Sound is half of modern cinema. The visual is the dominating half, but without the sound the audience losses the context for the images they are viewing. Just like a shot in a film has composition, the sound of a shot has a similar composition. Sounds have directions, where they came from and where they’re going. While a shot is limited by its frame, sound encompasses all that is around the camera. It helps show was the frame leaves out. Sometimes a person’s voice, or a struggle. And this action we cannot see but hear causes our brains to construct what took place. Often, to our surprise, the action we imagine is far different than the actual event. Maybe the filmmaker knew he or she could not create something dramatic or visually, but aurally they knew the audience was smart and could show the audience with their ears a better show.
For example, we see murder scenes everyday on TV. A robber walks in to a bank and shoots a few people and runs away with the money. We could see him walk in and then each victim being shot and then his exit. Or, we see the robber enter the bank, with the shot frozen on the entrance, we hear the robber’s demands and then hear s few shot fired and screams. Then the robber runs out the door fleeing the scene. In the first example, the audience knows exactly what happened inside the bank and the sounds are present just because they are expected to be there. There is less suspense in this first sequence because the audience sees everything as it happened, and the sound neither adds nor subtracts from the experience of the event. However, in the second sequence with the shot of the bank from outside, the sound is cueing the audience to what is happening inside. They hear gun shots and screams and are left to interpret what happened inside. The suspense and drama are heightened because the audience is not entirely sure what is going on, they are only receiving half the information.
Therefore sound is a neglected piece of cinema which is often forgotten, but is easily as important as the visual image itself. Both are used by an audience to formulate the action of a scene and construct the mental and physical space of a scene and define the interacting elements of that space.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
IV
There are two predominate schools of thought on animation: it’s either orthodox cel animation, or unorthodox experimental animation. They each have similar characteristics, but they oppose one another in intention, method, and material.
Cel animation is used by large studios like Disney to produce narratives, with character, story and plot. These animations are clean, and usually do not draw attention to the fact they are animations. Studios utilize a large number of animators and other personnel to create the completed film.
In contrast, the experimental animator often works alone. Plot and narrative are not of interest to these animators. They see themselves as artists, creating some abstract meaning from color and shape on a strip of celluloid. They often show the process of which the animation is made in the film itself, a kind of reflexivity. Experimental animation is also not locked into the flat two-dimensional form of cel animation. Many times these films mix 2D and 3D in constructing a new world of meanings.
My thoughts on these two opposing forms are: I enjoy each and I feel each has its appropriate uses. The first is obvious for storytelling and mass appeal. The second is better at searching for new meanings and discovering a new method for animation. I see each as artistic and important in understanding the other.
As far as bringing this understanding of modes of animation into the classroom setting and using each form, I am doing each this semester. In this class, we are mainly using the abstract to create interesting one minute films. In 495/497, I’m continuing my work on a narrative animation about a cat and mouse. Seeing both sides of animation allows me to think more outside the box in each instance. Sometimes one thing I learned in one class helps my animation in the other.
Cel animation is used by large studios like Disney to produce narratives, with character, story and plot. These animations are clean, and usually do not draw attention to the fact they are animations. Studios utilize a large number of animators and other personnel to create the completed film.
In contrast, the experimental animator often works alone. Plot and narrative are not of interest to these animators. They see themselves as artists, creating some abstract meaning from color and shape on a strip of celluloid. They often show the process of which the animation is made in the film itself, a kind of reflexivity. Experimental animation is also not locked into the flat two-dimensional form of cel animation. Many times these films mix 2D and 3D in constructing a new world of meanings.
My thoughts on these two opposing forms are: I enjoy each and I feel each has its appropriate uses. The first is obvious for storytelling and mass appeal. The second is better at searching for new meanings and discovering a new method for animation. I see each as artistic and important in understanding the other.
As far as bringing this understanding of modes of animation into the classroom setting and using each form, I am doing each this semester. In this class, we are mainly using the abstract to create interesting one minute films. In 495/497, I’m continuing my work on a narrative animation about a cat and mouse. Seeing both sides of animation allows me to think more outside the box in each instance. Sometimes one thing I learned in one class helps my animation in the other.
Monday, February 14, 2011
III
6x1 has been a fun class. I have enjoyed getting to work with actual film in our first few in class exercises and for the first one minute assignment.
Scratching off the enamel and leaving my own mark on the film’s surface was great. I didn't see it as destroying some else’s work, but as expanding upon what they created and making something my own. I liked making patterns and then being able to watch them emerge and come to life through the projector.
With the magazine transfer, I took an image of Robert Downey Jr. from Tropic Thunder and some other random shapes and carefully placed the images onto the tape. After cutting the tape into strips to fit the 16mm frame and soaking them in hot water, I taped the strip to a section of clear leader. The strip was maybe twenty-five frames. When we played the class’s composited reel in class, for that one split second I found my strip.
I’ve also worked in the Blackbox with Rayograms and Photograms. These were fun because I finally got to do some photography. I laid out my pattern or beads, spaghetti, screws and quarters on the unexposed film. The whole time I wasn’t quite sure how it would come out mostly because I was working under the red safe light and in the shadow of the table. Then in the blink of an eye, the room lights flashed on and then off. Photographic processes were at work in that half a second and I was eager to view my results. With the lights off, the class huddled around the red light. We then watched the chemical process of developing film. Now the only film I’ve ever seen develop is that instant photo stuff where the camera spits out your picture and in a few seconds the image comes through. This process however was much quicker. Dunk the film in the first chemical and bam! an image. Then clean it off in the water and let it sit in the last chemical so the image will stay when the lights come on. It’s fascinating to me how this all works. How the light creates an image, how that image is then made visible, and how that image is kept from dissolving into the light, is all really interesting.
This course so far has helped me think outside the box in terms of creating a work of film art. There are many other ways to make a movie beyond the usual shooting through a camera lens. In fact cameraless filmmaking combines the photographic nature of film stock with the natural human desire to create art by drawing or painting. I’m looking forward to painting my film in class this week.
Scratching off the enamel and leaving my own mark on the film’s surface was great. I didn't see it as destroying some else’s work, but as expanding upon what they created and making something my own. I liked making patterns and then being able to watch them emerge and come to life through the projector.
With the magazine transfer, I took an image of Robert Downey Jr. from Tropic Thunder and some other random shapes and carefully placed the images onto the tape. After cutting the tape into strips to fit the 16mm frame and soaking them in hot water, I taped the strip to a section of clear leader. The strip was maybe twenty-five frames. When we played the class’s composited reel in class, for that one split second I found my strip.
I’ve also worked in the Blackbox with Rayograms and Photograms. These were fun because I finally got to do some photography. I laid out my pattern or beads, spaghetti, screws and quarters on the unexposed film. The whole time I wasn’t quite sure how it would come out mostly because I was working under the red safe light and in the shadow of the table. Then in the blink of an eye, the room lights flashed on and then off. Photographic processes were at work in that half a second and I was eager to view my results. With the lights off, the class huddled around the red light. We then watched the chemical process of developing film. Now the only film I’ve ever seen develop is that instant photo stuff where the camera spits out your picture and in a few seconds the image comes through. This process however was much quicker. Dunk the film in the first chemical and bam! an image. Then clean it off in the water and let it sit in the last chemical so the image will stay when the lights come on. It’s fascinating to me how this all works. How the light creates an image, how that image is then made visible, and how that image is kept from dissolving into the light, is all really interesting.
This course so far has helped me think outside the box in terms of creating a work of film art. There are many other ways to make a movie beyond the usual shooting through a camera lens. In fact cameraless filmmaking combines the photographic nature of film stock with the natural human desire to create art by drawing or painting. I’m looking forward to painting my film in class this week.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
II
Synesthesia happens when a person observes a stimulus using a different sense than is usual to observe a particular stimulus. For example, seeing sound or seeing a color associated with a number or letter. This phenomenon often combines senses or crosses them, allowing synesthetes to sense the world in new ways compared to the average person.
In science, synesthesia is a neurological condition where stimulation of one sense leads to an involuntary stimulation of another sense. It can’t be controlled and many people with the condition aren’t even aware they have it because it is perceived as normal to them. It has also found to run in families, which means it’s a genetic trait (congenital synesthesia). Non-genetic “adventitious” synesthesia can occur from a variety of sources, for instance: psychedelic drugs, stroke, temporal lobe epilepsy seizure, or from blindness or deafness.
In art, a number of artists try to recreate the synesthete experience by painting the colors of sounds. One famous example of this is in Disney’s Fantasia. What’s important to take from this is, we as artists can take this concept of synesthesia and cross-sensory perception and use it in our work to visualize what we thought we could not.
One final concept to discuss is cymatics. Cymatics looks at the visual patterns of a sound wave. By taking a solid medium like a metal plate and placing an amorphous solid medium like sand on top, and then by transmitting a sound wave through the metal plate, the sand clumps together into complex patterns. Changing the frequency causes the pattern to change form. Cymatics literally is visualizing sound.
With each of these concepts at my disposal, I can turn my head and look at the world from a new interesting angle. I can visualize the colors and shapes of sound. Seek out new patterns. And give the audience a synesthetic cocktail of sensory miscommunication.
In science, synesthesia is a neurological condition where stimulation of one sense leads to an involuntary stimulation of another sense. It can’t be controlled and many people with the condition aren’t even aware they have it because it is perceived as normal to them. It has also found to run in families, which means it’s a genetic trait (congenital synesthesia). Non-genetic “adventitious” synesthesia can occur from a variety of sources, for instance: psychedelic drugs, stroke, temporal lobe epilepsy seizure, or from blindness or deafness.
In art, a number of artists try to recreate the synesthete experience by painting the colors of sounds. One famous example of this is in Disney’s Fantasia. What’s important to take from this is, we as artists can take this concept of synesthesia and cross-sensory perception and use it in our work to visualize what we thought we could not.
One final concept to discuss is cymatics. Cymatics looks at the visual patterns of a sound wave. By taking a solid medium like a metal plate and placing an amorphous solid medium like sand on top, and then by transmitting a sound wave through the metal plate, the sand clumps together into complex patterns. Changing the frequency causes the pattern to change form. Cymatics literally is visualizing sound.
With each of these concepts at my disposal, I can turn my head and look at the world from a new interesting angle. I can visualize the colors and shapes of sound. Seek out new patterns. And give the audience a synesthetic cocktail of sensory miscommunication.
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