Reflection Audio Visual response
For this project I chose to use Jiawei Lu’s audio soundscape primarily because it had three distinct sounds layered at different intensities along the track. In the brief it stressed the importance of responding with vision that connects with the soundscape. So before choosing this track I pre-visualized every soundscape by closing my eyes and imagining visuals to the audio. What made this one stand out for me was the buzzing popping sounds at the end of the track which in my mind sounded like it was recorded in an empty theater where the film projector was stuck on a loop strobing away.
So when thinking about what could go with this sound I remembered a few weeks ago I had filmed some footage at a night club which I knew would work amazingly. I thought that despite the differences in sound, it would be interesting to bring the visual immersion of a club into an auditory ambient soundscape.
As immersion was the primary aim I made sure that there were no quick cuts in the edit. By using a film dissolve on almost all of the shots in the video, the transitions between clips became gradual it was harder to notice. Clunky cuts wouldn’t have suited the soundscape as it would have taken the audience out of the experience.
Applying a variety of blending modes (Overlay, Colour Dodge, Darken) onto the shots, then layering them, led to more abstracted and immersive imagery for the viewer because it was not instantly recognisable to the eye.
In the soundscape the sound of trickling water throughout the video meant that it would be important to include some kind of water visuals. I found a copyright free video of water splashing shots on the internet archive. (https://archive.org/details/PeacedelicHiroyukiNakanoSplashwater)
What made this video stand out was the high shutter speed at which the water was captured. When this imagery was layered over the club footage, with strobe lights and saturated colours it created a texture which I felt imitated the sporadic and gradual shifts in the soundscape.
One negative of using this footage was that the image size was only 442 x 240 pixels, meaning all footage underneath it looked low resolution (even though it was 1080p). It also gave video a lo-fi quality in some of its sections (like at the 16 second mark), imitating dirty film grain which worked well with the audio.
I was interested in trying to make something trippy, which is I guess is a bi-product of immersion. The type of swirling imagery in the video is often employed in hypnotic sequences within films because of how it can entrance the viewer and is a symbol of such states. It was amazing filming this at the club because of how it reacted under the strobe lights. I’ve scattered the swirling shots through out the video but mainly emphasis it at the end. I layered the swirling and shifted each new layer off sync from one another, it created a vortex shape which I feel suited the looped quality of the audio as it ticked in the background.