Spectres of Shortwave

2016
Amanda Dawn Christie
Spectres of Shortwave Still

Spectres of Shortwave Still. Photograph Courtesy Amanda Dawn Christie.

This experimental documentary about the Radio Canada International shortwave towers is both a film and a radio documentary, and while viewers watch the film in one part of the world, listeners can simultaneously listen to the audio doc in other parts of the world. The film will be premiering in Canada at the Atlantic Film Festival, while the radio documentary simultaneously makes it's premiere on Wave Farm Radio. While the images of the film capture landscape imagery of the towers over four seasons in various weather conditions, the sound track of the film doubles as a radio documentary as stories told by local residents and the technicians who worked at the site are accompanied by field recordings from the area as well as contact microphone recordings made from the towers themselves. In the final chapter of the documentary, the audio is comprised only of the contact microphone recordings of the towers and the sounds of their demolition. The beginning of the demolition is a rich soundscape with the drones of all thirteen towers playing together. As each tower falls and crashes to the ground, it's voice is removed from the mix, until we are left with the single drone of the last tower standing. More information at www.spectresofshortwave.net