- Our jobs as students studying sound for screen are to choose a reason for the choices we make when coming to recording. Every decision should have intention behind it.
- We think about aesthetics and why we collect sound in a certain way and what effect it has
- Synchresis – Is the forging between sound and image. What we hear and what we see snapping into a relationship that feels natural, even if its completely artificial.
- We as audio engineers are able to play with perspective and distance shaping how close or far the audience feels from a sound source.
- We want to do this and understand the becoming off what we create, the transition from raw sound to meaningful audio.
- Our goal is create character to our sound, however, we can only do this when we become conscious and deliberate about the choices we make.
John Akomfrah
- John Akomfrah is a sound designer and artist that has had work put up in the Tate.
- He says he is really interested in the “conversation” that goes on between noise. Noises can suggest direction or emotion even before the image reveals it.
- He believes there are sonic ways of knowing the world, like how nightclubs or music scenes allows us to discover people through the music first.
- He believes music can alter and change the space that you are in, that’s why its such a powerful tool
Review of the arrangement for my sounds collected
Last week we went out and recorded environmental audio whilst making a sonic map of what we heard around us. I collected some audio signals into an arrangement and in todays lecture we watched a short film with my audio layered in top. Surprisingly, it worked really well. I think the lack of strict goal I just wanted to experiment with form, texture and placement. Somehow those “strange” arrangements created a dreamlike dissonance that suited the footage.
This has inspired me to explore dreamscape music and sounds that feel deliberately absent or unsettling, sonic landscapes that feel lost or even half remembered, like a memory that doesn’t fully belong to me. I want to incorporate more of that haunting and or liminal feeling into the film.
The voice in cinema
- Voice in cinema is the crux of setting up perception for the watcher, In every mix there is a voice and that voice commands attention and has a hierarchy to all other sound
- The level and the noise of the voice have to be artificially enhanced over the sounds, to isolate the voice from background or ambient sound
The Voice Of Cinema by Michel Chion
This book looks at examples of directors and filmmakers who have used the disembodied voice in their films, the likes of Hitchcock’s Psycho and Kubrick’s A Space Odyssey. How have these directors used the heard but not seen voice to build suspense in these films? Chion explores the hidden and faceless voice and its story telling powers.
Gaze in cinema
Laura Mulvey Essay on the Female Gaze in Cinema
- Mulvey talks brilliantly about the female and male gaze in cinema, gaze refers to the point of view of the people who made the film
- The female and male gaze refers to a split between narratives within the story with the man in the story going out and getting things done and progressing the film. Whereas the female in films are made to be looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic purposes
Larry Achiampon
- Achiampon’s films explore some themes of identity, mental health and race
- His use of narration in his films bring out the hidden fire within his films. His music is dreamlike and minimal and moving
- The point of view of his films are from the point of view of himself, his films bring up some raw emotion from digital identity in a modern age to the complexities of class
Reflections
As I move into making a conscious decision into what I want to do for my hand in for this unit, I’m realising how much sound is not just a technical craft but a way of sensing the world around you. Sound become a story that sit underneath the visuals, shopping feelings that audience absorbs before even have time to realise it. This feels lessons Akomfrah’s ideas about sonic knowledge, Mulvey’s exploration of gaze and Chion’s disembodied voices have made me more aware of how sound can speak from the edges of a film, guiding attention and shaping emotion.
When I listen in to the sounds around me Im actively trying to be more attentive. Im listening for textures and the quiet clues that reveal a spaces inner life. Looking at possibly making my own music or sound design for a film, I want to be able to make my own world. A world where sound is the character itself, carrying memories and tension that the visuals alone can’t hold.