Box of Sound – Short Documentary

 

I’d like to point you to my short documentary Box of Sound on the Most Visual site.

BoxOfSoundStill2_700

This short documentary weaves process, story and sound experimentation into a visceral cinematic experience. Box of Sound – documents the process of making a cigar box into a synthesizer by Antoine Kattar: circuit bender, musician, and audio hardware engineer. We follow him as he searches out his new cigar box at an unconventional local shop. Meanwhile we see other cigar box synthesizers expertly put to use by Chicago electronic music producer Searchl1te. He uses them to create a truly unique music. Searchl1te is also shadowed as he gathers field recordings, breaking glass to create a snare and banging train cars for use as a bass drum.

The transformation of the cigar box into an analog audio instrument and the song created with it, has all been meticulously documented, in every glorious detail, by director and cinematographer Chuck Przybyl and producer Mark Salach. They went into this project with the stated goal of making the visual as interesting as the audio, or more so – when possible. Every scene in this documentary has been meticulously captured and every image distilled to its essence. At each turn the filmmakers chose to forego the obvious, instead counting on the viewers interest in the theme and connection to the story. The result is a short film that effortlessly entertains and informs the audience by letting events unfold instead of recounting them. The creation of the synthesizer is often shown in close up giving the viewer a first hand sense of it’s creation. Not only are we taken into the process, but we are even taken into the device. It is a glimpse into the world of circuit bending and proof that anything can be used as an instrument to create music.