Aurélien, what was the biggest challenge in directing a film that relies heavily on voice and sound to drive the humor and plot?

The biggest challenge was creating a progressive tension, like the harmonic rise in music, within the confines of a closed environment.

To achieve this, the film starts at a deliberate pace, with long silences that build an unsettling atmosphere and emphasize the absurdity of the situation. Staying confined in the recording booth with Dolores, the main character, was a deliberate choice to immerse the viewer fully in her experience. Sound played a pivotal role in this approach: I wanted the audience to hear everything Dolores hears—the microphone issues, the faulty headset, the buzzing…

During filming, I asked my actresses and my actor to deliver their lines repeatedly, experimenting with variations in intensity. This provided ample material to shape the tension curve during editing, allowing me to adjust the pace as needed. In some cases, I reused the same line in the edit, but delivered with different emotional tones. This flexibility allowed me to strike a balance between humor and tension, a dynamic shaped collaboratively with the actors during the shoot.

The production setup added another layer of complexity. The water in the booth had to rise gradually until it filled the entire space. To achieve this, we shot in a real recording studio and in a recreated booth submerged in a small pool, allowing us to control the water system effectively.