Film Study - Oblivious
Music for Film - Sampling - Ableton
Preliminaries:
2 Mules for Sister Sara uses a soundtrack for the theme however there are instances of diegetic sounds such as the electronic mule sound created by a synthesiser. There is a fine balance between the use of live instruments and electronic sounds throughout which is effective for a wild-west film blurring the line between fantasy and real-life.
The second video shows examples of subtle sound effects that can be formed using household items, similar to Foley. This provided a good starting point to explore how I could use household items to create sounds without sampling from the internet.
Vision:
The aim for my work is to flip the traditional narrative of a kids cartoon into a work that challenges the listener's view on the importance of protecting the environment. Animals are not as aware of the damage us humans can make to the world and this video interpretation exploits this.
To me: everything off the screen is as important as the things on the screen. When it comes to 'destruction' sounds, these are deliberately hidden from the view of the listener to show that destruction isn't necessarily within clear view and is instead obscured by desires - hence the title 'Oblivious'. The main characters are oblivious to the dangers that they are in, thinking their creation of music will bring happiness. The desire for satisfaction instead leads to the unexpected death of the characters at the end.
Reflection:
The work has a clear theme, thus giving the listener a chance to reflect throughout watching it. However, with some peer reviewing, it seemed like when I explained the vision before the film they were able to understand the soundtrack better. This is similar to reading up on the blurb before a film instead of watching directly for the first time. This is neither a positive or negative but perhaps in future works - the challenge would be to produce work that a viewer can understand the vision purely by the music and video without explanation.
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