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CRAFT Super8 Workshop
A community made film using Super8 and developed with cafinol. I was at the workshop - catching sound mostly on my phone. I wanted the sound to reflect the spontaneity and playfulness of the workshop - no expensive tools here. The rest was just to keep it funky.
Emerge_Hand
Emerge_Hand is a short animation by felix_wpj. Felix gave me free rein to sonify this however I liked. The imagery and angles had me imagining a powerful robotic synthscape which would roll and twist amongst organic elements like water and air. I love this animation because it plays with that tricky theme of machines and emotion. There is a sadness in this animation, albeit a mechanical one. I wanted to play with the cold, distanced emotional nuance surrounding this machine's tragedy.
Multiverse - A film by Hiroshi Kondo. Sound and Music
Multiverse was a film through which I wanted to explore the use of silence. Its business and depth threw up a wealth of opportunities to play with contrast and juxtaposition. I wanted to create a sound track which would resemble the moped riders both in their insect-like determined individuality but also as their overwhelming combined mass - a swarm. I build to this point in order for it to be contrasted with 8 seconds of digital silence (no sound at all).
The American director Walter Murch once said that, "The ultimate metaphoric sound is silence. If you can get the film to a place with no sound where there should be sound, the audience will crowd that silence with sounds and feelings of their own making, and they will, individually, answer the question of, ‘Why is it quiet?’. Using silence in this way added to my work in ways more powerful than sound ever could. What did you find yourself thinking/feeling during the silence?
York Mediale - Promotional Sound Design
York Mediale approached me with this promotional piece. Since it was being used for an exhibition on the human voice, I used only samples of the human voice.
SPLASH - A film by Shen Jie. Sound and Music
SPLASH encouraged another soundtrack concerned with silence, though this time silence is geographical (the silence of a physical space with very little activity). I think Shen Jie created a very intelligent account of post traumatic stress with SPLASH - the way it twists and confuses, leaving us feeling unsettled with nothing really real to hold on to. Its uneasy and its disorienting and it doesn't resolve.
I tried to work with this through my sound design and music, a few times by building to an ambiguous resolve. The silence in SPLASH encourages you to really lean it but so infrequently provides the reason for doing so. SPLASH isn't an easy film; it might even be frustrating and confusing to some. But this often reveals our righteous expectations as an audience, and it's fun to pick all that apart.
The sounds for SPLASH were collected at Leith Victoria Swim Centre in between swim sessions.
Sound of Orkney - a film for Highland Whiksey
Sound of Orkney is a promotional piece designed for events hosted by Highland Park Whiskey. The company wished to capture the sound of the nature, wind, waves and rugged seas which surrounded and influenced the crafting of Highland Park Whiskeys at their distillery in Orkney.
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