just in general the future of storytelling is telling stories through different mediums for different audiences where you can connect with the character across different mediums so transmedia storytelling and that's something that we're really passionate about and what we're driven to do.
[00:46:31.273] Siobhan McDonnell: Yes, I concur with all of that and I think in addition, I think probably two areas I really am excited about where it's going in terms of immersive storytelling is connecting people and I think whether that's in VR chat, you know, avatars joining in social spaces, but also the technology that allows it. So I'm really excited about AI that's developing in speech recognition, so you can really feel like you're talking to people and have this kind of engagement at a different level, as well as hearing, seeing and feeling haptics. I mean, I can't wait till I can put on a suit and have, you know, a virtual hug from someone across the world. So I think connecting people I'm really excited about. And then on the storytelling thread, I'm really excited that, again, it puts people in places that they wouldn't otherwise be able to do or be. And having that deeper emotional resonance because of the engagement level is really exciting of where that's going to go. And, yeah, we get to recreate stories that, you know, history sort of forgot to tell and we get to redraft them in a modern way. It's incredible. So, yes, I'm excited on those two fronts, I think.
[00:47:35.878] Kent Bye: Just a quick follow on because you have created this as a VR experience. You said you were researching for a film. Do you have plans to expand this out into a film format and podcast format? And be curious to hear some thoughts for what you think the strength of each of the mediums are in terms of how you tell different aspects of the story and what you feel like the VR is able to do versus what the film and podcast might be able to do.
[00:47:57.492] Eloise Singer: We have big plans, Kent. We have big plans. Yeah, we're definitely developing a podcast. It's going to be a podcast series, actually, that focuses on different inventions throughout history. And so Ben's will be one of those inventions. And at the same time, we are developing a film. It's very funny and witty and heartfelt and lovely and very beautiful. And it obviously follows Bertha's journey, but it also focuses on the family and what happens when they're left behind. And so it focuses on where she's going and the journey that she's undertaking and embarking on, but the repercussions that that has on everyone else. And for Benz itself, we have some ideas of extending this experience and making it into a sort of five-hour VR experience that will really allow the audience to ingratiate themselves in different parts of her narrative because there are things that we just don't have time to touch upon such as halfway through the journey she broke down and she literally pulled off her garter and tied it around the engine to bring the engine back to life which is incredible.
[00:49:07.599] Kent Bye: Do you think about having that in the VR experience?
[00:49:11.077] Eloise Singer: Oh, yeah, we did. Of course we did. Yeah, there's a hairpin that she used. She took out a hairpin and unclogged the engine with a hairpin. So, yeah, there's loads. There's loads and loads and loads of stuff that we can do. And on top of that, we really want to make it into a graphic novel because it'd be brilliant as a graphic novel. It's such a wonderful journey that she went on. So that is also in the pipeline as well. There's a lot that's going to happen. It's very exciting.
[00:49:37.662] Kent Bye: Well, during the pandemic, one of the things that I found and discovered was the Drive to Survive Netflix series that has all the Formula One and the Mercedes Benz. I feel like that that has taken the F1 sport into another level, especially in the United States, where it hadn't been as big. So just to see all the different Brands and personalities and the you know for a long time mercedes-benz was the winner of the f1 race for many many years with Louis hamilton and boitus and you know, just all the drivers they have now so that was a whole other thing I don't know if that's a part of the audiences that you feel like you're gonna start to tap into is this whole broader formula one and that whole scene of
[00:50:17.915] Eloise Singer: We have plans, Kent. Yeah, DLC is our favorite word at the moment, or acronym.
[00:50:28.661] Kent Bye: Downloaded content? Additional things?
[00:50:31.443] Eloise Singer: Additional content, exactly. So yeah, we have a DLC idea that effectively bends through the ages. probably should be said. Watch this space is very exciting and yeah I think the opportunity to experience the car as it progresses, as we catch up with technology, as the world around us speeds into modern day is a really exciting prospect that I think also what we're driven by is about learning about the world and uncovering different environments that we don't get the opportunity to experience in the present day. So an idea of experiencing through the ages as the motor vehicle, the machine progresses is a really exciting opportunity.
[00:51:20.018] Siobhan McDonnell: I was just saying also to follow on to a point about what do those different mediums lend itself to. People want to engage in stories in different ways and I come from a big Irish family and some people will read, some people will listen to podcasts, some people want to sit down and watch a film and some people use headsets in VR and I think the fact that these stories can live and exist and be strong within their own right in all those different mediums is a testament to the strength of the story. It makes it accessible because not everyone will want to put on a headset, not everyone wants to sit and listen to a podcast. I think people now, they're really tailoring their story experiences to themselves, to what works with their life and how they like to engage with them. So I think, yeah, Singer really are tapping into that and making that kind of cornering all the different ways that we can engage with storytelling.
[00:52:11.343] Kent Bye: Are you going to be using your VR experience and pitches for people to have the experience and then pitch the whole multimedia aspects?
[00:52:18.505] Eloise Singer: We may or may not already be doing that. Two steps ahead, my friend. Two steps ahead.
[00:52:26.527] Siobhan McDonnell: I like the way you think, though. I definitely like the way you think.
[00:52:31.509] Kent Bye: Awesome. Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community?
[00:52:36.524] Eloise Singer: No, I think just keep telling stories and being creative. It's such an amazing medium. We get given literally more than a blank canvas. It's a blank world that you can create anything and everything that your mind can imagine and that's incredible. So yeah, keep at it. I think what everyone's doing is brilliant and the projects here are fantastic and the community in general is really inspiring as a storyteller. I'm learning a huge amount from everyone and it's really exciting.
[00:53:09.959] Siobhan McDonnell: And I just want to say a huge thank you to Venice, really. They have created an incredible space for people to come down and enjoy it. They've supported a lot of the creators. There's a huge... I mean, the scope here for... We're on 90, is it? 90? 75 VR pieces. And then there's obviously VR worlds you can enter as well remotely. So yeah, just a big thank you, I think, to Venice for supporting incredibly diverse and interesting projects.
[00:53:38.348] Kent Bye: Well, Eloise and Siobhan, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast to help break down your journey of being able to tell the story of Mrs. Benz. So thank you.
[00:53:46.213] Eloise Singer: Thank you so much for having us. Thanks, Kent.
[00:53:49.815] Kent Bye: So that was Eloise Singer and Siobhan McDonald, and they have a piece called Mrs. Benz that was showing there at Venice Immersive 2022. So, if you want more context for the wrap-ups, then I'd recommend checking out the episode 1121, where I talk about all the 30 pieces in competition. And in episode 1144, there's an immersive panel that I did at Venice with some other immersive critics talking about the art of reviewing immersive art and immersive entertainment. I recommend checking that out in order to dig into a little bit of my own process of what I'm trying to do with these larger series and trying to unpack and discuss the art and science of immersive storytelling with a lot of these different pieces that we're showing at Venice Immersive 2022. So that's all that I have for today, and I just wanted to thank you for listening to the Voices of VR podcast. And if you enjoy the podcast, then please do spread the word, tell your friends, and consider becoming a member of the Patreon. This is a listener supported podcast, and so I do rely upon donations from people like yourself in order to continue to bring you this coverage. So you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash Voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
