Presto, Perfect Sound

Manon de Boer’s film Presto, Perfect Sound depicts composer and violinist, George Van Dam, performing Béla Bartok’s sonata for violin solo, Presto.
De Boer filmed George van Dam six times playing the whole piece while at the same time recording the sound. In order to achieve the ‘perfect’ soundtrack, she gave George van Dam the six sound recordings and asked him to reconstruct the Bartok piece into a perfect sound piece. Afterwards De Boer synchronized the filmed image to this soundtrack. The jump-cuts in the image visualize the cuts in the sound, while the sound sounds continuous.
In allowing the audio sequence to dictate the image on screen, de Boer inverts the traditional dominance of image over sound in cinema. The film is a meditation on the relationship between sound and image and offers an intense reflection on a moment of creative concentration.