Picking a scene for this project proves a slightly difficult task. For me the reasons are…
- Picking a scene that you can stylistically work with.
- Pick a film in which you can break down and understand its full context.
The first point is important, having a film that you can stylistically work with is crucial. It’s good to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and work on something you normally wouldn’t do, but it’s good to work with something you can stylistically work with. I love working with horror, experimental cinema, and thriller/disturbing films. So for this project, I am searching for a scene that is unnerving but has room for experimentation sonically.
The second point which is having to break down and understand the film’s full context is an important point people tend to forget. When working in film (or just media in general) it’s one big collaborative effort, so if you don’t understand what the work is trying to do or say, then how will you get the sound right? Lots of directors keep the meaning of their films a mystery, David Lynch is a good example of this, as he refuses to give away the main meaning of his films. But this doesn’t mean you can’t understand what the film is trying to say, and you can still gather what the general meaning is and your own interpretation too.
Also if a film takes place in a certain time period e.g. the 1960s. Do some research on that time period, and how that time period is used in the film. Also looking at how people used sound in films from that generation could be a way to possibly incorporate those techniques into your own work. For example, if they used a reel-to-reel tape machine to record the sound design or music. See if you can get your hands on one, or use a plug-in to emulate that sound. Experimentation is key! So I think understanding a film is important before you start working on whatever it is you are doing!
After some thinking and research, I decided to work with David Lynch’s ‘The Alphabet’ (1969). I really enjoy Lynch’s style of film and found this short film to be really inspiring and found it had a lot of ways that I could experiment with sound and create an interesting piece to go alongside the film. My next blog will be about my thoughts for what the short should sound like sonically.