In 1912, French playwright Gabriel Mourey asked a composer named Claude Debussy to write incidental music for his play, Psyché.
The first unaccompanied flute solo written for the modern Böhm flute system, Syrinx is considered a landmark in music history.
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Director: Grace Choi
Flutist: Tina Jia, Recorded at the University of Toronto Walter Hall Auditorium
Voice: Naomi Vann
Sound Designer: Bethany Harrison
Flutist: Tina Jia, Recorded at the University of Toronto Walter Hall Auditorium
Voice: Naomi Vann
Sound Designer: Bethany Harrison
Animation Cleanup and Colour Assist: Chaehyun Lee, Cynthia Xie, Isabelle Yu, Jeongyool Park, Kloe Qiyin Huang, Maggie Ng, Rachel Sy, SuJeong Park, Tina Fan, Youko Lin Ye
Film Mentor: David Quesnelle
Film Mentor: David Quesnelle
But...what does Syrinx mean?
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Set to the titular flute solo by Claude Debussy, this film aims to answer this question. It explores the meaning, the music, and the classical Greek myth of Syrinx: the story of the satyr Pan and the wood nymph Syrinx. Turning back the wheel of time, I wanted to represent the story through a lens of nostalgia, using motifs of old film slides and storybook borders.
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Paying homage to Debussy’s era of Romanticism in the early 20th century arts, French Art Deco is a big visual inspiration of the film. This was a period that also frequently drew from the past - enamoured with Greek mythos and folklore. Highly decorative, thoughtfully designed and evocative of old tales.
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