Here’s the link to the soundscape I have made for this project. I really wish my skills allowed me to make it more interesting as I feel there’s definitely room for improvement. I will probably use this in my final clip for the shaky handheld footage if I decide to use that. I’ll see how I go when making my final decision. I hope to get better using sound software in my time at uni, hopefully there will be more time for me to look into it in classes to come.

My soundscape’s aim is to manipulate the rhythmic sound of skateboarding, disconnecting the sounds from the movement to show a depth within my plan to deconstruct the classical presentation of a skater. As well as through location, the scape backs up the less-typical structure of how the hobby is captured.

My topic of inquiry has been an interesting journey. Finding ways to cover and explore the movement of wheeled objects in a less typical fashion to the usual approaches. As mentioned in other posts, I worked with three other people while experimenting with filming for this inquiry. The three people I chose to work with are good friends of mine, so it was easy to get hold of them. They are all good skaters, so it wasn’t an issue at all needing to get them to move in a particular way while skating. I only ended up working with these three as I ended up having an amount of footage which Robin seemed to feel was plenty to work with and I agreed as it probably was not a good idea to ‘bite off more than I could chew’, like I tend to do. With the bus trialling footage – I worked alone on this.

My responsibilities in arranging all of the filming proved a little difficult as finding a time where we were all free during the day, was hard. There was one day that I spent with just Louis C, to film a little and spark some ideas. Then there was one day where I could see Louis C, Louis T and Zak altogether. It wasn’t a very long period of time either, so we had to make do. The fact that Louis T and I both work together meant that we were either at work together, one of us was working or one of us was at uni in the daylight hours. We spend plenty of time altogether socially – but it’s during the night and that time wouldn’t encompass the vibe I was after. I also don’t have the lighting equipment or means to transport it if I were to film something in a “new light” (no pun intended) to the nature of a typical skate video. I suppose I could have found a location with street lights, but I didn’t really know of anywhere accessible for all of us when my car has stopped running. As well as not really looking to film at night time, my discussion with Robin about the beauty of the environment I had shot the skate footage in – was what I wanted to stick with. The almost wholesomeness of it was not classic to a skating environment.

The guys I worked with were great, but there were often times where they would want to do particular tricks in front of the camera and I kept having to assure them that it’s not really what I was after, it was more the movement – so I told them to film from their POV almost, holding the camera and trialling to do tricks. They liked this idea, but admitted it was pretty hard to coordinate keeping the camera on the board and being able to see their footing on to the board simultaneously.

The hefty part of the laborious factor lay with the guys as they were the ones performing the action, I was merely just directing them around and telling them to travel down the streets again for me et cetera. I chose the shots and divvied out to them, the small motions which I wanted to capture on film. I really wish I was a little better at skating so I could have been more involved in that sense, but the really shaky handheld footage is an interesting juxtaposition to the smoothness which a skateboard encompasses when travelling along flat ground. Shows that detachment not only of myself to the hobby, but that it would not be a way which you’d try to capture a “proper” skating clip.

Well, today I decided it would be a good idea to have a go at filming that bus idea again… It did not go to plan. I ended up being able to leave the house at about 5pm, so it was getting pretty dark – however, no harm in trying it out. The footage didn’t look too dark – I have yet to look at it on a bigger screen, but I think it will be useable for something. I was filming from the window, in segments (as the GoPro decides to stop filming after a certain amount of time), for the duration of the trip. I was just taking the bus purely so I could film it, then it turned out that this bus wasn’t doing a loop and I ended up getting dropped in Fairfield which was really far away from my house and nowhere near another bus stop which would have the right bus coming past. I was relatively lost and confused you could say. It took up so much more time than I had envisioned, cutting into valuable homework hours I had arranged. Frustrating indeed.

I ended up getting home fine and am going to look through the footage tomorrow – and hopefully put together some more of the skating clips. I’ve had a sift through today, but I’m not quite sure how to put them together yet. My laptop also lags quite a lot on Premiere Pro so I may need to go into the edit suites at uni to complete my pieces.

In this clip, I’ve kept the sounds which come from this low-angle long/mid shot. Yet, I’ve edited it so that both the motion of the ‘ollie’ and its sound are repeated. Giving a rhythmic score to the shot, as well as pushing away from the typical way that a trick may be shown – in slow-mo perhaps? However, this edit is used to create a sound rhythm and is not teamed with your classic musical number (by a band) which would normally be put with a “skate video.”

In this second clip, I have had a similar approach. But the movement is also reversed and played forward several times before releasing to continue on down the hill. This morphs the motion’s sound as it’s played backward and because it’s a short movement – the sound is more frantic.

Capturing the movement in this shot was handheld and the GoPro was used to shoot with. I was happy with the smoothness of the shot, as well as the way the pace is captured appropriately. I really love the timing of Louis T’s foot pushing the board when his feet are central of the frame – the focus is on the feet and how they are controlling the movement of the wheels down the hill.

Upon a little bit of reading on soundscapes during my ‘experimental filming of movement in skating’ inquiry, I was re-introduced to the fact that sound/soundscapes should help to creatively reinforce a theme. I’ve spent quite some time trying to play around with sounds from the clips on GarageBand, but I don’t really have immense skill using the program. I tried incorporating the laughter and little words they say in the clip to represent the bonding experience which skating holds – I was steering my interest towards at one stage, but then I realised that it did not sound as good as I expected. I separated the voice from the sounds of the boards along the ground, as well as the sound of the tricks which played out. Which looked like this upon first cutting and trialling some effects;

https://www.flickr.com/photos/131101570@N05/26714966164/in/dateposted-public/

After realising I wasn’t interested in the voices in the soundscape, I cut them out and focused more on the sounds of the skateboards – as they represent the movements entirely. I had aimed to make the soundscape very disjointed and arrhythmical to what was on screen to put further forward, the idea that these works are capturing a different aspect of skating to the “regular” where the sounds of the skateboards are synched or there’s some heavy music genre playing in its soundtrack.

This is what it’s looking like at the moment, cut down a bit from the previous screenshot. Hoping I come out with something I’d like to use in the final 2 min (ish) video for assessment five. At the moment, it’s still a little all over the place as I’m just working my way around how to use GarageBand effectively.

“ABSTRACT: The article examines the use of sound in Maghrebi-French film-making since the early 1980s, arguing for a greater need to explore the role of the soundtrack and music in this area of contemporary French/Francophone cinema, as well as in diasporic and postcolonial cinema more generally. The article analyses a range of films by Maghrebi-French directors, characterized by what might be termed ‘displaced audio’. Particular attention will be paid to the concepts of accented voice and heteroglossia, the layering and displacement of sound, and the subversion of more Eurocentric associations of music in film as an ethnic marker.” (pp. 225)

I read an interesting piece titled ‘Displaced audio: Exploring soundscapes in Maghrebi-French film-making,’ recently which talked a lot about sound – applicable to both Maghrebi-French filmmaking, but also generally. Disjointed sounds often used as well as soundscapes. The piece states that “the image has been consistently privileged over sound in film studies, due to the latter’s apparent status as ‘non-representational’” (Higbee, 2009, pp. 225) which was criticised in this piece. The importance of sound had been explored and explained. It is a means of expression and creating feelings for the work – whether comfortable or not. We read that “certain Maghrebi-French directors employ sound and music in complex, subtle and very specific ways that clearly show how sound design is integral to the broader meanings and themes that are constructed and addressed in their films.” (Higbee, 2009, pp. 226) These films use sound to aid the story, that is what I plan to do with my work. I want to create altered feelings within the pieces – trial different sound techniques to express the atmosphere of what’s captured in the frame.

One Maghrebi-French film which was discussed posed the notion that “if the soundtrack allowed us to hear what the characters were discussing, the sense of distanciation and dislocation between spectator, protagonist and the environment … would be far less extreme.” (Higbee, 2009, pp. 228) Within my work for this project, I do not have a set story shown in the pieces and I do not incorporate particular characters. They are segments to potential stories, told in a more poetic manner than most. They are not conventional. The sections where we hear the boys conversing with each other as they walk up the street (singing “you better shut your trap,” putting arms around each other’s shoulders and laughing), or when they laugh, are rather distant in the pieces. However, these sounds will be an interesting element to manipulate in order to create versions which are associative (the words are heard, even in the distance) and dissociative, where the words are no longer coherent, creating a warped and subjective piece for viewers.

“If the dominant cinema is driven by the hegemony of synchronous sound and a strict alignment of speaker and voice, accented films are counter hegemonic insofar as many of them de-emphasise synchronous sound, insist on first person or voice-over narrations, delivered in the accented pronunciation of the country’s host language, create a slippage between voice and speaker.” (Naficy, 2001, pp. 24)

The quote above was found in the ‘Displaced audio: Exploring soundscapes in Maghrebi-French film-making’ reading and it stood out to me as, although it (as well as the entire piece) speaks of foreign filmmaking, the idea that “dominant cinema is driven by the hegemony of synchronous sound” (Naficy, 2001, pp. 24) which is exactly what I’m steering clear of in my work. I’m aiming for poetic, not typical. The skateboarding footage has not been captured to create a classic skating video – it’s been captured to morph it into something with a different feel.

Cited works:
Higbee, W. (2009). Displaced audio: Exploring soundscapes in Maghrebi-French film-making. Studies in French Cinema, 9(3), pp.225-241.

Naficy, H. (2001), An Accented Cinema, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

NOTE TO SELF
READINGS TO POSSIBLY LOOK AT:

Altman, R. (1992), ‘The Material Heterogeneity of Recorded Sound’, in R. Altman (ed.), Sound Theory/Sound Practice, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 15–34.

Bakhtin, M. M. (1981), The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, (ed. M. Holquist; trans. M. Holquist and C. Emerson), Austin: University of Texas Press.

Chion, M. (1992), ‘Wasted words’, in R. Altman (ed.), Sound Theory/Sound Practice, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 104–12.

Chion, M. (1994), Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen (trans. C. Gorbman), New York: Columbia University Press.

This is part of the raw footage I shot on Thursday. The only editing done was trimming the clips to show this particular shot and its effect. I uploaded this so I can discuss my thoughts on it, and jot-down ideas which I have from it. I think I may try cutting it so that the clip is jarred, where it cuts between, back and forth in different times in the shot (so the people and movement within the frame is staggered and does not read in a chronological, smooth order). This will add to the idea of the less typical presentation of skateboarding – a more experimental and poetic way of presenting.

I really love the way that when the boys walk up the top of the street, they become out of focus and they disappear as it cuts to the next shot where the sky’s clouds have also moved. This is what inspired me to try out cutting between in an out of order fashion.

The moment where Zak walks up to Louis T, singing a silly phrase which they laugh about and puts his arm around his shoulders, I find really lovely. This seems to be a caught-off-guard moment showing companionship rather than your usual skating video where skaters are seen solely performing tricks and perpetually hurting themselves / being “tough” or “showing off” to one another. This is more of a soft side to the skating culture, showing how it’s a team activity in a different light, where this hobby actually bonds them – rather than competition based.

It’s relatively silent and then when they travel down the hill, it’s only the skateboards which you can hear. I like the idea of just using the sounds which the camera has already recorded for this – if I were to skip between segments of the shots which I cut up. There may be too much going on if I add a soundscape… I’d like to have the focus on the disjointed sounds you hear in each segment and how they change when the skateboards are further away or nearer to the camera.

(Also can’t figure out how to get the black framing out, except right now that’s not really a vital issue to resolve – more focused on getting the work completed so I have a visual presentation of what I am talking about.)

(Starts after 1:00 in)

This is a short piece of edited footage from day 2 of filming. It’s quite disjointed, but I actually like that effect as it strays from a typical “skating video.” I decided to distort the sounds from the clip by exporting them from the clip and playing around with them in GarageBand. They’re quite jolty as well, to team with the peculiar nature of the shot changes.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/131101570@N05/27039076191/in/dateposted-public/

Clearly the environment which I shot my footage in, is also not very typical of “skate culture” which further removes it from the classic way which skateboarding is often captured. The incorporation of falling into the leaves adds a texture and playfulness to the clip. I really loved the sound of the leaves crunching around him and want to play with that a bit more in GarageBand. The steady sound of the skateboard coasting down the street I find kind of soothing, compared to the other sounds a skateboard makes when being used – I may have a go at teaming the solid sound with imagery which doesn’t match up, this reinforces the idea that it’s not keeping to its original form, how skating is usually viewed and listened to in recordings. I think I’d also like to utilise the little bits of laughter and cut sections of them speaking to one another up, and rearrange them (sound decoupage!) I love these moments because they’re so natural, but then toying with them will reimagine this friendly, “crew” aspect – changing into something less ordinary.

Collaborating with these three was really good because we are all good friends and they had some good ideas of their own to contribute which was a plus. Two of them live together, and one is always at their house anyway – so that’s ideal for teeing up with them. However, they’re often busy with work, uni (like myself) or musical endeavours during the day time so we don’t have regular time together in this setting. I feel like it has worked out quite well though – this footage at least. I’m going to aim to make a few more short pieces with this footage and see if I can work my magic to capture some more.

Use of slow-mo is quite prominent in ‘skateboard film culture’, however I was thinking of putting a disconnected soundscape along with it to deconstruct the “typical nature” of skate videos.

Definitely looking to put a soundscape with this one/parts of it I may use. Feel like it would help to represent the corruption in the skate movements I’ve paired with my work. Super shaky footage and pretty naive-seeming – I just filmed it to see how it looked. Definitely could have framed it better, but was moving around so much. Cuts in and out between two different sections of footage – heightening the disconnected nature. My focus was also playing up and I had to try using autofocus to get it right… wasn’t really working out for me. Entirely different to typical skate film as it’s jolty and doesn’t flow with the movement at all. It represents how different the movement of walking is so different to the action of skateboarding – or being on wheels generally.