sound on film.

in this article.. chion explains in detail many elements that coincide with sound and film.. it's pretty structured the way he writes it out too. i'm going to try and follow his structure with my response. one of the early topics he explains is his theory on 'vococentric' cinema. He explains the value of dialogue and the sounds of the human voice. i think that this is a useful tool in filmmaking because some of the best hollywood films that are extremely successful are highly stuffed with good dialogue sequences. I can think of a specific example that I love. In Tarantino's True Romance.. Alabama Worley, one of the two protagonists.. she narrates the beginning and the end. Tarantino has a way of really sculpting out the time, place, and culture that his films take place in... in True Romance two kids from detroit in the early 90's are pretty much goofing around the whole time while getting themselves in big trouble, they both come off as extremely naive and young. Her sweet innocent voice with a city like dialect and slang to go along, begins the film by explaining how she never thought she'd find the love that she's about to in the film.. but the most memorable, the ending is one of my favorite quotes...

""Amid the chaos of that day, when all I could hear was the thunder of gunshots and all I could smell was the violence in the air, I look back and I'm amazed that my thoughts were so clear and true. That three words went through my mind endlessly, repeating themselves like a broken record: "You're so cool. You're so cool. You're so cool."

all in her sweet young voice that just contradicts her hectic lifestyle and shows her innocence and naivety in her tone, and I think this is a tool Tarantino used to convey the story he as trying to get across. He does a good job, and it's definitely one of my favorite movies.

another area chion touches on is his section on value added by music.. i think its safe to say that music brings a lot to the table in film, rhythm and beat is an instant sound luxury and appeals to most humans as far as im concerned.. juxtaposing music and film has got to be one of the most brilliant cinematic decisions ever made. especially where he goes on to explain empathy derived from music. the empathetic music that allows you to really feel the feeling that the film is expressing is an extremely powerful tool.. i can think real quick off the top of my head a number of films that dragged me into it's depths just by it's score. even in the same family as films, film trailers, which are my specialty, i feel are highly successful just by the music chosen. almost like if the music is super suspenseful in the trailer, then you knowyoure going to get a suspenseful film.. same goes along with comedic, romantic, and dramatic tracks that fall with the trailer...

on the other side of things, which i think goes along with chions description of a fixed sound (if i understood correctly) to me this is the idea of diegetic sounds on the screen.. i never really cared much of even thought much of sounds happening in the story world until i saw the movie the strangers... this concept takes over the entire soundtrack. the movie is about a couple in a house in the woods, and intruders come and torture them. the film has very little score to it, in fact the only score heard is music played on the record player, which adds an eery effect when at a point in the film the record is tampered with and begins to skip and play the same eerie not and say the same weird phrase over and over.. it adds anxiety, in fact most of the sounds in the film are nothing but pure loud noises that cause much anxiety. the most famous in the film is the constant banging on the front door that happens repeatedly because there is noone there each time one of the protagonists go to answer it, each time seems to get louder and louder. its ax extremely heavy banging and scared me off the bat. another one of my favorites in the film is when there's obviously something going, even though the couple doesn't know what, and the woman is alone in the living room, there is a fire in the fireplace and it's extremely quiet in the house. all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off and when i was in the theater it sent the theater jumping. i think this is an awesome tool used to scare because its something scary in the fact that it's an every day noise, an average annoyance and in this film these average loud annoying noises are along side a series of horrifying events. i became fascinated with the idea of 'every day noises' that make you jump. he should have talked about sounds like that in his horror section.. the example he used from eyes without a face did freak me out just reading about it.. can't imagine hearing/seeing it.


the only parts of the article i wasn't really into is when it got down to the nitty gritty dynamics of hearing and sound.. i found it boring and hard to keep focus on...it was more interesting to me to read about the effect of different sounds on an audience and the different ways sound is portrayed in film rather than temporalization shit.. but its whatever.. i learned more than i thought i would reading it i guess..

Radiohead |MTV Music

response to wells animation theorys

animation, as Wells explains pretty thoroughly, has many forms that provoke different emotions and meanings. i like the fact that Wells was simply distinguishing the difference between experimental animation and "orthodox animation" because it seems that most articles about experimental vs. popular film entertainment takes a hard opinion on one or the other. Wells just layed out the makeup and products of both.

Although, he does go to say that abstract animation requires more effort and creativity... and that you need the highest mental and spirtual faculties. thats whatever.. i can agree to him to some extent, but i think that creating a long narrative animation would be pretty tidious in its own ways, maybe not spiritually, but physically more difficult.. but i dont really know because ive never done any animation before.. thats just what i would think..

i really liked the section on musical relationships...and how there is some kind of psychological and emotional relationship between sound and color, i think this idea has been widely touched on when you look at animated music videos.. animation gives the viewer a chance to really explore different depths that may coincide with the music..and gives the artist a chance to really create more vs. other types of film. one of my favorites is radiohead's paranoid android... i think the animation is awesome and lets you see things that go along well with the music that you wouldn't normally see..i think thats something the experimental film does most of the time anyway, gives you a view of another concept you wouldn't normally see in your everyday narrative.

the presence of the artist i think is another important issue that wells touches on... it's something i've briefly touched on in other classes, but i think is crucial to appreciate when viewing experimental vs. orthox animation... because we are so trained to view animation with a different eye, like narrative vs. avant-garde films.. we have a similar training with animation, we watch the story unfold and just follow along to the narrative structure and don't pay enough attention to the details.. and that's somethign that should be noticed the most in animation because there is so much room for creativity... there are much less boundaries.

The Russet and Starr quote was awesome...i like the idea of associating music and experminetal film together a lot, so when he says that will excute the scores of his visions that correspond to his state of my mind, i can't help but imagine a rhythmic interpretation of some great painting.. that steps away from classical story telling and pertains more to visual pleasure.

cameraless

i took this class because i heard it was fun. It was a fun film class... why wouldn't i take it? i didn't really know exactly what i was doing or how the class would be constructed but i did see a few screenings of films made by this class at jengo's...they seemed pretty cool. the first day of class andre explained this class to be kind of like an arts and crafts but with film. sounded awesome to me.. and so far has been. after taking an entire semester of history of avantgarde with kreul and watching these films every week i didn't think that it would be as fun as it is to make them.. the manipulation to film stock leaves so much room for creativity and exploration of new mediums. i think its fun.. its exciting to spend a lot of time on exploring your creativity with film and then getting to see the final product.. i didn't think id be as excited as i was to see the final product of the magazine transfer project we did.. and the first day of class when we spent most of the time painting and hole punching and scratching film, i was interested to see what my creation turned out to be. I think that I have finally grasped that concept of experimental film vs. narratives because of the avant garde class i took but it took me most of the semester.. so this semester when i finally get to make it i feel like it's a lot more interesting to me than it would have been if i hadn't had kreul's class.. ive browsed through future assignments as well and i think there is a lot in store for me to express my creativity with film. i've actually gotten more and more into it recently, because im also taking shannon's experimental production class.

cameraless filmmaking to me is something that's taking more and more of my interest. I think i got into it the most when i was assigned to do an assignment doing shot by shot analyzing of brakhage's cat's cradle. even after watching it a billion times and dissecting every single little piece i still absolutely love that film. i think i had started to really forget the narrative side of things and the rhythm, color scheme, and images really appealed to me. i don't think that's cameraless but i know brakhage did do a lot of manipulation to his film...

i think so far my favorite effect has been using the hole puncher that are different shapes. but the magazine transfer has some awesome potential to make some cool shit. jessica and i are planning on trying the contact printing soon.. and i think that will turn out just as cool.. and just like everything im just stoked to see how it all looks in the end.