Earlier in 1930, Storck was entitled ‘official filmmaker of the city of Ostend’. Allowing him to—next to his sales and administrative work in his late father’s shoe shop—take to town and record gentlemen in bespoke suits, seated in beach chairs with legs extended off the ground in an attempt to keep their precious shoes from touching the water, as seen in Trains de plaisir. The twentysomething had been tasked with capturing day-to-day life in Ostend, to be screened in theater. He himself, however, negotiated room for personal work and experiment.
