This film on swimming champion Jean Taris was commissioned from Vigo by Germaine Dulac and shot in the early months of 1931. Vigo agreed to take on the project for financial reasons but infused a lot of his own ideas into the project. Shooting at the aquatic hall where Taris conducted his practices, Vigo and Kaufman incorporated several unique shots for the time in Taris. This included images of Taris swimming underwater while looking at the camera through one of the windows surrounding the pool. Vigo loved the sequences shot underwater and would recall them when shooting L’Atalante. It was the first experience for Jean Vigo shooting with sound.