Experiencing the atmosphere of a public space to better understand it

Resumo

The documentary series ‘Sortir de la carte postale’ (Beyond the Postcard) aims to capture everyday life at a tourist site by conveying the atmosphere of the place. These short films, each lasting around ten minutes, are designed to enable viewers to move from being ‘tourists’, who generally take a selfie in front of the building and then leave, to being ‘travellers’, who spend a little more time at the site to see how the inhabitants live on a daily basis (Paquot, 2014). This premise gave rise to the intention behind this series, which chose immersion through atmosphere as its original audiovisual method.
We first defined atmosphere, then the atmosphere that exists in cinema, and more specifically in the context of this series. We then go on to question the creative process up to the point of reception, via operational choices (from technical aspects to the situational stages of preparation, filming, editing and screening) and more sensitive choices. Finally, the screenings are analysed through the prism of those that take place in a cinema, as well as those made by the viewers themselves.
Thus, in an increasingly sensitive approach, the atmosphere in a documentary film is depicted in an attempt to better understand what it is all about.