L'Absinthe
dir/writ/edit - Olivier Bertin
pro - Rachel Spurrier
A New York based writer meets an old publisher who offers to send him to Paris for a change of scenery. There, he unwillingly becomes the accessory to a plot to steal artwork from the Musée d'Orsay. Or is this really happening?
Check out related reels: Melodica, No Click
Multi-instrumentalist composer Christopher North on his process:
“Wonderful to work with the husband and wife team, Olivier and Rachel, on a film set in two cities, which is wonderful – I love New York and Paris.”
“This is a film where I played everything. There’s probably 45 minutes worth of music, and some of it has as many as 10 or 12 instruments going on. One particular production technique I used was mid-side recording whereby you have two microphones set in opposite directions, and it’s a kind of early stereo format that allows for classical radio broadcasts, such that you would not lose information if one of the channels went out. I used that because of the notion of hearing neighbors or not hearing neighbors, stealing things, sneaking around.”
“One particular highlight of making this film was playing a lot of melodica on it. I do recall one day where I recorded melodica for about 8 hours.”
“There are a couple of cues in here that were intentionally recorded without a click track, which is to say, the tempo breathes. I would record a take and then multitrack on top of that first track so that it breathes.”