Sounds Familiar

For research I first began looking through the library for books on how to create the sounds I wanted (or thought I needed for my first idea) however I very quickly got distracted by 2 books, Sound on Film : Interviews with creators of Film Sound and Soundscape: The School of Sound Lectures. I really like books that seem very relaxed when reading, I like people giving their own opinions and making the reasoning personal, unlike the majority of academic text.

I read interviews with Tom Paulin, a poet obsessed with the way his poetry sounds and Robert Frosts 'Sentence Sound' ('A sound in itself on which other sounds, called words, may be strung') something that caught my attention because poetry and lyrics are so similar. Owe Suenesson and David Burnand
both of which focus on Tarkovsky (Film maker and Opera Director? Never knew that one). Owe mentions that in the 80s he had the opportunity to work with Tarkovsky on The Sacrifice, Tarkovsky then promptly requested 253 sound effects for his film. He goes on to talk about how he halved the amount of sounds and made no two alike because when watching Tarkovskys' previous film Nostalgia he noticed how overused certain sounds were. David Burnand compares The Sacrifice to a Bach aria 'The sonic architecture of ritual. Symmetry as a means of expressing the endless cycles of nature through a sequential narrative lasting 149 minutes, but effectively timeless'. Randy Thom slates a few directors for not knowing enough about sound (David Lynch, Coppola, Scorsese - found it a bit harsh myself) yet stresses the importance of whilst the sound wasn't the forefront of their movies they all made movies with wonderful sound tracks. Because the 'sound and the image were on thing', he also mentions that if he hears an audience come out of a cinema saying 'I didn't like the film very much, but nice score' the film hasn't been a success.

I started trying to remember the films that I've walked out of liked the sound design more than the actual film and the one that sticks out for me is The Theory of Everything. The soundtrack for that film is amazing, the orchestrations phenomenal and I just love that soundtrack - probably because I'm a fan of orchestra music especially when it's modified with electrical instruments. (As long as they're real, no synth please!). Although now I think about it, I remember the music more than I remember the film. Maybe that's not a good thing?

Anyway, during the break for one of our theory lectures, a few of us started talking about our sound project and Liz being the walking encyclopedia that she is mentioned a few sound artists that she likes, Chris Watson and David Strong. However I could only find work belonging to Chris Watson a nature sound recordist best known for his work with the BBC Radio in works such as 'The Ice Mountain', 'The Reed Bed' and 'Jules Verne's Volcano'. He also won a BAFTA for his work as a field recordist in David Attenboroughs 'Frozen Planet'.

Chris Watson on location for 'Frozen Planet' - just casually recording some penguins.

I think what most of the people I've just written about have in common is that I've never really thought about it from that perspective before. I mean I remember watching Frozen Planet and never once did I imagine a guy sat on some ice with a shotgun mic aimed at some penguins, it just never occurred to me that that's how it had to be done. The same with foley artists I didn't even know they existed (which is actually kind of embarrassing now that I think about it) I came home and watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Mirella was pointing out the very obvious foley recordings that for years I've never even noticed.

What I'm trying to get at is what I like about this project is it makes me uncover these things that for a very long time I've not paid attention too. During A Levels I would have said that Cubase/Protools is only for musicians, never would have crossed my mind that films need soundscapes too, so whilst working without instruments is weird for me it's also simultaneously really interesting.