PROJECT 2 DRAFT

Project 2 Draft: http://soundcloud.com/user7287671/output-1-2

After realizing that my initial idea for second project was too ambitious, and after reflecting upon the idea, recognizing that it might have sounded a bit ridiculous, I revised my idea to something more personal. This piece focuses on my battle with anxiety, so I worked with my actress, who struggles with the same illness, on a script based on a story of hers.

The piece will not be very abstract, as one might be able to tell from this draft. The draft, however, is in my mind rather complete in terms of what will actually be said in the piece; re-recording will only be necessary to ensure better clarity from a better microphone. The only abstract sounds will come at the beginning and end of the piece, with ambient noise underneath.

The challenge that I find myself facing is how to render a simple story into an interesting sound work. The literal retelling is not enough, so I exaggerated it lightly but found that I don't particularly like the way that it sounds at this point. I believe the use of a number of sounds would only be distracting though I also recognize the necessity of including them in order to make the piece more interesting and worthy of repeated listenings. This week I will record far more sounds than necessary in order to have a better sample size considering my lack of understanding as to how to accent the piece.

My most pressing questions are, How do I make a standard story sonically interesting without distracting from what's being said? What sounds properly accentuate a story such as this? What is the process for deciding this and what can I turn to as inspiration? I am not posting any images or links as influences, as my personal experiences served as the influence for the piece.

PROJECT 2 PROPOSAL: ORAL DOCUMENTARY

I would like for my oral documentary to be as abstract as possible, influenced by my endeavors in numerous fields of creative work. The documentary will not focus on my day-to-day life but my work as a filmmaker, poet, novelist and film critic with a focus on how these ideas govern the way that I navigate the world, not only my academic and professional pursuits.

The piece, for the first 10-20 seconds, will initially sound like any other radio piece, introduced by a reporter who will be voiced by an actor introducing Sam Littman the Writer. The interviewer will speak in an almost nonsensical manner before accurately describing what I have done, leading fittingly into a non-synch narrative that resembles something out of David Lynch. The sounds I use will be all voiceover with an eerie, wind-like sound wave blowing underneath which is nearly inaudible.

The narrative will be broken into four sections: Filmmaker, Poet, Novelist and film critic, with the reporter changing his voice subtly for each section in a way that sounds very eccentric, jarring the audience as they still will recognize that it is the same actor. The voice change will reflect the slight variance in my passion for each facet of creative work, alternately intense (poetry) and humorous (film critic).

The more abstract aspect will result from a melding of documenting a combination of my accomplishments to this point and my aspirations, blurring the line between fiction and reality for those that are not familiar with my work. For example, I will be introduced as the film critic of the Daily Orange of two years before the fast-talking narrator progresses to note how I progressed, from my first job at the Newar Star-Ledger to my current position at the Village Voice. As a filmmaker I graduated with a B.F.A. from Syracuse University and made experimental films under an alias before landing a teaching job at SUNY-Purchase. These will be abstractly melded together by quotes from those that know me (some in reality, some in my imagination) that will be rendered almost blurry to the point that the listener can only understand fragments, some of which might not even be particularly meaningful. The listener will then be forced to decide why I highlighted those snippets of the interview.

The problem that I expect to encounter will be the abstract formulation of the piece; will I intend for it to be abstract, this proposal merely, admittedly, makes it sound eccentric. I have never heard any type of “abstract” radio program so while I am a little confused as to how to go about designing the piece, I am excited at the prospect of creating something somewhat new, an abstract, radio-inspired sound piece that is also very personal.

ABSTRACT PROJECT - FINAL

http://soundcloud.com/user7287671/fil329project1

I set out to compose a score for a particularly haunting scene in the film “The Night of the Hunter” (1955), but realized that I would have to render it more abstractly so as to abide by the project guidelines. The result is a composition heavily influenced by the mood of the scene, potentially recognizable as a score but hopefully also able to stand on its own as an abstract piece with distinct elements of terror and suspense.

In order to build suspense I commenced the piece with an ambiguously hypnotic track that last 30 seconds and rarely changes in pitch or tone. Underneath it I laid yet another hypnotic track, though I don’t believe it is excessive because it has a completely different tone and neatly accentuates the power first track. The scene in “The Night of the Hunter” where Robert Mitchum looks toward the sky, a beautiful, geometrically absurd shot intercut with a doomed Shelley Winters, is treated with the sound of a heartbeat. To underscore the tension I laid a calmer sound of wind beneath it, and with the rising action I relied heavily on ERH’s “Ominous."

I did not base the composition directly on the actions in the scene, however; the scene has been embedded in my mind for years, so I needed only to draw upon the memory of it to design the piece. The rising action in the piece might not align perfectly with the rising action in the composition, which would be fine as it was meant to be an abstract interpretation of how the scene made me feel, and I am very satisfied with it.

“The Night of the Hunter” was not the only inspiration behind the piece. I realized that of all the elements of the film that had me feeling so passionate about it, its relation to German Expressionism was the most powerful. I was especially inspired by images from Robert Wiene’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (1921) and F.W. Murnau’s “Faust” (1926), which might have even inspired director Charles Laughton in making “The Night of the Hunter.” I initially found Logic to be quite challenging, but after two hours I felt sufficiently comfortable, at which point I first began editing the audio tracks that I had singled out. It is not exceptionally complex, but the result is exactly what I hoped for when I arrived at the idea for it two weeks ago, as it is pleasingly haunting and can exist as an abstract sound piece while still fitting as a score for the scene in “The Night of the Hunter” that continues to inspire me in all forms of art practice.








SOURCES:

Title: Nikonf4
Artist: Heigh-Hoo
Source: http://www.freesound.org/people/Heigh-hoo/sounds/16071/

Title: Fire Forest Inferno
Artist: Dynamicell
Source: http://www.freesound.org/search/?q=dynamicell

Title: Evening in the Forest
Artist: Reinsamba
Source:http://www.freesound.org/search/?q=18765+reinsamba&f=&s=num_downloads+desc&advanced=0

Title: Radio Static
Artist: Percy Duke
Date: 8-9-200
Source: http://www.freesound.org/people/Percy%20Duke/sounds/23503/

Title: Wind
Artist: ERH
Source: http://www.freesound.org/search/?q=erh+atmosphere

Title: Angels
Artist: ERH
Source: http://www.freesound.org/people/ERH/sounds/29589/

Title: Silver Tones
Artist: ERH
Source: http://www.freesound.org/people/ERH/sounds/31028/

Title: Coma Cluster
Artist: ERH
Source: http://www.freesound.org/search/?q=erh+coma

Title: Heartbeat Enhanced
Artist: Herbert Boland
Source: http://www.freesound.org/people/l3ardoc/sounds/52895/

Title: Negative Future
Artist: ERH
Source: http://www.freesound.org/people/ERH/sounds/33838/

Title: Nine Lies of the Heart
Artist: ERH
Source: http://www.freesound.org/search/?q=erh+ominous

Title: Emergency
Artist: ERH
Source: http://www.freesound.org/people/ERH/sounds/38543/

ABSTRACT SOUND PIECE PROPOSAL

This scene is excerpted from “The Night of the Hunter” (1955), a thriller directed by Charles Laughton and starring Robert Mitchum as a murderer masquerading as a priest in order to get in the favor of unsuspecting widows across the Northeast.

My favorite film, “The Night of the Hunter” is an unapologetically excessive thriller that combines film noir, German Expressionism and the style of early innovators such as D.W. Griffith and Eric von Stoheim, and the result is a nightmarish fairy tale with provocative biblical implications. I selected this clip because it sufficiently distills the film’s primary themes and haunting imagery. The scene is inspiring in the manner in which Laughton builds suspense as Mitchum roams slowly around the foreboding bedroom with his razor blade, a feeling that I would like to evoke in my piece. It is an exceptionally chilling sequence that invokes a darker sort of inspiration in its edginess and cultivation of slow-burning tension. The very expressive use of light in the shot , especially the triangular light formation flanking Mitchum, the light refracted through the windows and the neat framing of co-star Shelley Winters’ face, is very inspiring, especially the sharpness and direction of the lines on the wall, a hallmark of German Expressionism.

Ideally, my piece would do justice to the tension that Laughton creates on screen. While I believe the score is perfect, as it changes pace nicely to accommodate jarring shots such as that of Winters lying angelically on her pillow and Mitchum reaching in an exaggerated manner towards the heavens, I would like to watch it with a thoroughly terrifying score that embodies the overall mood of the picture. My piece would be very dark, but the degree of darkness would constantly be adapting to the narrative, just as the original score does, though the tension in my piece would never let up. I want to give the listener a sense of profound fear, the type that I felt upon watching “The Night of the Hunter” for the first time when I was not yet even a teenager.

Because I have chosen a narrative scene upon which to be base my piece, I will have to adhere to the changes in mood and tone throughout the scene. In keeping with that adherence to narrative flow, I would start with a sharp hum that serves to make the listener slightly uncomfortable. The piece would then gain momentum at the 25-second mark, when Mitchum arises and begins to walk around the room. As he reaches towards the heavens, the piece would amble more than sprint, calming for a 15-second period in appreciation of the beauty of Mitchum’s gesture. When he shuts the window blind, however, the piece will ascend towards its violent climax, with the screeching and underlying thumping and blaring incurring within the listener a sense of terror as he leans over Winters, prepared to strike. When the scene changes to show the children, the music would again calm for a 30-second window, though it still remains very unnerving.

Relevant Sounds:
- Screeching (nails on chalkboard)
- Blaring (toned-down, resembling a locomotive from hell)
- Thunder (an exaggeration of the weather)
- Whispering (to exacerbate the idea of Mitchum’s psychosis)

The final scene in Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” is the emotional farewell between unhappy movie star Bob Harris (Bill Murray) and lonely newlywed Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), who become very close due to their shared alienation in Tokyo.

The scene commences with Harris riding in a taxi, with hardly any audible sound. Suddenly, however, when he opens his door upon noticing Charlotte nearby, he lets in the loud buzzing common of a street in a major metropolis. This is an example of the power of sound perspective, as the noise that Harris is greeted by when he opens the door exists while he is in the car, but we do not hear it until he becomes a part of that space. The volume is consistent as he walks toward Charlotte, but changes drastically once they meet face to face.

Once Murray states, “Hey, you,” and hugs Charlotte, the sound dims perceptibly to the point that it is almost nonexistent outside of Murray and Charlotte's bubble. He pulls Charlotte close and whispers something in her ear that is purposefully low and muddled so that the audience can only infer what he might be saying. The audience assumes that this is perhaps the most important, and certainly the most intimate, line in the film, which makes Coppola’s decision to have Harris whisper it all the more interesting.

As they remain locked in each other’s arms in the middle of the street, the surrounding street noise is considerably lower than it was when Harris and Charlotte first walk towards one another, though the environment has not changed. Coppola has dulled the background noise to create a more intense feeling of intimacy at the expense of realism.

As Harris walks away from Charlotte, the noises in the background appear to be almost blurred, especially the voices. As he says goodbye for the last time, “Just Like Honey” by The Jesus and Mary Chain plays, the first non-diegetic sound in the scene. When Murray reenters the taxi, the city sounds are again cut off entirely as he ponders the gravity of his final encounter with Charlotte.