TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Monday, October 25, 2004

1:02 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Severin Bridge, Cologne (Photo by Jacob Kirkegaard)

Report:
Secret mission by international operative in Cologne...
Bridge recording and photos accomplished!
It's weird listening to sounds that I didn't record myself, and not having the memory of where they were from on the bridge, and what it was like there.

Excellent practice for not 'seeing around the edge of the frame'. Reading Walter Murch on film editing - 'in the blink of an eye' - oddly enough based largely on a lecture he gave at Spectrum films in the late 80's, which I attended. Talks about having to delete all the surplus information that you (as the director) have about everything that was going on to get a particular shot (or in this case; sound) for a film, and work only with what is actually there. Because that is all an audience will see, or hear. It's a process I'm attempting to undertake with the compositions, to hear them purely as sonic objects in themselves (the musique concrete, pierre schaeffer idea) and not keep referring back to how I felt when making the recording, or what I missed out on, or being self-conscious about all the glitches and noise. Hear purely through the sound, what works and what doesn't, in the context of that piece of audio and its relationship to the larger project.
He was very inspiring, and great to read those ideas again - one that had stayed with me all this time was when he talked about making the soundtrack for Apocalypse Now. Said, people were impressed by it having 100 or 200 tracks, but ideally, the ultimate goal of a sound designer was to use the fewest tracks possible, and do the most with least.
That what you are aiming for is to access the imagination of the audience, and 'excite emotions hidden in their hearts'... and 'produce the greatest effect on the viewers (or listeners) mind with the least no of things on screen or sound'.... that 'past a certain point of detail and exposition, you encourage the audience to become spectators not participants' and we want people to be so engaged that they actually create their own soundtrack, that adds to the one they are hearing from your efforts.