Sounding Time and Focus in the Scientific Films of Eric Lucey

This paper presents an overview of audio-visual approaches to composing an electroacoustic soundscape that soundtracks archival film material from pioneering scientific filmmaker Eric Lucey. Lucey's film-making was defined by his manipulation of speed, motion and scale as tools forobserving behaviour using a variety of techniques, most famously time-lapse or very high-speed film, and microphotography. The work may be seen as non-narrative documentary that makes use of different sound-design methods to create unexpected points of audition which offer audiences a detailed, expressive and immersive audio-visual experience in poetic and performative modes of documentary.