Q&A with AIR at the Institut Français - 12th December 2011

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Digital version & the CD / DVD Limited Edition: Includes 16 minute restored film ‘Le Voyage Dans La Lune’ (A Trip To The Moon) by Georges Méliès.
Pre-order the album digitally from iTunes here
Pre-order the album on CD/DVD here
Access the book of the restored version here as a downloadable PDF.

‘Le voyage dans la lune’ (A Trip To The Moon) is a classic black & white and color (hand painted) silent film by revered French director Georges Méliès. Released in 1902, this legendary 16-minute film is widely considered one of the most important works in film history, and the very first to use science fiction as its theme, incorporating special effects that were very state-of-the-art at the turn of the 19th century. It was loosely based on two popular novels of the time: Jules Verne's ‘From the Earth to the Moon’ and H. G. Wells ‘The First Men In The Moon’.

The color version, considered as lost during several decades, was then found in 1993 in Spain, however it was in desperate condition. As of 1999, highly delicate work began to rescue and digitize the elements. In 2010, a complete restoration could be launched, in order to enable the audience to rediscover this major cinema work.

Eager to put a contemporary spin on this classic silent film and enable access to new audience, the two foundations acting in cinema preservation, Fondation Groupama Gan and Fondation Technicolor, decided to approach AIR’s Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel, to compose an original modern soundtrack, an enormous honour for French musicians, considering the film’s place in the canon of French cinema. With the aim of premiering at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, AIR set themselves a tight deadline, locking their studio doors and working around the clock to serve these classic images with brave new sounds. Complete with a new soundtrack by AIR, the film debuted at Cannes on May 11, 2011.

Spurred on by their work on this short movie, AIR decided to develop the project into a full album inspired by the film. Expanding the original musical themes beyond cinematic instrumentals, the album also features the vocal talents and lyrics of Au Revoir Simone and Victoria Legrand (Beach House). The band’s lunar fascinations have been evident since the beginning of their career with the release of the seminal 1998 classic “Moon Safari”.
Now in 2012 Nicolas and JB have returned to explore the further regions of their very unique musical ‘space’. Nicolas explains: "'A Trip to the Moon' is undoubtedly more organic than most of our past projects. We wanted it to sound 'handmade,' knocked together’, a bit like Méliès' special effects. Everything is played live … like Méliès' film, our soundtrack is nourished by living art."

The parade scene - Extract from hand-colored version of "A trip to the Moon"

Source : NPR - Courtesy of the artist

Original black and white movie "A trip to the moon"