Drama: Sound Design Inspiration

Joe Dwyer: Director
Gino: Producer
James Dransfield: Cinematographer
Phoebe Jaspe: Sound Designer
Sian Meredith: Editor

In this drama project, I've decided to take the role as the sound designer. The sound recording and boom mic. operation will be shared among our group. I'm not overly fond of holding a boom microphone for a 5 minute production (possibly stood there for hours), so taking it in turns will be a good idea.

Joe is the Director, so we've decided to let Joe have the say of ideas because we didn't want him to have any difficulties or disruptions with his vision. He decided he wanted mainly acoustic, light piano, cellos and violin, ambient vibes within the score. This reminded me of 'ThePianoGuys', a composograph sort of style of Neo-classical music video:

I find this incredibly inspirational, it also reminded me of the composograph project which taught me a lot  about musical structures which I need to adhere to consonances to create harmony, instead of dissonance, depending on the mood I want to create. My flaws seem to be focused on dissonance and discordia because I've never learned Music as a subject in my life, but I was in a band called Post Human as the vocals, an experimental/indie/shoegaze alternative band 2 years ago (none of the songs are recent). Majority of the sounds were lo-fi but we have some bootlegs/demos/EP/ and played a gig at Yas Viceroy Hotel for a girl's birthday.
The other band members (my friends) are spread around the U.K at the moment but most of them are based in London.


Anyways, here are some things I learned about sounds:
A quote on Consonance: "A stable tone combination is a consonance; consonances are points of arrival, rest, and resolution."
—Roger Kamien (2008), p.41

A quote on Dissonance: "An unstable tone combination is a dissonance; its tension demands an onward motion to a stable chord. Thus dissonant chords are 'active'; traditionally they have been considered harsh and have expressed pain, grief, and conflict."
—Roger Kamien (2008), p.41

Possible influences from these songs I recently listened to that could be used in this drama project about a  man who meets death:

Isolation:

Romantic elements:

Sound design for 'Generation Y'

The creative process

The discovery of MIDI controllers and Logic Pro 9 blew my mind away, creating screenplays and sounds for films was something that was missing in my life. Since my music knowledge is pretty open, genres ranging from classical, chillwave, psytrance, indie, metal, chillstep, rock, electronic, reggae, norwegian/ japanese downtempo, french minimal, german house, post-rock, alternative and many more. Hearing the different types of instruments on Logic Pro 9 reminded me of so many songs but in pieces, and I just had the urge to connect those different similar instruments together. This inspired me greatly and I'm most likely going to take 'Sound' as a skill next year in level 5.

My first sound edit on the MIDI workshop with Neil Webb from Solaris (2002) mute footage:


SOLARIS- The JOURNEY (HD) Sound design from Phoebe Jaspe on Vimeo.


I booked out a MIDI controller and experimented with Logic Pro 9 which I downloaded on my Macbook Pro, these are the sound editing sessions for Generation Y on printscreens:

I chose 'Church Choir' sounds for the cathedral shots along with some light synth sounds over the interviews. I just thought the sound design fitted well, I've got different opinions from different people say it was 'heavy', 'overpowering' and 'scary'. I guess I went a bit too far with the layers, I'll learn over time to reduce the amount of sounds I choose to go on the timeline and have more structure within my work. I think being an artist my whole life and even studying Art A levels diminished that structure of generic codes and conventions. I always try to integrate art into films and my mind automatically opposes conventional ideas. With this being said, I'll do better in experimental films and music videos as a film genre, rather than a documentary in which I need to communicate logically to the audience and I'm unskilled in doing that. Maybe I'm more of a Writer or cinematographer but there's always time to learn.

Treeface: My past artwork, oils on canvas

The ideas implemented within the film was all Louise's idea and I did my best to envision it. Christianity isn't a part of my life and never will be, I'm more of a spiritual/agnostic type of person, and glorifying a group of people with ideas that doesn't appeal to you in the first place was difficult and I took the challenge. I've accepted my faults and will improve as time passes.

Documentary Analysis: Pockets

Pockets from Pilgrim Films on Vimeo.

The main theme of this documentary is 'What do the contents of your pockets say about you?', its purpose is to discover what random strangers of all ages have in their pockets ranging from a little redhead girl, a crack addict, evil spirits believer, a rasta jesus preacher, musicians, to a mexican thug and a few others. A quirky, amusing and dream-like vibe which I adore, a social exploration of people of all nationalities, they all unify in the documentary because they have an object in their pockets. James Lees intended it to have a spontaneous effect of what he filmed and each shot is framed similarly with their hands presenting the object in their pockets. 

This documentary doesn't use any symbolic or metaphorical footage, it is as it is physically, what you see is what you get. The literal information is available from the images and the effect is just to associate people's personalities with the objects they have in their pockets. The cinematographer recorded spontaneous dialogue between each individual, these people have different lives from each other, there are no experts or witnesses to validate if those objects were actually in their pockets but we just assume it's true (it's believable). Maybe not the crack addict scene where a drug addict is filmed and she would possibly get arrested if the authorities saw the documentary (or not). The music is upbeat, feel-good and pleasant to hear, along with people's life stories put together, it's fascinating and paints a picture of a group of confident individuals that are happy with their lives. Lees uses particular brightness within the cinematography with no depth of field, most likely shot on a DSLR. 

Overall, I think the documentary was really effective with showing the enthusiasm of people with different lives, motives and perspectives, it stands out from conventional documentaries and it's my favourite out of the documentary materials shown to us.

Documentary analysis: The Archive

The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

The principle subject of this documentary is to evoke sympathytowards a blind man that has over 60,000 original record collections in which no one has yet bought the whole collection from him. He wishes to sell his collection through this emotional documentary style ad which is common in documentaries if it was the intention to sell things. It argues that people have lost the true passion for music. 
His monologue contained phrases such as:
"This record is really rare, it costs about 6,000 dollars'
'I used to be a salesman'
'I used to trade a lot, any way to get the records I didn't have'
'60,000 records in a store, I would never sell a last copy of anything.'
'That happens rare and rare and rare.'
'It's a sad commentary for these times, basically nobody gives a damn'
'69 years old in september, I've given my whole life to this, it's time to pass it on.' 
'The world is dead out there, they have their ears closed. It'll take them 10-20 years of age for them to wake up. The music is hundred times better on vinyl.'

In text it says: "Paul's collection is estimated to be worth $50 million. His current asking price is $3 million." This is used because it's more effective in conveying information through text which allows time and space for audiences to have their own interpretations.

He uses the word 'rare' a lot which conveys that no one in the world has his records and that his record collection is unique and people should buy it for 3 million dollars soon because he's going to die. A persuasive yet emotional technique used, it's like that similar ideology of when you die, people will actually care, bringing death into the picture, the documentary film maker encourages us as viewers to empathise with Paul, therefore, most likely buy his products. 

'Archive' uses commentary by witnesses (his wife) to seal the deal that it's legit. Dean Dunne uses direct interviews and cutaways of his working space where he keeps his whole record collection to portray the seriousness as a collector. A CCTV perspective shot is also used so it ties in the connection of Paul and his records, it's a sense of voyeurism and we are meant to be looking at his musical world. I thought it was effective in proving the point that Paul is one of those rare music record collectors and we should appreciate music records more for what it is. We need to open our eyes and wake up to the good things in life.

Filming 'Generation Y' Documentary

Visual stimulation

The experience at Liverpool city has astonished me with its magnificent charm of huge buildings, progressive architecture and the feeling of the wide open space at Merseyside waterfront was refreshing.

DAY 1:

James, Mike and I did an exploration around the town and discovered St. James Cathedral, walked around the graveyard and did some location scouting. Places we explored are shown in these pictures:

Dolby hotel, found a restaurant that didn't have any food at 14:00

Ended up eating in China Town, at a restaurant called 'Arch', had beef in oyster sauce with rice

DAY 2:

Filming took place at the Narnia Experience at St. Georges Hall, Ykids headquarters, a coffee shop relating to Ykids, a kitchen at Bootle. I had a list of questions I've written down to ask in the interviews, to receive content for the documentary in which I thought it would be ideal to focus on the religious aspects of these altruistic organisations and people. This is a copy of the questions I decided to focus on when asking the interviewees:

Documentary film-making surprised me with its sense of adventure, exploring deeply into strangers' minds, interests and discovering real people, finding out about their lives, asking questions to provoke passion and their beliefs caught on camera is what made the film process enjoyable. The staff at Ykids said that their biggest motivation is to spread the Christian message at the Narnia experience, and during this journey they unify other christian volunteers. My favourite part is the interview with young volunteers called Jack O'Hare and Rosie Bunn, the way they answered their questions about faith was inspiring, although I'm agnostic, I still found their beliefs precious.

A still from Jack and Rosie's interview

They were in Narnia costumes with the lion logo representing Aslan, they said it represented Jesus in a symbol. Watching this filmed live was an entertaining experience along with learning about the thoughts and feelings of individuals. It was almost like I was a psychologist for a day with the type of questions I was asking. The most generic one would be: How does that make you feel?

Some behind-the-scenes of interviews snapshots:

Jack and Rosie's interview

Kate Yates, staff at Ykids interview

Actors of Narnia experience interview

Claire Morgans, CEO of Ykids interview

Some pictures taken of our documentary film adventure: 

The crew

After the Narnia experience at St. Georges Hall Liverpool, we took a train to Bootle Strand, which was about 15 minutes away. 

We met Claire Morgans outside the train station and she took us around in her 6 seater car, went to her office and around some abandoned houses with a church burned down by troubled youth. Did some urban exploration, saw burnt-out buildings, urban decay and graffiti-strewn walls:

Then it was time for us to go back to the Hatter's Hostel, after a long day's shoot and filmed about 1.2 hours of footage, which is a lot to work with for a 5 minute documentary. 

Chinatown Liverpool at night time

A fortune cookie I opened, I thought it related to film in some way

On the final day of the Liverpool trip, Amy, Louise and I went to town to check out the Narnia experience but it was all booked out. So we decided to roam around the city and we saw a bunch of film trailers and asked what was going on. The film they were shooting was about Christina Noble Children's foundation, she had just done a film shoot in Vietnam and now in Liverpool. Unfortunately, we couldn't get in the set but saw an A.D outside, we had a chat with him and left to the Liverpool Limestreet station.

Onset.com film trailers 

My favourite photograph: Aspiration