Feeling for Sound- Further Research

Stephen Vitiello-

Stephen Vitiello is an electronic musician and sound artist who creates soundscapes that change audience perceptions of spaces. In an interview with him, he says that he mostly makes work for gallery exhibitions, but it has most recently gone towards public spaces, and his work consists of how he listens to the world. In what is probably his most famous piece, which was conducted during his residency in the World Trade Centre in 1999, he recorded the sounds of the building after a hurricane and played the sound inside the building, so it sounded like a creaky ship moving.

Another piece which encompasses this idea is 'A Bell for Every Minute' which was produced a year later. This is recording 52 of New York City's bells and playing the hit of one every minute, but playing them on top of each other. This creates the initial hitting noise of the bell, then layers upon layers of vibrating and ringing as if you were inside the bells themselves. You can listen to that piece here: http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2013/soundings/artists/13/works/

In terms of his more musical work, on the electronic musician side of him, he works closely with other musicians or sound artists to create albums that overall seem to have a general theme, usually decided by the kind of instruments used. What I gathered about these works is that they are not heavily concept driven through each individual album, but in general Vitiello tries to explore the use of instruments in creating sound, and what sounds you can create with these instruments. I focused in particular on one of the albums 'Between You and the Shapes You Take' which collaborated with musician Molly Berg.

Between You And The Shapes You Take is the second collaborative album by Richmond based musician/sound artists Stephen Vitiello and Molly Berg. As with the duo’s previous release, The Gorilla Variations (12k2013, 2009), tracks are created out of improvisations and sculpted through editing. Molly Berg’s clarinet and vocalizations tend to cover the CD’s lyrical content while Vitiello’s guitar and processing covers a good deal of the textures.

http://www.12k.com/index.php/site/releases/between_you_and_the_shapes_you_take/

This album was described on the web page linked above as 'melancholic' in ways, which is why I chose to focus on it. The memories in my project at times will aim to produce melancholy and I can really see what is meant when describing this album. Berg's instrumental sounds in tracks such as 'Recap (with violin)' which features a violin or 'Clarinet Assembly' which features a Clarinet, have long notes which make up a simple improvised melody. Along with Vitiello's textures added, which especially in Clarinet Assembly, created depth in the piece. I found it quite easy to get lost in the sounds of this album, and I can see how it would trigger memories and a sense of melancholy for people.

You can listen to most of his work on Spotify, but you can listen to 'Recap (With Violin)' and 'Clarinet Assembly' below:

Feeling for Sound- Further Research

Cathy Lane-

Cathy Lane is a composer, sound artist, lecturer and researcher. Her work and research has taken an interest in the past, and individual memories through sound, which in turn led to an exploration of gender, spoken word, anthropology in sound design. Her work consists of field recordings, site specific installations, concert pieces, installed compositions etc.

On her soundcloud page 'playing with words': https://soundcloud.com/playingwithwords there are extracts of many of her works. The first one I was interested in looking at was 'Nesting Stones' as when initially researching about Cathy Lane, that piece came up a lot and The Wire listed it under their '100 Records That Set the World On Fire While No One Was Listening' list.

This is from the description of the piece on Sound Cloud:

Anybody who has ever had an intense relationship with another person will know that for every positive emotion experienced there is a corresponding negative feeling. Nesting Stones is based on my feelings about my relationship with my baby daughter.
In this composition I am using and developing anecdotal structures and gestural metaphors harnessing the sense of spatial positioning and movement and the tension between the recognisable and stated and the barely recognisable and unrecognisable to explore and express the contradictions and dualities of that relationship.
The sound material for the piece is all drawn from recordings of myself and my daughter.

This piece, for me, is successful in the sense that it shows the peaks and troughs in a relationship, with moments of longer, more hypnotic sounds and moments of loud, quick chaos. However, like a relationship, it is never silent. There is always movement, it is persistent. It reminds me of what people must experience when becoming a new parent. The uncertainty, anxiety, and chaotic nature of the relationship as you get no break from this child who constantly needs your attention.

In terms of the actual sound design technique, I really love the electro acoustic feel to this. With the combination of field recordings and the heavy manipulation, Lane has given the child's voice less of an organic, living quality and more of a relentless, parasitic one. However, for my own sound design, I think this would lack some kind of consistency, however I really love the electro acoustic thing she has done and I would love to incorporate some elements of this in my own project.




Hidden Lives was another popular piece I discovered, its popularity unsurprising to me as it tackles gender roles for women in the past. What this piece was trying to create was a sense of memory associated with a space where women were subjected to a life of backbreaking house upkeep, including the upkeep of their own appearance as well. This is discussed in the description given of this piece:

All the material for this piece is drawn from a selection of women reading from “The Book of Hints and Wrinkles” a small piece of social history from the 1930s which describes how women should manage both their houses and themselves in no uncertain terms. The daily routine timetable is enough to ensure that no woman could ever spend much time outside the house or away from this backbreaking schedule, and advice on personal appearance is delivered in such a way as to suggest that women are in fact part of the furnishing of the house to be polished, scrubbed and generally to look clean, welcoming and attractive.

Where this piece succeeds for me mostly is the spoken word elements of the piece, with only words or sounds being heard in an echoed fashion. The layering of these voices also provides a sense of the period of time this was happening in, and the sheer volume of people that were being subjected to this kind of life. Also the constant noise underneath this piece, especially in the beginning gives a sense of the constant work that women in the 1930's were undertaking, and that was expected of them.



The last project I was interested in looking into was The Memory Machine, which relates very directly to my own project. The memory machine was a site specific interactive sound installation which was trying to trigger individual memories for people.

The Memory Machine was an interactive installation which was developed in collaboration with Nye Parry. It had two different manifestations in 2002 and 2003 in each case it played out a changing composition of sonic material specifically chosen to trigger individual memories in the listener. These memories were then recorded into The Memory Machine and became part of the ongoing musical mix that in turn both triggered more memories and were recorded as an memory archive. The changing composition comprised different memories being released into the mix and as they repeated at various intervals different processes were applied to them so that as time went on they became fragmented semantically indistinct and the musicality of the speech became increasingly emphasised in an attempt to mirror some of the workings of individual memory.
It was first shown at Cybersonica in 2002. In this version the aim was to trigger memories in different categories. The sounds that were used to do this related to major historical and cultural events of the previous 60 years such as television theme tunes, pop tunes, radio news broadcasts etc

The end result shown on Sound Cloud is the memories that were produced and recorded by participants of the sound installation. what I find interesting about this is the memories alone have gone into creating new elements of the piece, as words and similar experiences by other people, voices that feel familiar can trigger memories in their own way. Along with popular, well loved sounds such as music, theme tunes, stories, that provide a nostalgic feeling most of the time, the voices provide a far more present and real memory. A word or sound of someone else recalling a memory may make you remember something that happened 1 hour ago or 10 years ago.


In terms of my own sound project, it may be useful for me to consider using some things which are familiar to me, and others, that represent the time period that my sound piece is trying to convey, or the type of situation or feeling that want to make the audience feel.

Feeling for Sound- Further Research

Artangel Commissions-

Artangel is a group that helps commission and produce projects by contemporary artists. In terms of sound design, there are some interesting projects.

Maria Fusco- Master Rock. This piece is a sound/spoken word piece recorded in Ben Cruachan, which is one of the highest peaks in Scotland. In the 1960's it was blasted through to build a power station which remains an important part of the national grid today. 

"Fusco's repertoire for a mountain fuses sound from Cruachan power station with three spoken voices: an Irish tunnel tiger, a forgotten artist, and the voice of the 450 million year-old granite itself."

This piece is interesting in terms of ambience. As it was recorded inside the mountain, all of the voices retain the ambience, the imprint of the mountain. The idea of having the voice of the mountain is also an interesting one. It is as if the artist is trying to give the mountain a point of view, a voice on the whole affair. The sense of old and new is very prevalent in this piece, and again because it is representing something from the past it is applicable with how you represent that through sound.

You can listen to the piece below, which includes an introduction by the artist:

Janet Cardiff- The Missing Voice. I am very familiar with Janet Cardiff's work, and this has been described as her most ambitious project yet. It is a detective fiction/urban guide/film noir type audio walk which starts in the Whitechapel Library. This piece was first created in 1999, but the piece still remains fairly relevant today. As described on the Artangel website

Although The Whitechapel Library closed and the building was absorbed into the neighbouring Whitechapel Gallery, it is surprising how the majority of the walk’s other landmarks – from KFC restaurants to ultra-simple news stands – remain present today, albeit with the occasional change in detail, or paint colour. The effect of this is that The Missing Voice (Case Study B) is accumulating a new kind of intrigue: as we listen to its mysterious, multi-layered tale and compare the narrator’s observations with our own, we observe the drip-drip rate of change on a certain set of London streets

I quite like the idea that because of the minimal change in the landscape since this piece's creation, you can still experience the piece in the same way. In terms of the piece itself, I find that it can inspire imagination in this way. Where does the piece end and the real world begin? Like much of her work it is like she is there with you, like a conscience by your side, whispering in your ear. 

You can download this piece in three parts here: http://www.artangel.org.uk//projects/1999/the_missing_voice_case_study_b/download_and_walk/audio 

Laurie Anderson & Brian Eno- Self Storage. This project is installation/sound exhibition which took users through a storage containment building that can now be walked around and looked in to. Anderson recorded some sound and told some stories based on items that were found in the storage unit. With her recording techniques and the stories she told, which were poetic but detailed, you get a real sense of history with these storage units. It is unsure from listening whether these were fabricated or genuine stories. 

You can listen and see some photographs of the storage unit here: http://www.artangel.org.uk//projects/1995/self_storage/slideshow_with_sound/self_storage

Feeling for Sound- Further Research

Based on the feedback I got for Beyond the Boundaries, I am doing some of the further research that was suggested on my feedback to be able to expand my project.

David Toop-

David Toop is a musician/composer, a writer and a curator who works as a sound artist and as a visiting professor at the University of the Arts in London. My initial research led me to a short interview that was done with him that I found on vimeo. it detailed what he does, where he is working currently and his methods of working. In this video he detailed quite a few interesting thoughts on sound design. he mentioned sound never being in existence. It is always in a state of emergence and decay. He also does a lot of improvisation sessions at the University of the Arts using anything available. He also mentioned a sense of ambience being just about discovered by the wider sound community, and the exploration of it being made of more importance in recent times.

This is the video:

Following on from this I looked up some of his work to see how his theory has been put into his practical work.

The first piece I viewed was Decomposition/Decay which is a sound piece that appears to use instruments and foley to create the piece. The main thing I saw in this was the idea of ambience that he spoke of. The piece is never silent, even in the quieter moments there is always some slight rumble or noise in the piece. For me it is something that I am looking into creating as nothing is ever silent. There is always a slight ambience in a place and I find that particularly fascinating. You can listen to this piece here:

The second piece I looked at was a far more digitally created sounding piece called Tricyrtis Latifolia. This piece includes some voice work and some foley, but it sounds far more digitally created, with a lot of static and interference type sounds. What I see in this, in terms of Toop's working methods is the idea of emergence and decay. In this piece there are lots of sounds coming and going, not necessarily the same sounds either, although as in the previous piece there is always sound in the piece. You can listen to this piece here:

I love the mash up of different kinds of sound design, from digital creation to foley recordings of sounds. Also, the idea that there may have been improvisation elements to this is exciting to me, as the acoustics and results created on that day may always be slightly different depending on who was in the room, what equipment was in there, whether outside sources affected the recordings etc. In terms of my own project, it gives me something to think about in terms of the ambience at the time of recording. I am trying to recreate atmospheres and feelings from the past, partly using ambience, and I need to consider how spaces are going to sound and affect the sound design as a whole.

Indiegogo Fundraising and Trailer/Pre-visualization for Debbie

During all the script writing duties, the rest of the team were working hard making mock storyboards and production breakdowns, working on budgeting etc. We are wanting to raise £1500 for this film and to do this we wanted to make a trailer to give people an idea of what the film would look like, the tone and style and what it is about.

The experience of doing a pre-visualization was good as it allowed us to try out shots we might find difficult and also allowed Thomas to try out some of the VFX for the film and see how that could be created, how long it would take in post etc. Shahid also got an idea of how it should be lit to achieve the effect that I had envisioned. In general it gave a good idea of how much time each shot would take us. All in all it was a good experience.

This is the end result of the video:

In addition to this, we also took photographs of each Team member with information about them, and information about the film. With indiegogo, you can also give people perks dependent on how much money they donate which we will factor into our budget.

We have also launched a Facebook page for people to be able to get updates on our project and what we are up to. Both of these things can be accessed here: 

https://www.facebook.com/debbieFilm/?fref=ts

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/d-eb31e/x/12822846#/

Script Development- Implementation of Feedback and Group Feedback.

After my meeting with Craig, I immediately went back and implemented what he had suggested, especially in terms of structure and it made the film 100% better for it. It flows much better and makes much more sense because of it. At a point I was happier with it, I had a tutorial with Kathleen where she went through some things on the script:

• Amy should be called Jen
• Jarvis wouldn’t wear a watch
• More natural dialogue (Jarvis and Pete)
• Jarvis should look at Debbie on a tablet
• Get rid of toilet scene, drug should be taken in the cafe
• Try the film with and without the narration as it gives away too much of the plot.
• Should get rid of coffee shot at the beginning because people think waitress is main character.
• Shahid’s storyboards don’t match the atmosphere of the film, he needs to meet with Tom more to discuss how shots are set up for VFX.

I went back over and changed some of the things Kathleen said, but I didn't agree with everything she suggested. Then I let the rest of the group have a look. 

Laura gave me a pdf with a lot of notes on, mostly small things to do with dialogue re-wording, and minor details. She had some concerns about the ending, but I disagreed and sent an email to Craig asking for his opinion. He said it was solid, and Laura had a re-read and she agreed that it wasn't as bad as she thought. 

The rest of the group seem to have the same concerns. Shahid mentioned that he didn't like the flashbacks at the end, and felt that it was too 'Fight Club' and that we should have a transition shot instead. Also Lauren voiced a concern about the beginning scene in terms of style and it fitting with the rest of the film.

I agreed with most of what was said by the group, and liked the idea of the transition shot that Shahid mentioned. I also understood Lauren's concern and aim to have a conversation with Shahid to see how it could be lit and shot to allow it to be consistent stylistically. I now think the script is getting to a point of being something that everyone is happy with. Which is perfect and on schedule.

Script Development- Meeting with Craig

After a couple of re-writes of the script, Kathleen sorted out a tutorial with Craig Jordan Baker, the creative writing lecturer on campus to look at my script and give me some feedback on it. I found the meeting very helpful and it really helped me look at the script in a different way. The topics we discussed were:

-Structure
-Dialogue
-Scriptwriting format/technique
-General Feedback

The main thing that was brought up in this meeting was to do with the structure of the script. The structure of it meant that there was too much setup to the story and the ending felt rushed if we were to make a 15 minute film. So his advice was that I introduced Pete's character in a lot earlier, with an establishing scene with him to allow the audience to know why Jarvis is waiting in the cafe and to set up their relationship faster, then to have him arrive by page 4. They then have conversation, and Jarvis is starting to come around to Pete's way of thinking by page 7. This then allows more time for the story to resolve.

The next thing was the actual scriptwriting format. I was writing a sort of mix between a spec script and a shooting script. What Craig advised that in order to focus on the story I leave the shots out at first and then come back to it later and do a full shooting script.

Another thing was that Debbie had more to say than she should have done. If Debbie is an extension of Jarvis's consciousness then she shouldn't say what he's thinking. She should say something that then leads on to him finishing the thought, but not necessarily finishing her sentence.

Other than a few other bits, I asked Craig what he thought of the script in general and he said it could be a strong short film if I got the structure right and improved on the areas we discussed.

'Wake Me Up'- BA Hons Animation Project

I was approached by my friend Tom on the animation course in 3rd year to work on a project called 'Wake Me Up' which is a short documentary style animation which surrounds the topic of sleep paralysis.

He sent me an email with a reference to a documentary on sleep paralysis, which has some sounds in that he was looking for in his work:

Once he had sent that email, a few days later he sent an animatic for his review with his lecturers for me to do sound design on. This piece very abstract and I really liked that I could create my own sound effects for it, based on the documentary he sent me. Which is in fact a very interesting documentary in it's own right. He said he really liked what I did with the sound, and now I have to wait for more animation from him.

Sound Design Research for Personal Project (2)

Following on from my other research, I wanted to look at the psychology of sound and how it affects you in mind and body.

Firstly I found a TED talk about how sound affects you in 4 different ways:

• Physiological- Breathing, heart rate, brainwaves, hormones
• Psychological- Emotional State
• Cognitively- You can't understand large amounts of sound at once.
• Behaviourally- fast paced music makes you drive faster, we leave when we hear pleasant sounds.

I can expand on different ways in which sound affects you and it will probably fall into one of those four categories.

Sound in language helps us read emotions just as we would read facial expressions. A study revealed that when people were exposed to a fearful sounding recording and a photograph of someone with a fearful look on their face, there was much more increased brain activity than if they were neutral.

There is also such a thing as conditioning with sound, which is manipulating memory to condition our emotions in response to certain events. For example, when you hear a piece of music and it reminds you of a particular time in your life. A rather cruel study done on rats where they were played a sound before being electrocuted over time showed the rats become fearful of that sound as they associated it with pain.

http://www.amplifon.co.uk/resources/impact-of-sound-on-the-brain/

When talking about how sound affects the brain we can again talk about binaural beats, and brain waves. When you play binaural beats at a particular frequency then you have an effect on the brain waves we produce. These then have an effect on how we feel. There are four categories of brain wave frequency:

Delta: associated with loss of awareness, deep sleep. Ranges from 0.1-3.9Hz.

Theta: Associated with deep relaxation, sleep. Ranges from 4-7.9Hz.

Alpha: Associated with relaxation while awake, dreaming, pre-sleep and pre-wake drowsiness. Ranges from 8-13.9Hz.

Beta: Associated with being active, busy, concentrated, survival, problem solving etc. Ranges from 14-30Hz.

These waves are often associated with spirituality, and meditation, but they do have their foundations in scientific research.

http://binauralbrains.com/brainwave-frequencies/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beats

Sound doesn’t just affect your brain, it also affects your hormone releases. High pitched, panicked sounds like the sound of an alarm raises your heart rate and releases cortisol into your blood, which is the hormone that activates the feeling of fight or flight. In a similar vein, horror movies create tension using silence and very low frequency sounds to make you feel uncomfortable, and then breaking the tension with a release of cortisol using a jump scare.

I found a thread on a sound forum asking members what films made them feel the most uncomfortable which will aid me in my research on different sound design techniques and why they work so well:

http://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/7806/movies-made-to-make-you-feel-uncomfortable

Now I have done this research I feel more comfortable with piecing together what I want to do with my project.

Sound Research for Personal Project.

After my tutorial with Kathleen last week, where she gave me some suggestions for research, I went away and did some broad research around the topic I wish to base my project on.

I firstly researched Maryanne Amacher who was an American composer and sound designer who sadly died a few years ago. Her work was very site specific and she liked to incorporate the acoustics of a particular place in her work. She also used psychoacoustics to create auditory illusions in her work, namely, otoacoustic emissions which is mostly used for testing hearing. It is a sound which is given off by the inner ear when the ears are stimulated by sound. When you hear these sounds they feel as if they are coming from inside your head.

"When played at the right sound level, which is quite high and exciting, the tones in this music will cause your ears to act as neurophonic instruments that emit sounds that will seem to be issuing directly from your head ... (my audiences) discover they are producing a tonal dimension of the music which interacts melodically, rhythmically, and spatially with the tones in the room. Tones 'dance' in the immediate space of their body, around them like a sonic wrap, cascade inside ears, and out to space in front of their eyes ... Do not be alarmed! Your ears are not behaving strange or being damaged! ... these virtual tones are a natural and very real physical aspect of auditory perception, similar to the fusing of two images resulting in a third three dimensional image in binocular perception ... I want to release this music which is produced by the listener ..." (Maryanne Amacher)

Here is an example of a piece of work that includes this called Synaptic Island:

This led me to research other psychoacoustic illusions in connection to this one. One of which I found to have a similar kind of effect to the one above, which is called a Phantom Voice. This occurs when two tones are played or sung together and a third tone is produced, seemingly from a different source. It feels as if it is coming from the centre if you play both tones in separate ears. Here is an example of it:

If you listen closely you can hear a third higher tone here which does not exist in reality.

Your brain also perceives beats in sound if two tones are played at slightly different frequencies, with a difference of less than 30hz. This is because of the way your brain deals with the frequency difference of each tone which then allows you to hear a beat that isn't there. Here is an example of this:

The last illusion I looked at in depth is something called a scale illusion. It was discovered by a psychologist in 1973 called Diana Deutsch. The illusion starts with a scale, with low and high notes played into both ears respectively. The illusion makes it appear as if the high notes are played in one ear and the low notes are played in the other. In reality the scale is played with some highs in one ear and some in the left, and vice versa for the right. However the way our brain processes the sound makes it appear the way it does. Here is an example of it:

http://philomel.com/mp3/musical_illusions/Scale_illusion.mp3

Lastly I researched another artist called Karlheinz Stockhausen. He works in music, but unconventionally. A lot of his pieces focus on one or two aspects of sound, enhancing them and exploring them. I looked at a variety of his pieces but I found an article which spoke a bit about a particular one called Kontakte.

Karlheinz Stockhausen created a pivotal moment in the history of music with his work Kontakte (1958-1960). According to the composer, “In the preparatory work for my composition Kontakte, I found, for the first time, ways to bring all properties of sound [i.e. timbre, pitch, intensity and duration] under a single control.” The most famous moment, at 17:03 minutes, is a potent illustration of these connections. A high, bright tone descends in several waves, becoming louder as it gradually acquires a snarling timbre, and finally passes below the point where it can be heard any longer as a pitch. As it crosses this threshold, it becomes evident that the tone consists of pulses, which continue to slow until they become a steady beat.

This famous descending tone uncovers a fundamental understanding of our hearing. Once a tone passes below the threshold of 16 Hz we stop perceiving tone, and start to hear beats. The range of hearing was never explored in this way before this moment, because there was no instrument that could perform this frequency range. Up until that time, beats and tones were considered separate musical properties – and often they still are. Beats belong to the realm of rhythm and tempo, and tones to melody and harmony. With Kontakte, Stockhausen showed that beats and tones form a continuum, and the distinction between them is an illusion. It is exclusively due to the lower threshold in our hearing, whether we perceive sound as beats or tone.

Stockhausen worked with instruments and with electronic ways of creating sound, and it is understood that he paved the way for electronic music to come about. Here is Kontatke:

All of this research has given me some context into sound, and how it manipulates the body. Now I can think about how to draw up a plan for what I want to achieve with my own sound design.

Personal Project Idea: How does it feel when you...?

This project idea stemmed from some of the sound design techniques I have been learning over the couple of years, in particular, the sound design masterclass with Glenn Freemantle that I attended during the summer. In that masterclass, he told us that he tries to design sound based on how it feels when a certain situation is happening. The example he gave was his work in 127 hours. As that is based on the experience of a real person, he asked what it felt like at certain points and then based the sound design on how it felt; essentially making it sound how it felt. To see what I mean I'll link a scene below:

Particularly in the end of this scene, the electric guitars represent how it felt. Freemantle described it as how the pain rushes through your body like lightning.

So, the project I am proposing so far is an exploration of this idea of how feelings can be reflected through sound. What I am considering right now is either having a series of situations or one situation and reflecting what each feeling of either each situation or each person in the situation might sound like. What I am also hoping to achieve, is making the audience feel some of how the characters feel.

In a tutorial with Kathleen I had today, she mentioned looking at site specific recording, whether I can use the acoustics of a location for effect, how I could also think about how I would present the work in a gallery environment. She also linked me to some further research to look at to develop my idea.

Script Development and Moving on with the Pre-production.

After many different versions of the script, myself and Laura kept going round in circles about ideas for the script, particularly the dialogue. I spent a fair while on the structure, so for the most part that stayed the same.

Because we spent so long on the script, Laura decided to break the script down into a visual structure, using elements of the different versions of the scripts. This is so we can continue with the bulk of the preproduction and come back to the script later for improvements.

Because of this, I took the version that Laura produced and spent a couple of days going through and developing a rough shot list. I then relayed this over to Shahid so he could start on the storyboard for the film. As this is a longer film and there is only one of Shahid, he is only doing the complicated shots and the ones I specifically asked for.

Also, after our group tutorial with Kathleen which gave us a lot of references to use when continuing to develop the story, Kathleen suggested I write the film as a short story, which I am more familiar with, and then later pointed me in the direction of the Creative Writing lecturer for some advice on the development of the story. I'm sure this will be very helpful.

Script- First Draft and Keeping on track.

After putting together a structure of the film, I started writing the first draft of the script. It was very rough and took me a couple of days to get through but I did it! I then left it for a couple of days and re-read it. There were some elements I liked and some I didn't. I went back to my screen writing books and saw ways in which I could improve the script.

One piece of advice given in one of the books that I hadn't implemented so far was a board with all the scenes on. Using the beat sheet from Blake Snyder's book and from the short film book I have, instead of writing up scenes I put down the major plot points. I figured each plot point could come down to about a page each, leaving me with 15 plot points. This is how it looked on my bedroom wall:

each row represents an Act, with the middle 2 rows representing Act 2. It is read from left to right. This is what the cards looked like up close:

In this I've given: Location, brief description of what happens and what beat this represents in my film.

The +/- Is the emotional progression that goes on at this point. Blake Snyder points out that a film should be an emotional rollercoaster, so you need to make sure that your characters' emotions are constantly changing throughout.

> < This symbol represents conflict that happens in the scene or at this plot point. There has to be constant conflict of interests in the film between characters or things otherwise the audience will feel like nothing is really happening.

After my first draft, I put all these cards up and moved them around, took some cards away and wrote new ones. It was a good exercise as it allowed me to easily see the weakest and strongest points of the script and fix them to make them all of equal quality. After this I changed the script a lot, and while I still think it has a long way to go, I'm much happier with it now than I was. 

D-eb31e Structure

Having read through most of the screenwriting books I have a hold of, I now felt comfortable to start writing the structure of the film.

Both 'Save The Cat!' and 'Writing Short Films: Structure and Content for Screenwriters' have been very helpful in clearly laying out how your film should be structured to be successful. Although there are exceptions to these rules, in my research I noticed that the films that did follow these rules, I enjoyed the most.

In Save The Cat! the structure is laid out as such:

Opening Image- Sets the tone, mood, type and scope of the film. Gives a before shot of the character.
Theme Stated- Someone makes a statement to the main character, an offhand remark.
Set-Up- The Hero, The Stakes, The goal of the story (Opening Image and Theme Stated come under this)
Catalyst- Moments which knock the world down that you’ve just showed the audience
Break into Two- Hero decides to leave the set-up world and go into a new one.
B story- It gives us a break from the main story, but supports it.
Fun and Games- Provides the promise of the premise. A more light-hearted section of the script.
Midpoint- Something negative or positive happens here that changes the motion of the script.
Bad Guys Close In- The bad guy tightens their grip on the hero, who is about to suffer a fall.
All is Lost- False defeat, opposite to midpoint. Stick a whiff of death in there.
Dark Night of the Soul- A moment of defeat where the character and the audience know it. Short.
Break into Three- The idea to solve the problem emerges. A and B story combine.
Finale- Dispatching the bad guys, leading to a triumph for the hero.
Final Image- opposite to the opening image, showing how change has occurred.

In general I found this to be true of short films as well as feature length films. However, as feature films have the time to explore multiple concepts, things such as a B-story might not be included in a short film.

In  Writing Short Films: Structure and Content for Screenwriters I found the structure to be very similar in Save The Cat! However, it is more specified for short films:

Setup (1-3)- Protagonist and Main conflict (Something the character wants and something it needs, and something to conflict with these)- Main Exposition (What the audience needs to know in relation to the character and situation)- Inciting Incident (The catalyst that sets the hero in motion to pursue what he wants and needs)- The Problem and Sub-Problem (A main problem that has consequences for the character.)
The Rising Action (4-14)- The Antagonist (A character that personifies the hero's obstacles)- The Plan (The hero's plan to get what he wants that shows surprises and presents further obstacles)- Obstacles (Something that opposes the protagonist as he attempts to achieve his goal.)- Complications (Something unexpected that can cause a change in action.)- The Reversal (An unexpected event that turns the direction of the film 180 degrees)- Crisis (An attempt to capture the goal by the hero, but is temporarily thwarted)- The Main Crisis (The conflict intensifies and increases)
The Climax & Resolution (15-20)- Climax (The highest, most exciting point in the drama)- Resolution (Tying up loose ends and solving problems/falling action)

I found this equally useful as I could compare with the other structure type and find that they were very similar. They both explain why each point is necessary using relevant examples. When I then went on to create my structure, I decided to mainly use the one from Save The Cat! as I found it a little bit easier to understand, however I always used the other structure for reference to make sure I was putting it into a short film context. This is the structure that came out:

1. Jarvis comes into the cafe with a box of office belongings dressed like he’s just come from work and has had a rough day. He orders a black coffee. Sits down and starts looking at a picture from the box.
2. A man comes in and sits opposite him. The man, we discover, is his brother and the brother is showing concern over his well-being (job etc.) He sees Jarvis looking at the picture and warns Jarvis to not spend too long chasing something unattainable.
3. Jarvis goes to the toilet and pulls a pill from a small bag in his pocket which he takes. As he’s washing his hands a woman comes into the toilet and starts talking to him seductively.
4. He returns to the table and the woman is talking over his brother’s shoulder as he has two conversations at once. Jarvis begins to hallucinate even more and gets up and follows the woman as she walks away from him.
5. Meanwhile, the brother is trying to suss what Jarvis is up to as he starts wandering aimlessly around the cafe, talking to himself.
6. Inside the hallucination, Jarvis is trying to seduce the woman. However everything he does is also reflected in the outside world (e.g. kissing the woman looks like he’s kissing the air or inanimate objects).
7. Eventually the woman agrees to be with him
8. However, she will only give him what he wants if he chooses her over his brother.
9. He hallucinates an image of his brother, chained up and screaming. Outside of the hallucination, Jarvis is now screaming at the top of his lungs and his brother tries to calm him down. He lies him down on the floor as Jarvis starts convulsing, he searches his pockets and finds the drugs.
10. Jarvis looks into a mirror and he is suddenly gaunt, his eyes glazed over like a slave or a tortured soul.
11. The brother has now called an ambulance, and medical staff are around him trying to hook him up to liquids, attempting to stabilize him. Jarvis feels this in the hallucination, and has a moment of clarity.
12. Jarvis sees that Debbie is trying to harm the chained up brother, and jumps in between them. Debbie throws herself at them both, her hand touches his chest. Outside of the hallucination, Jarvis goes limp and the brother is crying, asking if the ambulance staff if he’s going to be ok.

As of right now I still don't have an ending for the film. I know various ways it could end, but I want to start writing it and decide on that later as myself and Laura are still in a debate about it.

Presentation- Monday 28th September

Here is the link for my presentation of my ideas . https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XTB2Dy-O4xwyopcspd5Xd2TEcYiNKwuvSEXAmgv402w/edit?usp=docslist_api

Personal Project Initial Idea

While I was working on my installation sound piece in the gallery in Year 2, which involved data of a biological kind, which I will link down below



While I was working on this I was getting a frustrating amount of spam emails, which may seem funny, but I was trying to work! And now I had to wade through loads of rubbish to get anywhere! This is where the idea came from. When I yet again received another email stating I'd won $1,000,000 I began to wonder how much I would have won over the years of having my email account if these emails were genuine? And I began to realise that this was an interesting topic to explore.

Having seen the work of Aram Bartholl last year, who's website you can access here. I thought there might be something worth exploring.

However, I am not sure what form this will take yet, but I am looking to get a result out of this idea.

Script Development and Research

In the first few weeks back in Farnham I have begun writing and researching the script for our film. To start with I read a few books on screenwriting to aid me with the structure and how to build a stronger film. Although most of the books I have are made for feature film writing, I also have read a book on short film writing to bring it all into the context I need it in.

The books I have read are:

Syd Field's Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting
Linda Cowgill's Writing Short Films: Structure and Content for Screenwriters
Blake Snyder's Save The Cat!
Mark Axelrod's Constructing Dialogue: Screenwriting from Citizen Kane to Midnight in Paris

I all found these very helpful in trying to build a structure for the film, and also for just general screenwriting tips and advice.

The next step was to screen films which relate to the subject matter we are trying to address and review their structure, and why the do or don't work. I analysed their structures to see where the main plot points were and then made a note of one line or two to about what I thought of them. I won't give all the details, but here is generally what I said:

Feature Films

Altered States (1980)- Not enough of a likeable main character, I'm not rooting for him as I feel sorry for his wife.
Trainspotting (1996)-Very funny, likeable main character even though he's a bit 'damaged goods'. Clear story, clear plot points.
127 Hours (2010)- Interesting exploration of hallucination, killer sound design,

Short Films

The Going Away Party (2015)- A bit all over the place, no real character development.

                  
                  The Going Away Party from Connor Hurley on Vimeo.

Good Grief (2015)- Funny, clear story. Some character development but I don't root for the main character.


                  
                  Good Grief from Jim Owen on Vimeo.

Fallin' Floyd (2013)- Funny, uplifting, good character development. However the demon is too cute, I feel sad when it leaves.


                 
                  Fallin' Floyd from il Luster on Vimeo.

I have yet to look at a few more films, but I now feel comfortable doing the structure of the film.

Summer Work and Adventures

Over the summer, having discussed our third year film ideas with Laura, Tom, Shahid, and Laura, I went away and started working on the character biographies. Laura also started on a version of the script to start off from.

I have been using Adobe Story for the character biographies as it provides easy script formatting and can be accessed anywhere as it is completely on cloud.

Also, over the summer I went to a masterclass with Glenn Freemantle, who did the sound design on the likes of 127 Hours (2010) and Gravity (2013). I found it personally fascinating and he gave great advice and industry secrets on how to approach sound design which I think will really help me this year.

Sound Masterclass with Sound Designer Glenn Freemantle. Really insightful evening! #sounddesign #masterclass

A photo posted by Lucy Jones (@haveyouseenlucy) on May 28, 2015 at 1:29pm PDT

Towards the end of the summer I also went to an exhibition called 'Soundscapes' at The National Gallery, thanks to Kat, who notified me of it. It was basically an exhibition which showed different sound artists' responses to different chosen paintings. I found it really interesting, even though the Guardian and Telegraph gave it bad reviews!

Find out more info: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/soundscapes/

Finally, right before we came back, myself and Laura sat down and discussed our ideas for the film, and I feel developed them further. I am now working on the script whilst she works on the budgeting and initial pre-production organisation.

Evaluation

I had a lot of fun on this project, and I'm really happy with how the film turned out. Myself, Shahid and Tom were well organised and got our pre-production sorted very early on, which really made the rest of the production and post so much easier. Our shoot went very smoothly, and we were very lucky to have found the dancer we did as she was perfect for what we wanted. 

As a Director, I felt I engaged with the dancer quite well. I tried to experiment with her and we had a good relationship, I found it easy to explain concepts to her in a way she understood what I meant and my general communication around the group and between the dancers during the audition stage was good and I'm glad I could do that. If I could go back I felt I could have provided a bit more detail, and been a bit more behind the camera on the shoot. On the shoot I directed the dancer, and then proceeded to watch her, and most of the time I didn't look at the shot after. There were a couple of shots I should have done, because I feel that if we had re-shot them then they would have been better overall.

As a Producer, I felt I was well organised. I communicated well and I kept on top of things. I liased with the dancers efficiently and provided quick replies with detail. I felt I was positive throughout the whole process, even during problems and tried my best to make the pre-production as strong as possible to make the rest of the project run even more smoothly.

In post, I felt that we should have finalised the edit earlier than we did. I made the rough cut just to get us ahead, and we never really finalised it. I wasn't entirely happy with it as I knew from the footage we got and from a tutorial with Rosie that the film could be better. I went and re-cut it and a lot of work on VFX shots and sound was wasted as a result. However, we still got it done to a high standard and I don't regret the decision to re-cut the film as I felt it ended up being far stronger overall. 

I really enjoyed doing the sound design as I have previously mentioned, and I really liked seeing it all come together. I think I could have managed my time more effectively, but overall I am really happy with the way it turned out.

In fact, overall I am really happy with the result of the film. It's experimental and abstract, but I think all of us collectively pushed ourselves to create something we were all really happy with. I definitely wouldn't mind working with these guys again, because it was relaxed and fun throughout the whole process. Even when we were stressing about room changed and post-production.

Sound Design

My main role in post-production was to be sound design. I really wanted to do the sound for this project, and on the day I know I recorded some good sounds to use for the sound design and I was looking forward to creating it.

Firstly, my intention was to use the heartbeat recording we took from Amelia to create a beat to carry through the entire film. I wanted to set the pace of the film with it. So I played around with a few beats and I finally settled on one I liked:




Once I was happy with that, I needed to add breathing and movement noises and sync that with the rough cut we had. I wanted to make the noises sound as if they were really close so that they would be obvious and to give the impression of closeness to the dancer. I planned to add a reverb to this later as well to make it sound as if the space was very large. I created a separate track for each side of the 'mirror'. I then added breathing and movement noises to these:





I was really happy with how this turned out, I had to play around with levels, but overall I thought that combined with the beat it sounded pretty good. To add emphasis to the movement noises I added some wooshing sounds to some of quick head flicks and some added sounds to hand movements. 

At this point I added reverb before I went any further. I wanted to make it sound like it was in as big of a room as possible and so I chose to use a large church as a base and then played around with the levels until it was just right.

I then wanted to start creating more of a loose melody with the piece so I started trying to create a couple of tracks to go on top of the main beat to gradually add in and take away throughout. I then had to focus on other parts of the film, finalising an edit over the weekend so my friend Rory Wheble kindly created a few tracks for me to try and play around with:



He really helped me out with making sounds like this one, and they made a great addition to the soundtrack. After I had finished this I had to rearrange the sounds as we now had a final cut to sync them to, and I still had some sounds to fill in because I left the VFX shots blank as I wasn't sure how they were going to look. After this was done I exported it and Tom did a final mix of the sound, and then we exported it. I really enjoyed making this soundtrack even though it took a long time and was quite tiring:

Offline Editing

Over the easter I decided to do a rough cut of the film to get us ahead in our post-production once we came back as we had a quick turn around before our deadline and we also had other deadlines looming as well. 

Firstly I went through and renamed all the footage so that I could find my way easier and then quickly went through it to see what we had, I would loved to have sat there and watched it all but we shot 2 hours worth of footage on the shoot day. I tried to follow the storyboard as closely as I could at first because I wanted to have some sort of structure to start it. However I found that the film didn't really make sense when put in that order, and seeing as a lot of footage was improvised I found match framing it to be quite difficult in order to not disrupt the continuity.

Another thing I had to consider was the effects shots. As some of them would include multiple shots at once, I had to just roughly put them where they needed to go in order for Tom to know where I wanted them later on.

I also had to consider length. I didn't want it to be too long as I felt it wasn't necessary, however I also felt it couldn't just be a couple of minutes because the film is so abstract I wanted to give the audience some time to absorb the film.

Overall for a quick cut it was roughly how I wanted it to be, and I felt I gave it a good go at being thorough ready for our post-production stage.

Shooting Day

The day had finally arrived for our shoot and we were all very excited and ready to go. We got there at around 8 with a view of starting at 10.30. Tom had organised us a shoot order and I gave Amelia a call sheet for her own reference a couple of days before the shoot. Once the lights were all set up, we were ready to go and pretty much on schedule.

I had Kat take the timings whilst Shahid read the words out for our wide shots, which we decided to do first. The day ran very smoothly in general. We let Amelia choose her own music as we felt it would be easier for her to dance to something which she knows would feel right for the quality of movement we wanted. This meant that we were going to have to record sounds later on for the soundtrack. 

At a couple of points throughout the day we had to stand for a few minutes and figure out how the lighting was going to work as we wanted front mid shots and close-ups of the dancer, but we had to move the lights around to do it. This could have been better planned, but we sorted it out very quickly and we just switched some shots around on the shot list in order to make it work more efficiently for us. This was especially problematic for the intended VFX shot of Amelia going through the mirror as we had to keep reshooting it for continuity purposes, which we could have planned better. However we stayed on schedule all day and finished when we expected to. We all had a fun day, and Amelia told me that it was a really nice way of working for her.

Throughout the day we also had Laura, who did make-up for us and Kat and Lauren as our runners. It was much easier having them around and made things run very smoothly. We also had them recording the day with photos and videos as well for our own memories and to give to Amelia after the project was finished.