Editing led by emotion, odd sound design, music as a storyline in itself, and a pronounced first person perspective are trademarks of our collaborations in what we call “sensory cinema”. As we live and work together, we absorb many of the same influences but from our own individual perspectives. Sharing these perspectives is a process of joyous exchange and abrasive discussion, and is always in flux. We see film as a Gesamtkunstwerk and develop it at every stage of our process; we try to avoid rendering the script too literally and stay in pursuit of our intentions. The music and sound design is developed on a parallel trajectory to the image, from as early as the scriptwriting process up until the editing. Often the sound precedes the image and the image is edited to the sound.
Esther’s stories have revolved around female perspectives but with universal tactile and sensory traits that Dan exploits with his percussive ambient perspective on sound. The process of making Retrospekt was brutal, amusing, on the edge of something we cannot describe and even a little masochistic. Retrospekt is our second feature film together and our tenth film.
Filmmaker Esther Rots and artist Dan Geesin have worked together for many years. For their current film Retrospekt, Geesin created the sound design and the music, a kind of non-diegetic recitative singing. He was also responsible for the sound design and music in Rots’ previous film Can Go Through Skin (Forum 2009).
