For the first assignment we were set
to make a three minute sound piece based around the theme of “Sense of Place”.
I joined with Reece Ronan as we were working on the Edale project together as
well. We began by listening to a range of sound pieces as examples. These were
a mixture of different types of experimental sound. After listening to these
and establishing what the experimental genre was, we generated some ideas in
the form of a mind map. We came up with many ideas, including a party, kitchen
and an armoury But after careful consideration of whether it was possible,
whether it was interesting and whether we could make it our own. We decided
against the party idea because we felt it was too genuine and common, yet it
also had a very small promise, limiting us to certain sounds. We were
interested in the kitchen idea as I had been influenced by the opening credits
of the series Dexter, as it we
thought we could develop a piece that exaggerated the everyday kitchen sounds,
turning them into a beat. Although we also decided against that because we felt
we could create something more exciting and interesting this is when we decided
on an empty street in the early morning hours of the day. This would focus on
the lack of sound in a space, giving you a sense of being lost in the space you
are hearing. But we then decided to focus it more and give it more of a theme.
So it became a post-apocalyptic street/city. This idea felt more developed and
individual with more of scope to add narrative. The first idea was to have the
streets empty but with strange sounds happening in the wake of the silence. But
it then developed into the idea of a survivor or creature is roaming the
streets, its aura moving objects, showing its power for it to then discover a
survivor. The sound became even more crucial in showing the power.
I would like our audience to feel
the space that we have tried to create while being anxious and on edge to what’s
going to happen next. Our target audience would be between ages 16-25 primarily
but I think it would also appeal to older audiences as well.
We started looking into sound for
different apocalyptic films such as The
Book of Eli, I am Legend and 28 Days Later. These films proved to be
very useful in gaining an idea into what an apocalyptic world would sound like.
28 Days Later uses very little sound
at the beginning when the main character wakes up from a coma in a hospital.
Barely any noise can be heard other than newspapers in the wind and other eerie
movements. This is what isolates the character at the beginning and puts
emphasis on his loneliness. We wanted to take a part of this idea, using a
quiet atmosphere to show how empty the streets are. From this we also got the
idea of objects moving every so often, like the sound of a plastic bag in the
wind or a glass bottle smashing. The Book
of Eli was influential in giving us a motif idea, as they use very limited
colour schemes, throughout most of the film being greys and browns with a low contrast,
removing colour. We were inspired by this and created our own motif by taking
advantage of the orange streetlights, giving our film and orange tinge all the
way through. Another piece of sound that
was inspirational was called Beyond the
Hallogen Halls, a sound piece by Red Fog. I discovered this on Soundcloud
when looking for interesting pieces of work; this one was the most interesting
because it used a low tone to create and eerie and worrying atmosphere. The
piece continuously uses this low tone, keeping you on edge and making you think
something is going to happen. I also discovered a piece of experimental sound
on YouTube called Apocalypse Ink ,
this used the opposite to the Beyond
Hallogen Halls piece, very high frequency whistles to put the audience on
the edge and unease them. This was combined with echoed thuds that resonated
creating sudden bursts of fear. This gave me more ideas on working with
different frequency sounds to satisfy the audience. Strange Lights (2010) by Rosie Pedlow and Joe King also had an
influence on my idea for sound because they used a similar technique of using
high frequency noises so keep the audience on edge but at the same time
wondering what it was, guessing what it was and that is something that I
considered greatly, especially later on in the project as we decided that there would be an
entity/creature/survivor that is roaming the streets and puts the audience on
the edge. We got the idea for the sound from the films Chronicle (2012) and Paranormal
Activity (2007). As they both use a similar sound to represent presence,
using low frequency rumbles and noises to upset the viewer. In Paranormal Activity, they do this when
the entity moves or does something as you cannot see it but can hear it. In Chronicle they use it significantly when
the characters go into the hole underground, spooking the audience and
indicating that something powerful is down there. They use similar sounds when
the characters are also using their powers, to show their strength. This is
also where we got the idea for the movement of objects when the being comes
into shot, it’s presence is so powerful that it moves objects and gives off a
violent and fearful aura.
I believe that our sound piece is
stronger than the film piece. This is because I feel that the sound works
extremely well on its own in making you feel on a dark lonely street. I also feel
we spent more time editing the sound than we did with the film, which meant the
film was slightly more rushed than the sound. I feel that our piece as a whole
starts off strongly and ends stronger. The beginning of the film with the
static mixed with white noise, conjoined with the disjointed speech of a news
reporter gave it an edgy start, making people confused from the start and
wonder what they are going to witness. I felt that our beginning could have
been even stronger because we wanted to put in a waveform image, representing
the heartbeat at the start but we could not find how to create one in time and
settled for overlaying it over rain. I thought that doing a structural piece,
we stuck to our guidelines well, using close ups of rain to divide up the shots
and create suspense, but also to create a specific colour scheme/motif which
was the orange glow from the lamps that we took advantage of. Although I felt
our downfall with the footage was that it was much too dark in some shots and
some of the rain close-ups are shaky. We found it difficult to avoid those two
things because we wanted to film in the dark to give the streets an emptier
look and we didn't want to place the camera in the water, as we couldn't use
the tripod for those shots because it was too big. One thing that I enjoyed and
thought was a big success was avoiding what the character looked like, so we
could leave it to the audience’s imagination, I felt this gave the audience a
degree of freedom to imagine what it could be and look like. For the smashing
of the glass bottles rush I thought we could have had a different range of
shots, so we could show all four bottles smashing but we only achieved two. The
sound that was linked with the can also disappointed us as we couldn't match
the audio as well as we would have liked, this would put the audience off. I
felt that we created suspense throughout the film and built up to the end but I
thought we could have increased the pace of the film during the middle. The end
scenes I was pleased with the most other than the fact we had a shot of a gate
being pulled down but the footage was too dark to use, so we had to compromise
and use a closer shot. I felt the ending was exciting and was just what I hoped
for.
If I was to do it again I would most
likely do it in early hours of the morning instead of the night, to reduce the
darkness of the footage. I would also find a way of making the shots of the
rain more stable, avoiding getting the camera wet. I would also spent more time
on the editing of the film, in addition to doing extra shooting to cover for
shots that were useless.
Making the work was enjoyable. After
gathering our ideas and planning we got straight to collecting our sound. We
collected the sound on six occasions. We planned to collect sound three times
but then had to go out to shoot some more sound that would either replace
unusable pieces or create new ones we came up with during the process such as
the heartbeat that was never originally planned. We also had three shoots
planned, but that resulted in four because we wanted to match what we added in
for the sound. Reece did the majority of
the directing although I often had a lot of input. We both acted as cameramen
and shared the cinematography role. I edited the sound piece while Reece added
his thoughts as we went along. When we were editing the sound the only problem
we had was our levels, the different sounds were mixed and matched making it
sound odd and unrealistic, but other than that the sound editing went smoothly.
I also did the bulk of the film editing similarly to the sound, with Reece
adding input as we went along. Again the editing went well other than one
thing, which was exporting the film. We couldn't achieve the right settings the
first few times that we tried exporting but we eventually used the correct
settings to generate a copy of the film. A lot of things did turn out
differently to what we imagined at the planning stage and that was because we
developed our idea as we were working on it, adding in extra sections such as
the fatal shout at the end as well as the use of the heartbeat.
I feel I have learnt a lot from this
project. The most important lesson I have learnt is to consider that you need
equal time for both edits and should get your recording and shooting done as
quick as possible as it gives you a lot longer to focus on your edit and making
it look as professional as you can. Another lesson I have learnt is to avoid
filming in the dark unless you have some form of lighting, as it became very
tricky and even impossible for us at some points. During the editing I felt I
learnt a lot as I went along because although I already knew the basics, I now know
how to use a lot of effects and techniques in both Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack
Pro while increasing my comfort on the Apple Macs which are very new to me.
As a team I felt that Reece and I
worked well together, we collaborated about every idea we had and we always
were together whenever we did any work on the project. So we both had equal say
in what was done and did an equal amount over the project. I feel that my
strengths in teamwork is communicating and making sure ideas are heard and
motivating others. I feel that my weakness is that I tend to take control
sometimes, just to make sure it is getting done properly and I feel I may need
to put more trust in my team mates.
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