Rob West 21007328 Sound Major Project Evaluation, Semester Two During the course of this module I have

created an original sound design for two movie clips. The two films I ended up choosing to edit are Solaris by director Steven Soderbergh (a 2002 remake of the Andrei Tarkovsky film) and In Absentia by the Quay brothers. Overall I am pleased with the outcome of both pieces however I feel I could have done more to In Absentia in the end. To begin, I'll discuss the process of creating the Solaris edit. The clip I had to work with was the opening three minutes of the film and from the offset I wanted to highlight a sense of loss that is felt by Clooney's character as the clips show him silently pondering and living alone in his apartment. To this end I thought about using flashback type audio in order to evoke a sense of memory and regret to the audience. I recorded some sounds myself for this task and made use of a few audio files available to me on Soundtrack Pro, really only using the Marantz to capture sounds that were specifically required for my project. These sounds included the memory of children playing as well as the audio heard from his TV in he apartment. I also created some chopping sounds as I found it easier to match the action myself than try to fiddle with pre-existing sounds. I am really happy with the outcome of this task as I feel I have created a strong, believable sound scape whilst avoiding any major problems during the edit. One element I am disappointed with is my footsteps as I didn't quite sync them perfectly to the action and was quite noticeable thus letting down my piece. On the flip of that I feel the kitchen scene is almost perfect, I am glad I made the decision to add a quiet atmos' track to it as I feel it adds to the sci-fi style of the film as well as giving the room its own unique ambience. In terms of my major project for this semester, In Absentia, I am less confident about it's success. This is due to the issues I had with the mastering of the project as well as the quality of my original sounds. I chose to create almost every sound you hear myself, literally bar one sound of a fly buzzing (which was far too hard for me to collect), this enabled me to have a lot of freedom with my manipulation of sounds but did give my piece a rougher edge than that of Solaris. I am content with the tone of my sound design for this clip and feel that I have created a haunting yet intriguing experience for my viewer. My initial approach differed greatly from that of Solaris as I wanted to create a more musical piece that made use of different ambient sounds in order to create a gloomy tone in line with the imagery. I feel I let myself down with some parts, particularly the scribblings of the woman as I feel I went too far towards a musical direction and lost some of the core sound design elements of the clip. With that said I am pleased with the light flickering sounds as well as the low murmuring which I feel adds a sense of claustrophobia and paranoia to my project. Regarding my initial ideas, I planned to use muffled dialogue and other sounds to imply that the woman is not fully conscious, perhaps she is in a dream world therefore normal rules of life don't apply, I deliberately used recording of myself reading excerpts from the satanic bible as a way or achieving a chant like sound that rings in her ears like some unholy sermon. I'd call the outcome of my project a kaleidoscope of noises, nothing is sharp, much like the footage, and I aimed to build my sounds to a climax at the end. The feet knocking shot I found particularly creepy and it made me imagine a small child, sitting on the balcony, watching the woman. However, the feet looked like they had braces on so this child is not completely right and I wanted to reflect that in the distant sound of ring-a-ring-a-rosey which can be heard being sung at the end. I wanted to leave it like that in order to give my audience something to dwell upon, a harrowing tune which holds implications of disease and death in order to cement my themes of fear, paranoia and remorse. I have learnt quite a lot during the process of completing these projects, specifically in regards to Soundtrack Pro. When I began my initial work on Solaris, I learnt much about how Soundtrack Pro works and really expanded on my knowledge of Equalization and other effects. This allowed me to effectively edit my sounds to suit the environment I was trying to portray. The main learning curve for me came with the major project as I had to develop my skills with Logic in order to make an ambient tune for the piece. I began by using a midi keyboard and carefully selecting

which synth or strings I wanted to use. I tried many different types of music in order to fully realise my intentions but in the end settled on a relatively simple concept using two synth notes. I decided on this approach as it was more atmospheric and didn't draw too much attention fro the other sounds in the clip. I had to teach myself how to master a sub mix as I had never done that before and I did struggle at first. The version of In Absentia which I played to the class had been mixed poorly and only with headphones as I could not get the speakers to work in the edit suite. However, after hearing my project for the first time on speakers was able to note which elements needs proper work done and returned to the mix in order to complete it. I tried various different mixed down versions as I wanted to achieve the right levels on particular sounds and I feel I was able to achieve that at last with the hand-in CD mix. I have definitely learnt that in the future I will always do a speaker mix in order to make sure my work is sounding right as well as begin the mastering process earlier in order to give myself time to amend errors. This is particularly relevant as often exporting files takes a long time so it is worth giving yourself as much as possible in case the shit hits the fan. Another thing I have learnt, which is possibly only limited to the use of the university macs, is that I should save often, perhaps after every change as my computer crashed many times and I found myself using the keyboard short cut for save after every little tweak I did as you never know when it might just die on you. Inspiration for these projects came in different forms, when I was beginning the Solaris edit I read quite a bit of stuff by Walter Murch which enabled me to think about my recordings in a different way and helped me a great deal when it came to making my sounds authentic. This followed on to the In Absentia work as I was able to think outside the box and get a better scribbling sound than I would have achieved by actually using a pencil. For this I used a screwdriver on an old brick, which gave me a similar enough sound as well as being much louder and easier to record than pencil on paper. Another major influence was David Lynch's sound for his films, particularly Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive as they use sound very well to build tension as well as create a surreal atmosphere. Lynch's work is often freaky and otherworldly yet familiar and that is something I identified with for In Absentia as I think they have common themes. To this end I was able to think about how to layer my sounds to give it a creepy edge as well as use enveloping to bring out tracks and fade them back in when it suited me. Other than that I listened to a great deal of Brian Eno's music during this module as it was a constant influence on my work, particularly the musical parts. I was influenced by him when I created the musical ambience heard in In Absentia as well as the subtle ambience heard my version of Solaris. Both take different routes and have different effects as I feel In Absentia's music is booming and ominous, similar to that of Eno's album 'Ambient 4: On Land'. The subtle, quiet piece in the kitchen scene of Solaris was inspired by Eno's piece 'Thursday Afternoon' as I felt the scene needed something but not anything commanding or even with much presence, to that end I used some string and synth samples to create a airy sound that I likened to some sort of electrical hum. Overall I guess I am pleased with my work during this module. I am content with my version of Solaris, although I would like to go back and perhaps extend the scene a little, changing the dialogue you hear at the end. As for In Absentia, I am torn between contentment and disappointment. I feel I had a good vision and knew very early on how I wanted it to sound, however I do not feel my idea was fully realised and some of my intricate touches got lost due to poor mixing. These are points I can take with me into the future and are definitely elements of sound design that Ill make sure to hone when I next get a chance. My only other regret about this module is that I missed a lot of sessions. I would have liked to attend them all and I feel my projects have suffered as a result of my absence, however I did make every effort to learn things myself and to try and keep up to date with the progression of the module. I have enjoyed doing sound as I find it kind of therapeutic in a sense and would like to continue it into next year even if I only attend workshop rather than it being an actual choice. I hope to be sound designer or recordist on at least one project next year.