The transformation machine

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Television series
German title The transformation machine
Country of production Poland
Episodes 12 in 2 seasons
music Krzesimir Dębski
occupation

The Metamorphosis Machine ( Polish : Maszyna Zmian ) is a Polish children's series , which was produced in 1995 by the screenwriter and director Andrzej Maleszka . The German first broadcast took place on May 7, 1998 in the children's channel . This series, consisting of twelve half-hour episodes, is a modern fairy tale for children.

action

The series is about a group of allergic children who are housed in a classical hunting lodge. In this castle, which serves as a sanatorium , the children find a spiral staircase under a piano, which leads to a crypt-like basement room. There they discover a large, magical grid sphere. It transforms people and objects that are placed in it. However, the outcome of the transformation can never be predicted. The changes are reversed at nine o'clock in the evening.

Episodes

The first season of the transformation machine consists of seven summer episodes and the second season consists of five winter episodes. In the first season the hidden hall of transformation is shown and in the second season the transformation fountain is shown in the garden.

First season: Maszyna Zmian

  • Episode 1: The Secret of the Sphere - Królik doświadczalny

The allergic children Jok, Julia, Tosia, Mikolaj, Agata and Makler move into a classical castle in Antonin that serves as a sanatorium together with the guards Ania and Filip. The children curiously explore the ground floor and play a piano on it . Suddenly the wing opens and a spiral staircase into a secret basement is made accessible. In the cellar they discover a large copper-colored lattice sphere, the metamorphosis machine. In the evening, the children and Filip watch a film in a separate green-lit room, in which the house owner Sebastian Mil explains the magical effect of the lattice sphere. It can transform objects and people, but the outcome cannot be predicted. In the evening at nine o'clock the re-transformation always occurs. The next morning the children want to give Ania the ball for her birthday. Filip tests the transforming machine first and is transformed into a rabbit . The children then play with this.

  • Episode 2: The dancing shoes - Baletnica

The children come to a private school and explore a cloakroom there. They are then assigned to their classes. Agata takes ballet lessons and has difficulty dancing. Because of the very strict upbringing, she escapes from class. She is temporarily in Marianka's library and talks to her about dancing. Then she leaves school and returns to the sanatorium. Jok is waiting for her there. Agata and Jok transform the ballet shoes into dancing shoes with the help of the ball. This attracts Agata curiously. When switching on dance music, the shoes start to dance on their own. Finally, the other four allergic children arrive at the sanatorium and try to free Agata from her dancing shoes. Next, a brass band marches through town. Agata is brought to the marching band by her dancing shoes and has to dance all the time. In the end, the dog tears off the Agata's school principal's shoes.

  • Episode 3: The Double Jok - Sobowtór

A large adventure park is opened and the children of the sanatorium are informed about it. Jok works on a ship model and stays in the sanatorium while the others go to the adventure park. As soon as Jok is alone, he runs into the transformation room and puts a mirror in the machine. This is how Jok's doppelganger is created. The original greets him with the sentence: “Hello, you look just like me.” The doppelganger repeats this sentence permanently. Then both go upstairs. Jok sprays his name on a board with a spray bottle and shows the doppelganger a chessboard. In a moment of the absence of the original, the doppelganger with the bottle sprays the name Jok on objects and walls everywhere. The original is locked in by the doppelganger. The rest of the children who come back notice everything and try to identify the real Jok. The doppelganger runs through the city and sprinkles the houses and the amusement park. The carousel can no longer stop because the spray can ended up in the electrical box. Jok follows his doppelganger into the amusement park, stops the carousel and catches his doppelganger in a mirror cabinet. Although the electricity was switched off in the sanatorium, the doppelganger disappears at nine in the evening.

  • Episode 4: The balloon ride - Odwiedziny

On the day of the parents' visit to the sanatorium, Tosia waits for her parents, who cannot arrive due to a car defect. Out of longing, she decides to put a picture of her parents in the metamorphosis. Mikolaj secretly follows her and quickly removes the picture from the machine, because he is afraid of a wrong transformation result. While trying to get the picture back, Tosia stumbles with her hands on the handprints that serve as buttons. The ball rotates while there is nothing in it. The transformation occurs in which Tosia and Mikolaj become invisible and inaudible. The rest of the members of the sanatorium are anxiously looking for them. When Tosia learns that her mother is traveling with Mikolaj's parents, Tosia and Mikolaj visit the parents and extend the parents' trip to prevent suspicion. When the two children arrive with their parents in a neo-Gothic castle, they find a balloonist in his bed. He stands up and shows Tosia, Mikolaj and their three parents the hot air balloon . With this they travel back to the sanatorium. Then everyone will see each other again.

  • Episode 5: The love mandarins - Słodkie mandarynki

The arrival of the actor Cezary Nowak for the school party interests Agata, Julia and Tosia. These three dress nicely, while Makler, Jok and Mikolaj place a cardboard cutout from a mandarin advertisement in the metamorphosis ball in the basement. This figure transforms into a basket with eight mandarins. While Jok is allergic to tangerines, all other members of the sanatorium eat the tangerines. They fall in love with their peers. Jok worriedly observes the love behavior of the members of the sanatorium. Julia, who loves him, follows him everywhere and wants to see Jok eating the tangerine. After Jok has fed the tangerine to a flock of geese, the geese follow him. Jok flees to the private school, where the school party takes place. He and Julia are hiding in the schoolyard under the audience at the performance of Swan Lake by Pyotr Tchaikovsky . The next moment the geese waddle into the performance, whereupon the audience panics and flees the schoolyard. For their own safety, Julia and Jok quickly flee to Marianka in the school library.

  • Episode 6: The Golden Chicken - Wielka forsa

Because of the lack of money, the members of the sanatorium behave sparingly. When most of the children set off on an exploration trip with Ania and Filip, the realtor and Tosia stay in the sanatorium. You put a glass money box in the metamorphosis ball. The money box is turned into a living chicken that lays eggs with gold chicks. Realtor and Tosia bring the golden chicks to a jeweler, who pays the chicks with money. Brokers and Tosia use this money to buy lottery tickets in order to win a lot of money in a lottery. During this process she disturbs Kamila, who jealously takes the chicken from the two children. Agent pursues Kamila and is able to get the chicken back. Later they lose the winning ticket and sit down disappointed on a staircase. The chicken lays another egg on top, in which the winning ticket is located. Tosia happily finds the winning ticket in the egg and sets off with the broker to the lottery room, where they receive a very large cash prize. The sanatorium is financed with this money.

  • Episode 7: The Burning Ball - Ostatni raz

The children have to leave the sanatorium for one year. On the last day before departure, the members of the sanatorium celebrate a farewell party. The librarian Marianka Drecka also has to leave private school. Tosia visits Marianka in the library and leads her over to the sanatorium. There Tosia shows her the secret transformation room and leaves her there for a short time. Marianka enters the metamorphosis machine, amazed. Suddenly the raven , who is often in the basement, flutters by and sits with his claws on the buttons in front of the machine. This will transform Marianka into little Marianka from 1934. This also believes that it is in 1934. When Tosia finds her again, Tosia informs the rest of the members of the sanatorium about the transformation. The children decide to play the year 1934 for little Marianka. You dress up old-fashioned and eat with her in the garden at a festive table. Little by little, Marianka discovers things that contradict her time and realizes her situation. To prevent re-transformation, the children set fire to the transformation machine on a pyre. The burning magic ball rolls on a long road past many forest areas and houses and is followed by the members of the sanatorium and the private school. At the end the transformation machine lands in the lake water and sinks. The pursuers also arrive at the lake and see how Marianka stays young after the bell rings for nine o'clock. The next day everyone leaves the sanatorium and goes home.

Second season: Maszyna Zmian Nowe Przygody

  • Episode 1: The five brides - Pięć pięknych welonów

In winter, Ania and Filip travel back to the sanatorium with all the children except Jok. The children prepare for Ania and Filip's wedding. You are giving the Filip an aquarium with veil- tail fish. After Broker and Mikolaj have bought the fish in a pet store, they fill up the aquarium in the sanatorium with the water and the fish. Water is accidentally lost and the aquarium is then filled with the water from the well. When everyone goes to the wedding service, the veiltail fish transform into human brides. Shortly afterwards they storm into the church and disrupt the wedding ceremony. Ania leaves Filip disappointed. After the incident, the children discover the empty aquarium and use it to explore the fountain . When they hear a glow in the fountain, Julia and the realtor climb into the well shaft. They explore a secret room under the fountain with devices. There Julia discovers the sunken magic ball and says to it: "This is the metamorphosis machine." This is how they find out that the water in the aquarium is also magical. Meanwhile, Tosia and Mikolaj follow the brides through the train station. Agata tries to stop Ania from going back to Warsaw. Later the valve of a pipe opens in the room under the fountain and floods the room. Julia and realtor flee to the fountain basket and are saved by Filip. Ania returns and the entire incident is resolved.

  • Episode 2: Tosias Bärchen - Misiaczek

Tosia and Mikolaj wait in the sanatorium to pick up Ania's furniture. Tosia discovers the cannon built by Mikolaj and Broker and wants to report this incident. Mikolaj angrily puts the teddy bear Kubuś from Tosia in the cannon. Tosia and Mikolaj accidentally shoot it into the well in front of the sanatorium. Then the teddy bear transforms into a giant bear. When Tosia and Mikolaj discover the huge Kubuś, Mikolaj squeezes through the cellar window into the sanatorium. Tosia breaks into the sanatorium with Kubuś through the main entrance. Mikolaj then shoots the giant bear with his cannon. Tosia and Mikolaj then fill the bear's belly with wool again and then drive to the Max department store to buy more wool. In the wool department, they trigger a huge chain reaction with falling objects and thus devastate the department store. To make up for the incident, they take part in an advertisement for the Max department store with the giant bear. When Tosia and Mikolaj fell asleep exhausted, the giant Kubuś brought them back to the sanatorium. Then Kubuś is transformed back into a little teddy bear.

  • Episode 3: The papa in the ear - Tatoludek

The children and Filip want to douse a holiday card with the magical well water to be on the beach. Mikolaj's father interrupts this action and brings Mikolaj to his home. He takes the bottle with the metamorphosis water, which he takes for glasses water. At home, Mikolaj's father wipes his glasses with the magical water and is shrunk to a tiny little person. Mikolaj discovers his little father with a telescope on the kitchen table and carefully takes him to a school sports competition in his ear. During the race on scooters, Mikolaj loses his father and has to retire from the race. This is rediscovered on a stage in the spotlight. Confused, those present saw the father's shadow, but not the father himself. By being eliminated from the race, Mikolaj made the participants angry. Then Mikolaj celebrates the birthday of his cousin. There he stands out strangely with his conversations with his father. Because no guest on the birthday believes that Mikolaj's father has shrunk. Proof on a microphone fails because the tiny father has fallen asleep in the meantime. Mikolaj's father is in a stroller in a small child's playroom. When Mikolaj leaves the house, he loses his father. He later finds him in the child's playroom. Mikolaj goes home with the stroller. On the way home, Mikolaj is attacked by the children participating in the sports competition at nine o'clock sharp. When the bell strikes, the pram lights up white and Mikolaj's father grows back to full size. He saves his son Mikolaj.

  • Episode 4: Tele Julia - Telejulia

Julia takes part in a casting for a film and wants to pass the qualification. Tosia, Mikolaj and Makler are behind the scenes. They accidentally disrupt the performances and the director of the private school also arrives on the show with her daughter Kamila. Julia loses in the casting and receives a yellow paper cap as a consolation. When the children want to throw a poster into the well, Julia leans too far and her yellow cap falls into the well. The cap is transformed into a wire cap. When Julia puts it on in the sanatorium, she is manipulated electromagnetically and behaves like the current television characters. She takes on roles like that of "ET the Extra-Terrestrial" or "Fred Flintstone". When a show about racehorses is broadcast, Julia develops herself into a galloping rider and breaks out into town. The children follow her. In town she takes on the role of Charlie Chaplin and dances like him. When the children go into a shop, the film "Robokiller" is on TV. Thereby Julia takes on the role of an aggressive thug. She grabs an umbrella and chases Kamila. Julia then follows the fleeing Kamila with a street locomotive and rushes her through the entire city. In the end, Kamila hides in a hollow oak. When Julia goes into the oak with the umbrella, the television waves are shielded.

  • Episode 5: The Santa Clauses - Inwazja świąteczna

Because of the urban problems with the water supply, all the transformation water is pumped out of the well by a water truck. When the members of the sanatorium discover that the well is empty, they are concerned and set off for the city. They split into two groups. Filip, Agata and Makler search the Solski bakery and believe that the gingerbread is the transformation water. That's why they try to eat all of the gingerbread. In the end, they find out that these are made with milk. The children Julia, Tosia and Mikolaj discover the water truck with the transformed water in a special military unit and penetrate the soldiers' fortress. While trying to start the water truck, the three children are found by a soldier. He immediately takes them to a military study, where the children give explanations. Then the three children are brought to the military kitchen and are supposed to help a cook there. They help him prepare a soup. Suddenly the commander-in-chief enters the kitchen, tests the soup recipe and interferes with the preparation. Then the cook and the commander in chief disappear briefly from the kitchen. Meanwhile, the kids add chocolate Santa Clauses to the soup. Then Julia, Tosia and Mikolaj watch through a window how the soldiers in the dining room turn into Santa Clauses while they are eating the soup and immediately fly into town in a helicopter.

Filming and dubbing

The scriptwriter and director of the metamorphosis machine is Andrzej Maleszka, who also produced the series The Magic Tree and the film The Morphus Secret. The Polish cities of Przygodzice , Kamieniec Ząbkowicki and Paczków served as locations for the shooting . The sanatorium in the series is the hunting lodge built by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Antonin (Przygodzice) , which belonged to Prince Antonin Radziwiłł and contains a memorial room for Fryderyk Chopin . The place for the carousel with the swans in the third episode and the balloon ride in the fourth episode was Kamieniec Ząbkowicki. The affected castle with the hot air balloon was Kamenz Castle, also built by Karl Friedrich Schinkel . The filming location for the chickens with the golden chicks in the sixth episode was Paczków. The music for this children's series was composed by the Polish composer, violinist and conductor Krzesimir Dębski . The German version of the series was created by theater pedagogue and dubbing director Katrin Fischer in the dubbing studio and recording studio in Leipzig . The German dubbing voices were performed by so-called "KÜWO children" like Franziska Rommel. These are the children of Katrin Fischer's artistic word, who also worked on the sun lance.

Shaping the consequences

During the first season, the opening credits first show the rapidly rotating metamorphosis machine in blue light, then some excerpts from the episodes and finally a narrative voice tells of the discovery of the machine. To activate the metamorphosis, two handprints are made on a blue and white glowing circle below the ball. The ball then begins to rotate counterclockwise. In each episode, the transformation is designed with specific artistic image processing and soundtracks. During the transformation, winds usually blow through the hall and the brightness of the lighting changes frequently. During the second season, the opening credits first show a self-opening water pipe and then a flooded stone staircase. The opening credits of the second season and the opening credits song are longer. The main location is no longer the basement, but the fountain in the garden in front of the Antonin Hunting Lodge . For the transformations, objects fall into the well water or are doused with it. In the first episode of the second season, the underwater rotating light yellow shining transformation machine is shown at one point . A different song can be heard in the credits than in the opening credits. During the credits, pictures from the episode concerned are shown.

Charisma

From 1998 to 2001 this series was broadcast regularly on the children's channel. Then the channels ARD, MDR and WDR showed the series. It was last broadcast in German in November 2004 on MDR. The transformation machine was shown in the Tiger Duck Club as well as The Sun Lance and The Secret of the Sagala . This club showed the transformation machine from March 4th, 2000 in the middle of the broadcast.

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