Filmmaker explores 'singing sands' phenomenon on Estonia's beaches
Estonian filmmaker Aare Baumer has completed a documentary, inspired by the search for "singing sand" on beaches.
Singing sands are an as yet still unexplained phenomenon whereby the sand emits sounds when, for instance, sliding one's hand over the surface.
After three years in the making, Baumer has now finished the documentary, called "Seitse liiva" ("Seven Sands"), which, as its name suggests, took him to seven beautiful beaches, all of them in Estonia, and the movie is to be screened at the ongoing Matsalu nature film festival (MAFF). He explained more about how to find the singing sands phenomenon, regardless of what causes it. He is also head of science and development at the Energia avastuskeskus science museum in Estonia, giving him a good insight.
"You have to choose a beach where the sand 'sings' best, while the right surface temperature must be above 26 degrees. Moisture is also important. The sound of the sand carries better when the grains are uniform and the air humidity is below 60 percent," he went on, on how to hear the song of the sand.
"Squeaky" sands have a property whereby the hand must slide over them at a speed faster than 0.4 meters per second, to resonate. "If the hand moves slower than that, no sound comes."
Once you slide your hand across the sand at the correct speed, Baumer said, the grains in the surface layer begin to resonate, with the vibrations transmitted to the other grains. "The peculiarity of singing sand is its purity, substances wash the grains, and the wind sorts them by weight," he added.
Baumer said the initial concept behind making the film was to create a film where everything was "chill," starting off with rendering that colloquial English term accurately into Estonian. "I started looking into how to make a film using Estonian synonyms for 'chill,' but it turned out there are no Estonian equivalents for that word," he conceded.
Instead, he set out to describe that feeling, in seven different ways, in the film.
"Then again, can I show the sunrise and sunset seven times in the film — but that would get boring."
He found some more engaging imagery, for instance on Nõva beach, west of Tallinn.
"There's an interesting scene with a spider and an ant. On Nõva beach it's fascinating that when you sit down on the sand, the ants are on you right away. And then it transpires that when you set up the camera, there are multiple worlds. One world is that one where you live, another, where the little insects live, who are going on a big hustle in their own sphere. You suddenly realize there are so many worlds."
The MAFF festival started this week and runs to early October.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Annika Remmel
Source: 'Terevisioon,' interviewer Reimo Sildvee.
