For my sound piece, I have chose to do' We're going on a bear hunt', so i'm required to blend a mixture of nature sounds with darker sounds such as mud squelches and flowing water sound and so forth. The text i've chosen is this: 

'We're going on a bear hunt,

We're gonna catch a big one,What a beautiful day,We're not scared.Oh oh!Mud,Thick, oozy mud.We can't go over it,We can't go under it,We've gotta go throught it!Squelch squelch, squelch squelch

We're going on a bear hunt,
We're gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We're not scared.
Oh oh!
A river,
A deep, cold river.
We can't go over it,
We can't go under it,
We've gotta go throught it!
Splish splosh, splish splosh.

We're going on a bear hunt,
We're gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We're not scared.
Oh oh!
A forest,
A big, dark forest.
We can't go over it,
We can't go under it,
We've gotta go throught it!
Stmble trip, stumble trip.'

I've decided I want to make my piece slightly dark, by overexposing some of the sounds, for example increasing the volume of the sound in comparison to everything else, and EQ'ing the sound to sound dark and mysterious. 

I decided to record my narration in the sound studio, as I would get the clearest, most professional sound. 

In the sound booth recording my narration.

I then went out and recorded my sound at different parts of Farnham park, for example a small lake for the water sounds, open greenland for natural sounds and after it had rained I found a spot that produced the best sound for the mud squelch sound. 

Idea 1

When brainstorming, I looked at the brief and firstly came up with an idea to do with Memory, and how the brain maps ideas and certain emotions and so forth. I used an artistic look on the map of the brain to base my ideas on.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580416,00.html

Illustration by Leigh Wells

My idea is to create a piece that incorporates visual pieces and sound pieces to represent each section of the brain. For example emotion may be a collection of faces or colours to represent how someone may feel. Im yet to develop the idea further to make the piece a collaborative piece where everything adds up. 

Idea 2

My second idea was looking into Psychogeography and my idea is to create a journey for myself and a few individuals and get them to note their experiences/thoughts/feelings on a map/notepad. I will then film the journey I go on and overlay the messages/thoughts of the people I got to go on this journey. The problem with this idea is thinking of how I can make it interactive. This is similar to the idea that Mona Hatoum had where she overlaid the text of a letter, which added a feeling of emotion to the piece. I may decide to print off the messages and stick them around the screen in which ill show the piece. 

TO BE CONTINUED

Gabriel Orozco

During this lesson with Rosie, we were briefed about the project and tasks we must do. 

Summary of the brief:

The unit, Maps and Journeys requires us to explore the metaphor of ‘journeys’ and to investigate narrative and non-linear ideas. We should look at the concept of ‘journey’, and how it can be interpreted, for example thoughts, memory and psychogeography. We are allowed to work as a group or on our own, which is something I will need to think about, as others may have similar ideas to what I have and we may be able to merge our ideas. 

Key dates and Assessment:

. Possibility of a field trip to London on the 16th or 17th of October. 

. Project approval will be on the 23rd of October. 

. Final Assessment will be on the 11th/12th of December. 

We were then screened a variation of films, which may give inspiration for our project. 

London Orbital (2002, Iain Sinclair) 

When watching this film, I enjoyed the hallucinogenic, dream like feel to it, through the use of 

blurred visuals and music. For me, the film really emphasised the boredom and dullness of M25

through the slow camera work and radio broadcast that somewhat haunted the piece throughout. This

made the film almost uncomfortable to watch at points. Through the use of CCTV and handheld 

camera work, the viewer is made to get a feeling that we are always being watched, which relates to 

the modern day because of the over use of CCTV and how we cant go anywhere without being 

watched. 

Measures of Distance (1988, Mona Hatoum) 

This film for me felt like a reflection of a woman's loneliness, being stuck in a country away from her

parents, because of war. The letter being placed over the film for me made the film feel more

personal and made the piece a very interestingly visual piece. The use of images of her mother adds 

to the personal feel to the piece. The piece talks very strongly about the war, and how it has effected 

her mother. I felt that the film gives an audience emotional response because of the nature of the film 

and the visuals that support it. 

The Frame (2005, Chris Welsby) 

Seven Days (1974) 

At Sea (2003) 

I was fascinated by Chris Welsby's work because of the camerawork and early use of stop-frame 

animation. I liked the fact that he built his own rigs to effectively get the shot he wanted. Chris 

Welsby worked with nature on most of his short films. For example, in his piece 'Windmill II', he 

took the camera, placed it on a tripod and filmed a windmill blowing naturally in the breeze. I 

Found the results quite interesting and the flashing lights from the windmill made the film somewhat 

hypnotic and artistic. 

Installation Art

Rosie showed us some Installation art and these are some of the pieces I found really interesting.

The Creators Project (Chris Milk, 2012)

Chris Milk, teaming up with the team from 'The Creators Project' and Creative Director Ben 
Tricklebank, have produced an interactive installation piece that allows anyone to become different 
things. For example one screen allowed the person to grow wings, whilst another screen involves 
lots of small birds flying around the screen, depending on your movement. Some of the technology 
was quite simplistic, for example the use of Microsoft's 'Kinect' camera's. The piece itself is 
somewhat spiritual, through the progression of life (Birth, death and regeneration). 

Blind Light (Anthony Gormley, 2007) 

I found this art installation piece quite interesting because of the visual work put into the piece. The piece is somewhat Ghost-like, through the use of 'fluorescent light, toughened low-iron glass, ultrasonic humidifiers, aluminium, water'. When researching into the piece, I found out that it was an expression of "vertigo and disorientation - and also a bit of euphoria". I feel that this piece certainly achieves this. 

In this sound workshop we looked at several different pieces of sound that might give us some influence for our final sound piece. We also looked at several different sound terms, for example Diagetic (real life sounds) and Non-Diagetic sound (Added over in the editing process, e.g. sound effects). The sound pieces we looked at were Orson Welles' 'War of the World's' radio broadcast, Douglas Adams' 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' radio broadcast and lastly a scene of a film called 'Elephant' by Gus Van Sant. 

War of the World's Radio Broadcast (1938, Orson Welles) 



We looked at a few different pieces of sound, for example 'War of the World's' 1938 radio broadcast. This piece was interesting because of the comparison of real life sounds and dubbed over sounds, that to listeners today just know are not real, however due to the fact that at the time sound was not as advanced as it is now, people would've believed these sounds and many were frightened by the broadcast. This piece shows how sound has progressed from the late 1930's, and how through cinema and other platforms, audiences of today are used to hearing sounds such as spaceship's, so when hearing this in the broadcast, I knew that is was not real, and dubbed over (Non-Diagetic sound)  

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Radio Series (Douglas Adams, 1978) 

I found this piece interesting to listen to because of the way in which the characters interact, and the way the non-diagetic sounds work with the diagetic sound to tell a story and keep the listener intrigued. The sounds used help to tell the listener not only what is going on, but also what emotions to feel at certain scenes, mainly through dialogue. The piece itself was the first radio series to be produced in stereo. 

Elephant, Movie (Gus Van Sant, 2003) 

 

The sound within the section we watched was interesting because of the music (Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata') playing throughout, blending in with the diagetic sound of people playing sports and leaves blowing in the breeze. The subtleness of the music helps to give a sense of emotion, and how the character is feeling at a certain point. The scene stretches out to the length of the track (around 5 minutes) which may seem like a long time, however the music for me is an expression of teenage life, and how the character is feeling is something to be compared to in a normal teenagers life. Without the music, the scene was be somewhat emotionless. This helped me realise the true importance of sound within film. 



Marantz PMD-660


For the last part of the lesson we looked at recording, and different types of microphones, e.g. cardioid, dynamic etc. We were taught how to function a Marantz recorder, for example changing settings such as recording format and sample rate. This is in preparation for our sound project, which is to produce a 30-60 second piece based around a piece of text, to tell a story, for example creating a piece of sound to interpret a children's story or a poem. I found using the Marantz recorder quite useful and will be something I will want to use for my project.