A piece of scoring I have taken much influence from is Memories Of Green by Vangelis used in the film Blade Runner (1982). I used it as my main inspiration when creating an experimental audio piece last year and hope in future to take inspiration from it again if given the opportunity to design sound on a film.
Although not originally made for Blade Runner it fits perfectly within the film and the specific scene.
The piece I created last year was also a piano piece with electronic noises behind in a similar vein to this. The emotional context of the scene is addressed by the piano piece coupled with the electronic background noises the audience is reminded of where and when the film is set. In a dystopian future where the lines between human and robot are becoming more and more blurred.
Last year to create my piece I used MIDI instrument in the software Cubase but with the skills and equipment we have recently been introduced to it could have been much easier.
One new piece of equipment is the M-Audio MIDI Controller:
This will allow a much easier interface with software because you can play MIDI directly in.
We have also recently started learning about Pro Tools 11 which offers a range of plug-ins and MIDI instruments which can be controlled with the M-Audio keyboard.
A primary technique of sound design is foley. Named after it's creator Jack Donovan Foley it is the practice of recording sound effects to be added on to a film in post production as a way of creating a more full sounding world in film. A classic example of this is the recording of clapping coconuts to make the sound of a horse galloping.
When making sounds for Exercise 1 I have used foley extensively. During the scene the character flips through stacks of money in which he finds a tracking device. For part of this I used pieces of paper around the size of dollars and tried to flip through them in as similar way as the character that I could. The image shows the Sennheiser 416 microphone on a stand set up to record this sound effect.
The Zoom H4N is a new piece of kit that we now have access to. It is a hand-held recorder and serves to do a similar job to the Marantz Recorder. I myself own a Zoom R-16 Digital 8 Track and in keeping with that the H4N is extremely portable and easy to use considering what it can do. The H4N seems like it will be perfect for 'on location' work especially when partnered with another piece of equipment I have not yet come across; the Wendt 3 Channel Mixer.
The primary purpose of the Wendt is for 'on location' recording because it is very small yet enables you to have three fader channels with panning and low pass filtering, three XLR mic inputs with phantom power, pre-amp gain options, and two XLR outputs for numerous stereo and mono recording options.
The first exercise I have been set in this module is basically a shorter version of the final task.
We were given a choice of four film extracts, all without sound and asked to design sound for our chosen one.
I have chosen a 2 minute section from the 2007 film No Country For Old Men by the Coen Brothers.
Of the four choices this was the only film I had already seen and therefore I knew I enjoyed it. The sound design of the chosen scene within the film is particularly interesting on account of how subtle it is. So much of the tension is in the space between the louder sounds. The placement of the sounds draws the viewer in and forces them to try and figure out their own spacial awareness in the world being portrayed.
At this point of the narrative the protagonist is hiding in a hotel from a killer. The viewer is never actually made certain that the killer is in the building, yet through the sound design the audience pieces together an image of the killer somewhere very close by.
In this task I aim to create a similar feeling of suspense as captured in the original film.
For this semester's production skills module I have been tasked to design sound for a piece of film.
We will learn numerous techniques of the sound design process and put them into practice working towards creating audio for our chosen film extract.
I am eager to take part in this module because of my experience in music technology, having taken it at college, and the interest I have in many different aspects of audio production which I also hope to give evidence of in this blog.
