Sound - Titanic, Inception and The Oscars

I never really appreciated how much of an impact sound has to our daily lives. When I’ve considered which sense I find to be most important to humans, I always go back to sight. For example, what is the point in listening to a movie if you cannot see it? Wouldn’t you rather see the images? Reading the Cummings article and also through watching the Oscars last night, I realised how significant sound is to a movie and to our daily lives. My friend and I had put bets on who we thought would win each category and I bet that 'Inception' would win Best Sound Mixing and Sound Editing. The film won in both categories and although I have only seen 'Inception' once, I do remember how prominent the sound was throughout, especially in the dream sequences. However, I also remember how awesome the explosions were outside the cafe when Leo DiCaprio and Ellen Page are sitting outside a cafe. I think the two go hand in hand and this article reinforced the fact that sound is just as important as any other sense we have.

The concept of sound walking seems very interesting to me. I sat in my room and tried just to listen for a minute or two. The most prominent sound was the whirring of my laptop, and occasionally I could hear someone talking, noises from upstairs or a car driving past outside. This didn’t necessary lead me to hear that place differently, as the article suggests but it did make me realise that there are a lot more sounds going on around me than I realised and that I must block out an awful lot subconsciously.

With Chion, I agree that sound enriches a given image. If you think about a film such a 'Titanic', it would be nothing without the wailing of ‘My Heart Will Go On’ throughout the movie. It makes the movie what it is – a classic melodramatic love story. Again referring back to the Oscars from last night, they mentioned Titanic and the importance of its music. Thirteen years on it is still being recognised for the wonderful combination of aesthetically pleasing images and sound. Titanic also reflects what Chion describes as empathetic music – the sound in the film allows the audience to feel the love and freedom Rose feels when she is around Jack, and at the same time it permits us to feel Rose’s heartache and desperation towards the end of the movie. Therefore, both these readings have proved that sound is indeed a significant part to any movie or any day of our lives.

Wells & Animation

Animation: “The act, process, or result of imparting life, interest, spirit, motion, or activity.”

I’ve always been fascinated by animation – to be honest I’ve never really taken the time to fully understand it. Wells mentions Disney several times during his text and it forced me to realise that I have watched these Disney films all my life and have never really appreciated the amount of work which had gone into creating them. I took it all for granted, especially as a child... I guess I am going to find out for myself how extensive the animation process is on Monday!

Wells cites William Moritz in his text, and he elaborates on the effect experimental art has on the audience; i.e. the fact that different meanings can be interpreted from it depending on how abstract something is. I completely agree with this statement and agree with the fact that it is more interesting to have several interpretations of art which can then be discussed. A good example would be ‘Passage’.  Moritz speaks of animation having to encompass “intriguing spirit” and immediately, ‘Western Spaghetti’ popped into my head. I was SO impressed by this film and I think my favourite part was when they chopped up the Rubik’s cube, it looked brilliant. Although it was most definitely an experimental film, I’m not sure a multitude of meanings could be taken from it – I think it was just one of those ‘simple but genius’ pieces of art and it definitely has spirit.

Wells obviously wrote this text in 1998 and I think it’s interesting that he talks about the fact that orthodox animation is 2D as clearly that statement is now outdated. Many Disney films, such as Toy Story 3 are now being made in 3D. I like the fact that  animation is moving forward and it makes me very curious to think what could be being created/invented in a mere 50 years. Thinking of the last 10 years, 3D animation has exploded onto our cinema screens (quite literally) notably in the form of ‘Avatar’. Yes, the narrative was unoriginal, but the animation was spectacular to look at and this brings us back to what Wells discusses in orthodox narrative form – the narrative most often follows a simple ‘chase’ story of some sort and there will be a resolution at the end. I don’t think people get bored of hearing the same story over and over again, as long as they have something new to look at. Image is one of the most important parts of watching a film to me, so ‘Avatar’ was refreshing in that sense.

Animation still baffles me, but it sure does look good.

Camera less filmmaking...

So this is the first really creative class I have taken since I was probably 16 years old (the most recent one being darkroom photography which I adored). When I found out that this class ran until 9pm, I was slightly worried just because I knew if we were going to be reading or discussing theories then I would zone out at roughly 7:30pm as my brain does just tend to switch off from studying at that point! It therefore came as a relief when I realised what the class actually entailed. I come to class every week excited about what we will be doing that day, as most things we have created so far are novel to me and it’s fun to let myself be free and creative.

My favourite week so far was most definitely creating the magazine transfers. I am a very organised person and I know how abstract the ideas are in 6x1, but I still can’t help but to organise my thoughts and whatever I construct must have some sort of linear quality to it. For this project, I used the wedding magazine and cut out meaningful words and pictures to go together and give an overall sense of a ‘wedding day’. Being given the opportunity to do this makes me realise that I can be creative and artistic, I just never really let myself go there day to day. It’s very inspirational.

6x1 has opened up a whole new world to me; one that I didn’t even know existed. I may be naive but I had never thought about camera less filmmaking until this semester. To be able to see the work that you have created through the projector is pretty cool and it feels much more personal than if you had used a camera to make a film. I mean, who knew that scratching a piece of film with pins and sandpaper could produce such interesting and unique results? Not me!  It is a completely different experience. Even though this class is not typically ‘academic’ in the fact that it we are not necessarily studying an academic’s work and writing long papers, I feel as though I have learnt just as much, if not more in this class than in any of my others this semester. Not only that, but it is a refreshing way to learn. It is great to get away from the books and the theories from a while.

Synesthesia and Cymatics

Synesthesia means to use multiple senses to create a piece of art. The concept reminds me of the idea that a song or a band can remind you of a person, whether it be for a good or bad reason. Only with this the music can be associated with colours. I don’t think I am lucky enough to have experienced this collaboration of the senses, but the idea that Carol Steen could close her eyes during acupuncture and see a vision is quite a ‘far out’ thought to me. It must be a pretty exciting thing to experience. The most impressive example on the Wikipedia page to me was Ana Salz. She painted something which matched up to the music she listened to. It’s so hard to believe that by just looking at a painting, someone can be reminded of a song. If I hear a song, it can remind me of a film, a specific time in my life or, as I mentioned before, a person, however I don’t think I could be reminded of a song just by looking at a painting. Although I wish that was the case!

I guess that colours are often associated with emotions, for example red could be a symbol of passion or romance. Therefore, that concept could be discussed further and if you were listening to a love song, you may see the colour red. This could also apply to yellow with happiness or blue with sadness. For example, when I see the colour yellow, I am forced to associate it with summer, sunshine and happy times which I could then further associate with Reading Festival in England which I attended last summer.

Cymatics is the process of visualising sound. That’s a pretty cool thing to be able to do if you think about it. The fact that scientists are now trying to depict what dolphins are saying through cymatics when they makes noise is crazy, and feels very advanced, but an exciting thought all the same. The film ‘Passage’ which we watched last week contained cymatics, in that that images moved and contracted as the sound changed frequency or pitch. This is a random thought, but talking about cymatics reminds me of the part in the film ‘A Walk to Remember’, when Landon says, “love is like the wind, I can’t see it but I can feel it.” That quote has always stuck with me for some reason, but it’s interesting that now with cymatics it could be possible to be able to actually see the wind and therefore that whole quote could now be meaningless. But I’m a romantic so I’m going to stick with it for now...