In this week’s lecture, scenes from Scott Ruo’s ‘Four Images’, Brian Hill’s ‘Drinking for England’ and Chantal Akerman’s ‘D’Est’ were screened.  Choose one of these, and consider, in a single paragraph, what might have intrigued, interested, displeased or repelled you.

In this week’s lecture, the screening I enjoyed the most and was intrigued by was Chantel Akerman’s ‘D’Est’. The film takes a look at life in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The particular scene that we watched shows people on the street going at dusk, going about their daily activities while the camera moves ever so slowly around in a circle. As the camera reaches the same group of people again, their reactions change, they become more intrigued with what the filmmakers are doing and become more accepting of them. From the scene screened the documentary seemed quite poetic in nature. The slow movement of the camera, the ambient sounds of the traffic and people in the market, combined with the exterior dusk lighting makes the scene interesting and intriguing. The slow pace and changing reactions of the surrounding crowd commands the audiences attention as they wonder what will be revealed next.

Listen to the first 10 minutes of Glenn Gould’s radio documentary, “The Idea of North”. The idea of North 10min.wav or Files are here (experimenting with different sizes and file types) If possible, use headphones.  Record your impressions in a paragraph or two.

In the beginning of “The Idea of North”, the voice of a woman recounting an anecdote of her travelling north is first heard. This gave me the initial impression that the rest of the radio documentary would be quite straightforward. However, after a minute or two, the sound of a man talking is heard and his voice slowly overrides the woman’s in volume, making his voice more prominent. This continues when another man’s voice is added and the fantastic sound mixing is used to change the prominence of the different voices which are all competing for the audience’s attention. It is a bit confusing as you can’t keep up with the different anecdotes, however it then stops and Glenn Gould introduces himself. After this the documentary changes between different voices and anecdotes but with the background sound of train stations, bells and passengers providing a sense of atmosphere to the stories heard.

While I’m not sure why the beginning of the documentary features people speaking over one another, it is definitely a way to capture the audience’s attention and doesn’t drag out for too long so that the following portion of the documentary can be understood. The muddled voices almost provide a sense of importance to Gould as his voice doesn’t compete with anybody else’s unlike what we are used to hearing on the radio – a sole radio presenter. It means that the audience pay attention to what Gould is saying as he introduces his purpose for making the documentary. The atmospheric sounds in the background while the other men talk about their experiences makes you feel like you are there and includes the listener. I think the experimentation used benefits the documentary in making it unique and could definitely be a source of inspiration for our group documentary.

Listen to the audio you recorded in Tute #1.  Here. Write a paragraph or two about your recording from a technical and/or “poetic” perspective.  Consider: What these sounds evoke for you.  What associations they have. Do any of your recordings suggest images?  What might they be?  Do any of your recordings suggest the possibility of other recordings?

For our sound exercise in our tutorial, Mark and I had a bit of technical trouble as it took us a while to understand how to use the zoom microphone – rather than pressing record again to stop recording, we needed to actually press the stop button. Another technical point I noticed after listening to our files back is that there is a lot of competing sounds when at the time it seemed like we were only getting a focal sound. This is a bit disappointing as we were trying not to pick up a lot of competing sounds but did anyway, so it would be good to keep experimenting and see how we could do that more effectively.

Some of the sounds we picked up gave a relaxing, summer’s day type of vibe with the sporadic clanging of the metal adding a new layer to the atmosphere. The metal clanging gives me the impression of a construction site or railway construction even though it was a street busker. The rustling branches sound quite aggressive and I had to try and remember what the source of that sound was. I think that some of the sounds we discovered were poetic and gave a sense of an interesting landscape, however we could’ve tried getting more interior sounds in comparison and sounds that are more distinct rather than blending into a soundscape.

In 200 words or less please outline your goals, desires – what you want to get out of this semester. You will review this later in the course. Many will rethink this dramatically by the end of the course – this is a good thing.

This semester I would like to continue to learn and practice the technical side of production by engaging more with the equipment and not being afraid to try new camera and sound kits. I would also like to be creative and lateral in the way I approach my documentary project, so rather than implementing traditional interview techniques, I want to think outside the box. I want to use complex and interesting soundscapes and music which often add a depth to documentary films and to think more about how sound can contribute to the audience’s feelings and perceptions. Being creative with the camera will also be something I strive to do this semester by thinking about the many different ways a particular shot can be covered. I also want to gain more confidence in using the camera as I was a bit reluctant to get involved last semester as others were more confident to use it. I also want to not only improve my editing skills but have a more positive attitude towards it, rather than getting overwhelmed by the problems that may occur. Overall, I would like to be involved in a project that interests me whole-heartedly and to develop a documentary in which passion and creativity is demonstrated.