An unfolding story of the prune - it’s ‘terroir’, it’s birth and development, the people who nourish it, the fruit of the tree and people of the harvest. Set to a haunting soundtrack, this film flows serenely through to production of the famed “d’Agen Prune”.

This project experimented with two concepts, the first being to create an impactful documentary with ‘no comment’. To do this, I attempt to involve the spectator, engaging him in the piecing together, from the sequences, the entire development process. Captive mood was deliberately induced by employing a very sensory, yet somewhat haunting, musical soundtrack.

In addition, I wanted to explore the ‘fundamentals of shooting’ by depriving myself, voluntarily, of the usual crutches of the cameraman such as monopods, tripods, stabilizers, sliders or other cranes. This film was shot exclusively with a hand-held camera.

Manual work is largely a repetition of gestures, hour after hour, day after day. In editing the documentary, it was this cadence that I wished to reinforce in the mind of the viewer; thus, my return to various harvest sequences. The editing sought, once past the unveiling of the process, to lead the viewer to reflect on the pulse of agrarian life.

I worked in close collaboration with Samuel Woodall, who made the original soundtrack by combining it with direct field taps. It is a search for rhythmic fusion, an accompaniment of the images literally, beyond the sound illustration.

The documentary was shot on the Garros property in Grazimis, «la Ténarèze», Gers department, France

Jean-Paul Woodall, writer-biographer, documentary filmmaker

Contact and information : bruitsdutemps.info@free.fr