During our field trip to the Museum of the Moving Image, my group and I were given a demonstration on how audio is added to a piece of movie footage. In our case, we analyzed the scene in Titanic where the ship is sinking, and one of the ship's funnels breaks off.
Deconstructing the sound was an amazing experience that really emphasized how important sound itself is to a scene. When we first watched the clip, there was no sound. Despite the chaos that was occurring within the image, it was difficult to connect with what was happening because of the lack of audio. We then watched the clip again, but with voices, and dare I say it, it was worse than without sound. It was like witnessing an awful lip sync parody. But, as various sound effects and Foley sounds were added, you could hear and see the scene come together.
My favorite part was finding out where the Foley sounds came from. It's interesting, and also funny, to note how the sounds originate from unlikely places, yet fit so well with whatever it is supposed to represent. The sound used for the funnel as it tipped over into the ocean, for example, was the sound of an elephant. When you listen to it carefully, you notice that it does sound like an elephant, but, with all of the other sounds combined in the clip, the sound feels like a sound that a funnel that is falling apart would make.
With the addition of audio to moving images, the images we see have an added element of realness that connects with our senses and makes the experience all the more tangible. Sound is a key element when one wants to immerse their audience in the world of the movie, and without it, I believe the audience is more aware of the fourth wall between them and what they are watching.
On Saturday, I attended the 1:30 panel for Make Strange the Senses: Asynchronicity as Method and Argument.
While I wish I could have understood more about what was discussed, being an extreme novice in film making made it difficult to grasp what exactly the panelists were conveying in regards to asynchronicity and its impact on film, specifically those of nonfiction, and the audience.
At length, the panelists talked about what asynchronicity is, the challenge of identifying whether the sound is asynchronous or simply off screen, and what it offers to the image.
One of the things that stuck out to me the most was the notion- brought up by Asbjørn Tiller about the film Still Life with Ho Chi Minh- that sound can be a constant while it is the image that is asynchronous. Along with that, another interesting topic was one of the projects mentioned by panelists Asbjørn Tiller and Marit Kathryn Corneil.
Two films- one of which I believe is A Spell To Ward Off the Darkness- by Ben Russell and Ben Rivers were apparently filmed together, but asynchronous in sound. These films, which debuted one or two years apart from one another, contained footage from one film was accompanied by sound that belonged to footage in another. The example they showed us during the panel was a clip from one film of two people in the forest, with an unrecognizable sound in the background. They then showed us a clip from another film of a volcano, with synchronous volcano sounds, and revealed to us that the unrecognizable sound in the first clip was, in fact, the volcano.
Now, as interesting as that was, I am unsure as to how asynchronous sound like that is supposed to impact the film. What exactly was the intent behind putting that particular sound with that image? I have no idea.
After that panel, I feel more confused than before.
The linear piece of media I chose to analyze is the music
video for “Breezeblocks” by Alt-j. The editing work that was done on the video
forces the audience to actively try to figure out what kind of story is being
told.
The relationship between the sound and the images is not
conventional. The lyrics are sung by a man, and the individual the singer
addresses is referred to as a ‘she.’ The video immediately begins by showing
the audience a woman, lying along the z axis of the image, presumably dead.
This causes an association with the ‘she’ in the song to the female in the tub.
Then, a man is shown from a slightly high angle, with his face covered (regret)
and his wedding band on display. These two images, edited to be shown back to
back, along with the first lines of the song make the viewer think that the
man, out of his obsession for the woman, went too far and killed her.
Up until this point, the viewer is led to believe that this
video is going forward. But then, we see water go back into the faucet and
realize that the whole video is backwards! And from that point, the mind of the
audience tries to continuously piece together the situation as new information
is being displayed to them.
The song itself gives the false assumption that the woman is
the victim, when she is actually the offender, while the video is edited to
support the false assumption when played backwards. The woman’s face is seen
more often than the man’s. His is only purposely focused on twice: when he is
struggling with the woman for the breeze block, and when he crouches down to aid
his wife. In the first image, we see his anger towards the woman, amplifying
the idea that he is the aggressor. In the second, we see his surprise and
worry, showing that he is actually not at all what we initially presumed.
The woman’s face, on the other hand, is focused on several
times. We see the distress on her face as she runs down the hallway and the
realization and hint of fear when she sees him with the breeze block. We see her
getting up from the ground, but because it is played backwards, it feels as
though she is kneeling to hide away. In this scene, where the top third is covered
by the counter, the audience then sees her struggling. Because she has landed
on her back, the light displays her face more clearly than the man’s face that
is covered by his shadow.
One particular scene that makes the viewer more sympathetic
towards her is after the man and woman are struggling for the breeze block. The
view goes from the struggling figures along the 180 degree line to a low angle,
over the shoulder shot of the man coming at the woman while she turns to get
away.
Close ups shots of hands are used to emphasize the
relationship between the three individuals in the video- of how there is a
married couple and an intruder. The overall color of the video is dark,
matching the mood of the situation in the video. In terms of shot length, it
looks as though the scenes take audio cues from the music, and the cuts are
seamless to allow more focus to be placed on the flow of events.
For the sound walk, I strolled through downtown Manhattan around 11 am on a Tuesday.
At first, there wasn't much noise- the streets were rather empty, and the only distinct noises were the sound of my shoes hitting pavement and the occassional car passing by. Eventually, as I moved away from the courthouse and towards what looked to be a residential area, there was more people and more cars.
Passing underneath one of the bridges, car engines and the sound of tires stopped me from hearing anything else but the wind blowing past my ears. The panting of dogs as they walked passed me with their owners made me stope and stare. Several people passed by, talking loudly into their phone, and when passing local stores, I heard the faint sound of people talking.
In a small space that was meant for the apartment residents to relax, there were the sounds of several bikes rolling over pacement.
I ended my walk near the art store that belonged to the college down there, where there were many students clustering around the sidewalk and talking loud enough for me to hear.
Being in the city, the consistent background noise were the cars, and the sound of college students and bikes, in my opinion, was what made the area unique.
I am interested in the relationship between the unhappiness of individuals and the surroundings that they were brought up in- specifically, the type of society, culture, and situations that they were exposed to.
Being someone who believes that they drew the short end of the stick when they were brought into this world, I am constantly battling with the frustration that comes from the mentality of 'life is unfair' and 'everything would be better if I was...'
In order to manage my own feelings better, I found myself analyzing other people in order to see how they dealt with the unhappiness of less than ideal situations, and it worked, for a brief period. Then, I became frustrated with the people I observed. I could see how they dealt with these situations but I could not understand why some people could be so pleasant while others so volatile with their methods. It was only when I began to fully deconstruct works of fiction (ranging from comics, to video games and animated videos) that I began to understand what was missing: their life story.
Fictional works have influenced me greatly with the way they reveal the backstory of a character to allow the viewer to empathize and understand why the character acts the way they do. Currently, there are three main works of fiction that inspire me: The video game The Last of Us, the movie Big Hero Six, and the Batman comic books.
In the future, I hope to not only share the stories of the many that have had to struggle through the 'unfairness' of life, but to also promote awareness on the societal and cultural problems that can be changed in order to make life a little less unhappy for everyone.
