Monthly Archives: April 2015

28 April 2005 – Lectorial – week 8

Dan spoke about causality (cause and effect), narrative and non-narrative in a story.

The Princess Bride, Gone Girl and an old satirical Warner Brothers adaptation of Charles Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood were used to communicate these points.

Our group exercise was to determine the narrative and non-narrative elements in a short film by Daniel Askill entitled We Have Decided Not to Die. For me this film was teeming with narrative though not formulated in a conventional way. There were three narratives running concurrently which were all concluded to an end, represented with day-to-day artifacts residing in a surreal mise-en-scene. The three characters in this piece were seemingly escaping from an impending demise; possibly, drugs, addiction or suicide. The figures were eventually freed from the chaotic and confining forces.

I believe that, if a project is void of narrative, it is no longer ‘art’ but ‘arts and crafts’. Daniel Askill’s piece was most definitely far from the latter, rather a poignant and thought provoking work of art.

We Have Decided Not to Die by Daniel Askill (2006)

Jasmine had us consider soundscapes and how our mind prioritises different sounds in order of their importance and relevance to us. We categorised the modes of listening into figure, ground and field. The figure sound is perceived as the primary sound source and it is brought to the forefront of our attention because it is either the loudest noise or most poignant. The ground sound would be the sounds that are resonant, though, are not as important. Then there is the field sound which is audible, but only through actively seeking to observe it.

This was contextualised by the presentation of the photo of Phan Thị Kim Phúc and the child survivors of a horrendous napalm attack during the Vietnam War. It was photographed by Nick Ut and entitled The Terror of War.

We were asked to categorise the sounds in this shot, and for me they were;

Figure – The sounds of the children screaming in terror, one can almost hear their crying.

Ground – Would be the sound of the flames, the pops of gunfire and perhaps the yelling of the soldiers.

Field – I imagined as the loading of the rifles, the tiny feet on the road and sound of the wind pushing the smoke to the right of frame.

The Terror of War by Nick Ut

A sound designer may choose to manipulate sounds in order to emulate this human prioritisation. With the use of reverb, a listener may get the sense that the sound has been captured in a large room, likewise, the sound of a whisper brought to the foreground (figure), may thrust the sense of intimacy upon the listener by the use of amplification.

On a theatre production that I produced the sound for in 2013, I had to start a piece with the sound of a child whispering which began as the figure sound initially until, the hum of a war plane grew louder and louder until it dominated the soundscape. This was achieved by the use of various automation techniques on the software program Protools. The plane sounds were sourced from archival files on Freesounds.org.

Working with sounds on Protools.

Either faked or lost in translation, the truth conveyed by the media will always be in question. Media outlets with an underlying agenda may bias a topic in a way that serves to their specific ethos, likewise, different languages can have an expansive vocabulary of words to describe the same thing. Structuralism standardises or aggregates the language of how to critique.

Being employed in a workplace which harbours a myriad of muti-disaplined and multi-cultured workers, we are constantly inventing new ways to communicate ideas as thoroughly and succinctly as possible.

2. G.Branston & R.Stafford, ‘Approaching Media Texts’ (Ch.1) in The Media Student’s Book. London: Routledge, 2010.

After the screening of our P3 Briefs, we were asked to critique our peer’s work.

I remarked on Alex’s  warm and honest film Bits and Piece (A Portrait of Zoe) and suggested that the topic of autism, a fleeting comment made in the film about Zoe’s brother, be explored further. Having a cousin with the disease, I know too well that it is something that is often misrepresented and in order to quell the stigma toward those with autism, more stories need to be told about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt26oqeSW7M

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/alexander-angliss-wilson/

The criticism that I received about my piece was that my subject mightn’t appreciate an edit that displays an imperfection in his dancing. As I non dancer, I was initially oblivious to this but have now taken this on board and will certainly consider this when working with dancers in future.

Moving on from the P3 discussions, we were assigned our groups for the P4 Brief. I’m excited to work with 2 legends, Sally and Tim, both of which had made memorable portraits in the past and both are obviously creative. Furthermore, as a group, we’re all mad about audio.

I’m very much looking forward to fleshing out the idea that we came up in class!

Filmmakers working at an intermediate level often overlook audio, preferring to focus more on the visual aspect of the mise-en-scene.

In class we explored sound, chiefly, the use of sound recording devices and their application. We played around with the H2 Zoom Recorder which is a good unit to start with as it is compact, simple and delivers good sound quality at a high resolution; it can produce wav. files which are considered to be the industry standard in digital audio collection.

As I normally work with similar devices, the technical side of this wasn’t new to me; however, it is always good to be made aware of new sonic surroundings. I’ve established that the exterior of the RMIT campus is not a good place to record as it abuts several busy roads and the accumulative sound of trams, cars, trucks and students make for one gigantic hum. Compounding this issue, is the hard glass and concrete surfaces that bounce the sound around making it hard to get a clean recording.

Whenever I’m able to, I record audio in my home office, I have more control over how the sound waves behave as I’ve applied numerous sound baffles and bass traps. To economise, I sometimes use my surfboard cover to diffuse the sound.

On March 30th, we were shown 3 films, The Lonedale Operator by D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett (1911), Suspense by Lois Webber & Phillips Smalley (1913) and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans by F.W. Murnau (1927)

The Lonedale Operator is very much the classic ‘damsel in distress’ film. A young woman who is the administration operator at a train station is sent to an outpost and is threatened by 2 bandits who wish to burgle the building.

To stall the bandits, the young woman draws what looks like a gun to hold them back though, it is revealed at the end of the film, that the object isn’t a gun at all but rather a shiny metal wrench.

The reveal of the wrench is an extreme close up shot, this is to ensure that the audience is properly  informed.

It is interspersed with the occasional coloured frames, some red and some blue. I can only surmise that these are used to elevate tension as most of them appear when the action is leading up to a point of conflict, threat or urgency.

Some directing choices seem almost comical, for example, the woman faints on the desk at thought of the bandits being near. I can only imagine that this might be an antiquated means to show her helplessness and vulnerability. Her fainting contributes very little to the narrative. There is also a scene where the eye-line of the woman is drastically off kilter, this is when she notices that the bandits are outside (below).

The Lonedale Operator by D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett (1911)

It finishes with a show of kudos from the bandits as they take off their hats in solute to the woman’s  cunning pretence. It is also made known that the love interest ‘gets the girl’ but in an awkward and flaccid embrace.

It is admirable that D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett undertook such a project, however, there were several holes in the narrative and direction that could have been ironed out in preproduction and rehearsal. With such new and untested technology as film making was in 1911, the importance of the fundamentals of scriptwriting, direction and performance were set at a lower priority.

Suspense by Lois Webber & Phillips Smalley (1913) was the next film to be shown. It incorporated split screen shots where up to three characters would be placed in the same frame to represent that they were all communicating at the same moment but in different geographic areas. Webber’s technique was seldom used until it was revived in the 60’s (Bordwell Pg.462, 2012).

Suspense by Lois Webber & Phillips Smalley (1913)

Webber brought social matters like feminism, maternity and sexual exploitation to the screen. They addressed common decency when a man standing in the middle of the road is hit by the speeding car driven by the husband of the mother in distress. The fact that the husband leaps out of the car to help the victim is a sign of chivalry and a general statement that people should lookout for their fellow citizens. This scene also functions as a means to heighten the suspense by bringing danger closer; for example, as this event slows the husband down, the police in pursuit are gaining ground to arrest the husband for stealing a car to rescue his wife and child, unbeknownst to them. It also gives the knife wielding bandit more time to advance on the mother back at the house.

Justice is served when the police capture the bandit and pardon the husband for resisting arrest; this is communicated through overacting such as large physical gestures and a major-scale condo in the musical score to arrive at the closing credits.

The feature for the day was Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans by German film director F.W. Murnau (1927).

It is the story of a Man’s lustful machinations with a mistress who lures him away from his wife and child in the look to starting a new life in the city. He agrees to murder his wife and tell the authorities that she drown by accident. When moving to carry out the act, he is overcome with guilt and retracts from his wanton intentions. To be granted forgiveness, he treats his wife to an excursion to the city, however, on the boat trip back, they are faced with a violent storm that almost kills her dealing poetic justice to the Man for his neglect.

Sunrise is a highly stylised film drawing on German expressionism creating tension with the use of distorted frames and text. Double exposures are frequently used, one instance of this was when the Man dreams of lusting over his mistress, and like an apparition, she appears from behind and caresses him like a devious spirit.

Sunrise was made on the cusp of the ‘talkies’ and despite the film being free of audible dialogue, it incorporated sound effects that were relevant to the action on the screen, one example being the sounds of the city scenes.

On discussing this film with fellow students, many had exclaimed that, hypothetically speaking, should the film had had the addition of talking, it may have only benefited somewhat.

Janet Gaynor’s performance gained her the first ever Academy Award. Sunrise had definitely raised the bar for film standards internationally.

Janet Gaynor in Sunrise (1927)

Janet Gaynor in Sunrise (1927)