Sound Film

SOUND FILM. Make a sound piece.
Some discussion, notes, and ideas, about the relationship between music, audio, sound, and the visual material in the film. These notes in part, were developed around ideas, after a conversation with Richard Gort, the executive visual director then at BBC Sport, around 2-3 years ago, in 2014, when I spoke to him first about the film. His advice, and response, was to make an underlying audio base, a radio piece, to work to - a sound edit. The question, that he posed to me, was whether this is to be historical, a historical piece of work, or emotive, emotional. The questions stay with me, and lie at the heart of the work. The approach, intended, is to collect, recipes, stories, and fragments, notes, ideas, documents of conversations, the relationships that develop, in the process of doing so. Is it possible, for me to engage with, and explore this area of history, through baking. With people, exchanging ideas. Creating an approach for dialogue, shared space. Metaphors, and a common currency, about time, and a shared language, a form of communication.

Oral histories, exploring the use of these, is to
form a key part of this material.

One of my initial. And most important, project
references, is Little Boy, an animated piece of
work created by artist Jordan Baseman.

Little Boy from Animate Projects on Vimeo.

Little Boy, by Jordan Baseman. Year of Production - 2014

The artist's approach, is to explore the history,
a point of time, perspective, from Hiroshima, using
a live witness account.

His audio styling is reductive, reduced. An
initiation for the visuals, that continue the
story alone. The script is bare, pulled back,
stripped, sparse.
The visuals - aren't illustrations. A witness to,
an evocation.

Exploring space, and how the visuals audio, and
sound, interact with each other, is a vital component
of the work. Like characters in a play -
Beckett explored this - in Words and Music,
his play where the words and music compete,
battle for broadcast space, interact with each
other, share the space.

Considering the ideas, is very different to hearing the audio recording. It's difficult - to hear, understand, to listen to. I want to explore the contrast int he film. In the production. Recipes - a series of almost, factual, dry, instructional videos, that explore, and give, recipes for baking Ukrainian bread. Full of character, working, and functional. I like the idea, of creating in the audio and visuals, a conflict, dialogue, contrast. Perhaps, a battle, even, with a sense of violence, evoking a war, or something warlike. Disrupted, unusual, strange. Encountering, the uncomfortable, and disturbing. Perhaps, without a clear - understanding, or given meaning, about the cause of the disturbance.
Evocation. The imagination, at the moment, is for the visuals to start, with flour, water, slick even, Soviet inspired, like a rolling pin, stationary, referencing these wonderful photographs, taken from an Ikea catalogue.
IKEA / Homemade is Best, by Forsman & Bodenfors http://www.fb.se/work/ikea/homemade-is-best

To begin, illustrating the bread making process. Then, a visual narrative emerging, that is at odds with the audio. A different story.
Boogie, Animator - Alan Short aardman Commercials, For Robinsons, agency - BBH
Emerging, delicate, unsure. Leading the viewer, gently, and then definitely, into a different world. A larger, longer, more direct narrative. Ethical. The ethical considerations have been a large part of the research, embedded into the methodology, working practices, the ideas, and directly into the audio. Concerning. How to deal, sensitively, justly and appropriately with memory. Everything is real, everything is imaginary. What we share. and hold, and know. Encountering, constructing memory, making memories. Allowing them to form, mutate, and - all of this, being equal, and true, and projected as such. Everything is real, and everything is imagined. A space, that holds both ideas, evenly, and equally. Some of the practical questions, surrounding this, are about whether, or how, a script, or a transcript emerges.

Allowing - a space for this to happen, and come about, as it needs to, as the project allows, in the way, that feels most sensitive, most powerful, most authentic. To the project, the ideas, the histories that are embedded within it.