Month: January 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-gspA6xcPg

BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend Mashup uses a selection of clips from artists performing over the weekend, to produce a medley of music, with clips only lasting a matter of seconds. This approach gives the audience an insight into a large range of musical styles and artists that featured over the weekend, without dragging out the video to cover larger sections of performances. I found that this piece uses recognisable clips from songs pushed together to create a new sound piece, without sounding glitchy or unintentional.

The musical tone in the video is somewhat consistent throughout, due to the running theme of a similar genre, which ties each short sound clip together. I found by watching this that it is important to select a theme that can define the structure, so by only selecting one bands music, the sound is consistent and more uniform.

The video itself uses live performances matched to the music, to display to the viewer the style and presentation of performance at the festival, and give an indication of the weekend itself. This approach could be used within my own promotional video, as the Country to Country festival should be promoted honestly within an insight into the event itself.

In the Dictionary of Music by Theodore Karp, a musical medley is described as “a work made by stringing together a group of well-known tunes, either used in their entirety or in part.” By collecting well-known clips from Zac Brown Band songs, I could collate a piece that would be recognisable to people informed in the music, as well as enticing people who were unfamiliar to the band.

Rachel Kolb, a Stanford graduate,  was born profoundly deaf to both hearing parents.

In this Ted talk, Kolb talks about her on going struggles of living in a hearing world. From a early age, she was constantly told that she would never be able to do much because of her deafness. Despite the negativity around her, Rachel had a strong urge to prove her doubters wrong. “When we are children, I don’t think we inherently believe that we can’t do things. We need to hold on to this belief as we grow older”. From the age of  just 18 months, Kolb began speech therapy and nowadays, she is bilingual; using sign language as well as spoken English.

I found this video very inspiring! Rachel’s determination and willpower is something to be truly admired…

https://youtu.be/adap4rzlM2I

Even tho I’m not the biggest fan of horror films, this one is such a good example of sound in film. Without the sound in this film, it would almost be boring and have no life to it.  The sounds and music make the atmosphere very intense, and I definitely feel scared mostly because of the sounds.

https://youtu.be/FL9bylhDkcc

This is one of my favourite films and one of my favourite scenes. I like the choice of music used in this scene and I also like the contradictions between the images shown in the film and the classical music by Johann Sebastian Bach. This creates an uncanny feel as you don’t tend to put together such beautiful, calming music with a film about murder and the seven deadly sins.

In order to understand more about deafness and how it affects people, TV presenter Tim Vincent went Deaf for the Day to support Hearing Dogs for Deaf People. This video is extremely inspiring. As able hearing viewers, we have a chance to briefly experience what it is really like to live with deafness and the daily struggles faced. Stepping into the shoes of someone who suffers from hearing loss will hopefully make people more understanding and sympathetic towards the hard of hearing. I found this concept very interesting and so, decided to try and portray something similar to this for my 30 second film.

As Linda from this video states, “You have to be more alert with your eyes, all the time”. “Deafness can be very isolating, it affects your confidence”. 

https://youtu.be/_bsGUOVTA84

With my video being about the dream state and focusing on the reality of dreams, I found watching Inception very interesting in my research. The quote “our minds continuously does this we create and perceive our world simultaneously, and our mind does this so well that we don’t even know its happening”, it is interesting to watch this film and continuously have to question when we are dreaming or when we are in reality.

(Watkins, 2012)

The sound piece I have created is based on a ‘prequel’ to the 2012 film of ‘The Woman in Black’. It focuses on the story of how her young son died in the marsh whilst she watched from a window whilst she was alive, resulting in her killing the children of anyone who saw her when she was a ghost.

When studying the book, I discovered that the story was set in the Victorian era; and therefore, I began to investigate the toys used by children during this time – one toy I discovered was a zoetrope. As you can see above, during the 2012 film, Arthur Kipps, played by Daniel Radcliff, spins a zoetrope that he finds placed on a table at Eel Marsh house, which is then peered through by The Woman in Black. It is suggested that this is the toy of her late son, left to age within this old house. The sound that accompanies the scene portrays a contrast between the natural sound of the toy spinning vs. the high pitched noise played when The Woman in Black appears.

Similarly to this scene, I would like to continue with the use of this toy, creating a link to both the film and the book itself. I aim to ensure the consistency by using the same image strip of the clown passing his head from one body to another, whilst also designing image strips that relate directly to the story of my sound piece, for example an image of a young boy and an image of a horse. I will use the sound that I’ve created to inform my images, whilst integrating typography between each clip.

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Watkins, J. (2012) The Woman in Black Zoetrope Scene. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NciHnBTaJ5w [Accessed 22 December 2017].

(Derrickson, 2012)

My initial aim was to use shadows and silhouettes to build suspense and anxiety within my film trailer, whilst at the same time, giving limited information to the viewer. After experimenting with this concept, I wanted to develop a more emotive outcome, one that wasn’t so distant from my sound. During my research, I discovered the ‘Sinister’ film trailer that uses the theme of memory in order to tell the story; this is portrayed through a projector and old film strips that are consistent throughout the length of the trailer.

Within the trailer, the sound changes momentarily to a high pitched gasp, whilst simultaneously altering the image to fit. An aged, cracked screen then appears along with an ink-bleed typeface used to quote what is happening within the trailer, for example “nothing can save you” – using these glimpses to reinforce that psychological feeling of horror.

Similarly to this trailer, I aim to continue with the use of memory and familiarity when creating my images. I would like to use the repetitive elements within my sound to add typography into my trailer and build the story, whilst using a typeface that compliments the genre.

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Derrickson, S. (2012) Sinister Trailer. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kbQAJR9YWQ [Accessed 21 December 2017].

(The Mill, 2014)

The aim of my sound piece was to create an uncomfortable experience full of suspense and anxiety, that left the viewers wondering what they had heard. From this, I wanted to explore how I could convert this theme into a visual language, using images that again, left questions with the audience.

My initial aim was to contrast the two elements of my film trailer – a literal sound to a lateral image, or vice versa; playing on how something familiar could simultaneously become unfamiliar, bringing the supernatural straight into the everyday.

I have always been fascinated by the way silhouettes can reveal everything and nothing at the same time, and wanted to explore this concept within my film trailer. During my research, I discovered the ‘Marco Polo’ title sequence by The Mill. During the title sequence, ink is used to mimic traditional Chinese painting, creating silhouettes of landscapes, animals and people, whilst gently flowing across the scene in sync with the sound played. As the sound changes, so does the image, continuing to spread and flow simultaneously to the rhythm of the music.

The use of these elements have greatly informed my experiments. I am intrigued by the way sound and image have been combined through movement and rhythm to allow for a brief insight into the contents of the series, creating questions and yet giving the answers at the same time.

Similarly to this title sequence, I would like to continue with the theme of limited information, allowing only a small amount of knowledge to be gained from my trailer. I will also design the images that I will use within my trailer to symbolize the key events of my story, for example, when the boy dies; therefore, creating questions from the answers.

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The Mill (2014) Marco Polo Title Sequence. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6onwcVx8BDg [Accessed 21 December 2017].

After research into ‘The Woman in Black’ 2012 film trailer, it is apparent that tension and suspense have been built through the layering of sound. The aim of my ‘prequel’ trailer is to mimic this technique, however, I will initially base my sound on extracts of Susan Hill’s original book.

After reading the book, three quotations have become key influences in allowing me to construct my sound:

• “[Kipps] Now, out on those same marshes, the whole episode, or a ghost, a shadow, a memory of it, somehow happened again and again… but nothing could be seen, only heard.”
• “[Kipps] An event, and that a dreadful, tragic one, of many years ago, which had taken place and had been done with, was somehow taking place over and over again, repeating itself in some dimension other than the normal, present one…”
• “[Daily] You’ve gone through some rough seas… [Kipps] well, I’m in the calm after the storm now and there’s an end to it”

Using these three quotations, I would like to focus my sound piece on the initial story of the child (The Woman in Black’s son) drowning in the marsh, as well as integrate the key themes that I have discovered: repetition, the extraordinary in the everyday, and perplexity. I also aim to use these descriptions to later inform my imagery, again, focusing on these themes.

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Hill, S. (1998) The Woman in Black. New York: Vintage.