Up in the Air

French music duo Air are promoting restored 1902 masterpiece by Georges Méliès, A Trip to the Moon.My only advice to fans of French music duo Air has to be stick to listening to their genius tunes.Meet Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel in person and I promise you'll be left wondering why all the creative juices have to flow so deep under the surface.The boys are in town to promote the restored 1902 masterpiece by Georges Méliès, A Trip to the Moon. They wrote and produced the accompanying music score.It was an epic eight-year restoration project for the filmmakers, and just 30 days before it made its world premiere at Cannes, Air were set to work.The offer to score the job was "like a gift from God", said Godin. "We were searching for something new, a new concept," added Dunckel. "We had already done a soundtrack and we really don't like to repeat ourselves. But this was so different. It was a soundtrack but it also wasn't. It was music which took the place of the characters who would tell the story. Each sound could represent the next move."For the duo, the history behind Méliès' creation of the film was inspiring. "He was creating a movie when there was no movie business," said Dunckel. "He did everything by himself, and there was no one to tell him anything. It's really moving to see this man doing this kind of art."And just like Méliès, they had no one telling them what to do, something they welcomed. "All we knew was that they wanted something modern and fashionable, which was great because it was really down to us. There was no super-stressed director yelling. That's hard because your vision comes face-to-face with theirs and it's hard.The restored piece has garnered mixed reviews, some critics believing Air's modern music was not appropriate for such a film.In its time the silent film would have been accompanied by a simple piano. "I don't see the point of doing something old when this is new," said Dunckel. "It's a new piece of art." Moving quickly on, Godin continued: "I saw it like 12 paintings," he said. "That was how we broke it down. But we also were inspired to do things differently. Disney makes animals talk like humans so we decided to use animal noises to represent the unspoken words of the humans.""We could relate to the main character in the film," said Godin. "This guy builds a rocket which he wants to fly to the moon in and everybody just laughs at him. It was something, as musicians, we could connect with. Since being a child everyone has told us ‘It will never happen'. If you want to pursue music you are constantly told your dreams will never come true."