Sense of Space - The Hole In The Road

If you are a long-time Sheffield resident, you will remember a certain landmark called The Hole in the Road. 
After the war, Sheffield had to be rebuilt. The changes made by the construction of Arundel Gate included the building of network of underground walkways which linked Arundel Gate, Commercial Street, Snig Hill and Fitzalan Square. High Street was located at the head of this network with escalators taking pedestrians into the subways. It was known officially as Castle Square but acquired the nickname locally as 'The Hole In The Road' which boasted a large central open air circle with entrances to many stores, convenient newsagents, bus enquiry centres and even a tropical fish tank stocked with mature fish. The "Hole in the Road" subterranean system was opened on November 27, 1967, however, the walkways fell into disrepair during the early 1990s and were finally closed to the public on January 10, 1994. The "Hole in the Road" network was filled in with rubble from the Hyde Park flats and re-developed as part of the Sheffield Supertram system.


Developing my previous idea about sounds from Sheffield, I had the thought of creating how the Hole In The Road used to sound, including interviews and sound bytes from residents who remember it.

Sense of Space - Peter Cusack

Continuing to look at the work of Peter Cusack, I have discovered some of the sound art collections that he has done.
One of these is entitled 'Sounds from Dangerous Places'; a project to collect sounds from sites which have sustained major environmental damage. These sites include Chernobyl, the Azerbaijan oil fields and controversial dams on the Tigris and Euphrates river systems in Turkey. 
Here is an example of some of these sounds:
Link to Chernobyl clips

It seems that Cusack does a lot of sound work to do with specific places. 
In 1998 Cusack started the 'Your Favourite London Sound' project, the aim being to find out what London sounds are appealing to those who live in London. 
The 'Favourite Sounds' project
This was so popular that it was repeated in Chicago, Beijing and other cities. In 2005 he was involved in the 'Sound and the City' art project using sounds from Beijing. 
He is also a well respected musician. 


This idea of creating a sense of where you are from the people who live there is fantastic and has a real sense of personality and culture. I could possibly do the same with Sheffield, or I could make it slightly comedic by doing the same at home in Essex.

Sense of Space - A World View

Sound artist Peter Cusack has created a so far fairly limited sound map of the world. A work in progress, it uses Google Maps to allow you to zoom into the various areas of the world that he has recorded in and sample sound clips exactly where they are filmed. 

Link to the Sound Map

This is an interesting idea because it most certainly gives you a sense of where you are in the world. However, it would not work so well for my project because you need to have an idea of where you are without being shown.

Sense of Space - Hell?

Continuing on my previous idea, I decided to simply google 'the sound of hell' and see what came up. 
In my search this story came up frequently. Some researchers drilled a hole nearly 15km deep and heard what they thought were the screams of the dammed. 


The following article appeared in the well respected Finland newspaper, Ammenusastia: "As a communist I don’t believe in heaven or the Bible but as a scientist I now believe in hell," said Dr. Azzacove. "Needless to say we were shocked to make such a discovery. But we know what we saw and we know what we heard. And we are absolutely convinced that we drilled through the gates of hell!"

Dr. Azzacove continued, ". . .the drill suddenly began to rotate wildly, indicating that we had reached a large empty pocket or cavern. Temperature sensors showed a dramatic increase in heat to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit."

 "We lowered a microphone, designed to detect the sounds of plate movements down the shaft. But instead of plate movements we heard a human voice screaming in pain! At first we thought the sound was coming from our own equipment."

"But when we made adjustments our worst suspicions were confirmed. The screams weren’t those of a single human, they were the screams of millions of humans!"


Here is a link to articles on the subject, and a recording of what they heard.


Wikipedia article - Well To Hell
Screams of the Dammed

Interesting.

Whether this is true or not, it is interesting that these noises inspired people to believe that this was the sound of hell. Could I use something similar?

Sense of Space - Looking Through My Bookshelves

As a source of inspiration I looked through my books for segments of text that have significant descriptions of sound. 

A couple of the texts that has usable pieces were:

• 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald (the crash sequence, party sequences)
• 'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad (attack sequence and others)
• Poetry  from John Donne's 'Collected Poems'
• Poetry from Philip Larkin's 'The Whitsun Weddings'

However, one text in particular stood out.

Dante's Inferno

I mind-mapped some quotes and ideas, including the sounds that I thought were significant and how I could create them.

From Canto XXVIII 

From Canto V

From Canto IV

 Here, the idea has formulated into trying to recreate Dante's version of Hell, by following the changes in sound throughout the text. If you look at my notes, you will see exactly how I plan to do this.

Sense of Space - An Idea

Having a little brainstorm on my own, I have thought about the possibility of creating a sound piece based on a famous cinematic scene. One of the most tense sequences in film history is the shower scene in Psycho (d. Alfred Hitchcock 1960). Upon watching it back, I noticed that the sound is very dull and simplistic. I have had the idea to intensify the sounds in the sequence and warp and manipulate them, and basically recreate the sequence without using the famous soundtrack. In this, we would give the absolute sense that we were moving from a bedroom to a bathroom, and very gently give the illusion that somebody is quietly coming into the room


Here is the sequence: unfortunately I could not get the whole sequence (including the shots just before she enters the bathroom) to embed, so here is the most I could get.

Sense of Space (with Jordan Jones): Pieces heard in seminar

In the briefing seminar with Debbie Ballin, we were introduced to some examples of sound art that fulfil in themselves the brief of our project. I will go through each of these in turn and explain what they were, my opinion and how this is an option for our project. 


Option 1: The Personal Documentary
"Meat Factory Ear Worms"
Richie Beirne
The Curious Ear: Meat Factory Ear Worms

This series of documentaries entitled "The Curious Ear" was produced by Ronan Kelly for an Irish national radio broadcaster. 
This episode "Meat Factory Ear Worms" is a personal account of Beirne's time working in a dead end job in the meat factories of Ireland. He tells how the songs stuck in his head would take him away from the monotony and horror of his surroundings, and he calls these "ear worms". 
The piece is narrated, so it is not just a soundscape. We are introduced to the sound of knives sharpening, and throughout, these 'meat factory' sounds are contrasted with Simon and Garfunkel songs etc. There is a careful mix of stereo atmospheric sounds of the meat factories, sound effects (such as the knives, cutting, and voices), narration and soundtrack. The theme of the piece is very much escapist, and we get a good sense of the space both outside his body (the factories) and inside his head (that place where we can see his thoughts of the past and the songs that take him away). 
I really liked this piece, and Jordan and I could do something very similar for our piece, perhaps going out to find a person with their own interesting story and interviewing them to get every detail of what we are going to record.


Option 2: A Visit to a Place
"Jarman's Garden"
Sherre DeLys
Jarman's Garden

This piece is a journey through a spectacular garden that filmmaker Derek Jarman made during the long illness that he experienced in the final years of his life. The piece is again a documentary, with the voice of Jarman's lover, Keith, taking the recordists through and around the site. 

There are segments of the piece: The beginning and end are almost music, the separate sounds of materials and ornaments and wildlife in the garden edited together and warped to make a beautiful sound. The middle is a very honest recording of the walk through the garden, where we can hear the voices of Keith and the recordists, as well as their footsteps and Keith's stories. At one point, we just sit and listen to the tide for a very long time, and with my eyes closed, I really felt like I was sitting on the beach outside the cottage with my eyes closed. 

"Jarman's Garden" is very much a moment of remembrance, and what I like most about the piece is the transition from a heavily controlled and edited piece to a straight recording of the visit, during which you can identify where all the sounds of the 'music' came from. I also like the way that DeLys also uses poetic quotes to illustrate the feeling of being in the garden. 

"BUSY old fool, unruly Sun, 
        Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?" - John Donne, The Sun Rising

I very much like the idea of creating a piece inspired by poetry.

Option 3: The Sound Recordist

"The Sound of Sport"
Peregrine Andrews
The Sound of Sport (article only)

This is a documentary narrated by and about the experiences of BBC sound engineer Dennis Baxter. He talks about his job recording sport sound as well as his past and his journey to his current position. 

The piece includes sound effects of balls, crowds etc, and his own narration, as well as soundtracks that seem nostalgic when he talks about his life in Georgia USA. It also includes archive sounds from programmes such as ESPN, which I find very interesting (for example from the first ever broadcast Olympic games, where only the commentators can be heard).
I think that using archive sound would be amazing; going through the history of a subject for example, but this could be costly and very difficult to get hold of. 


Option 4: The Intense Soundscape
"Beneath The Forest Floor"
Hildegard Westerkamp
Beneath The Forest Floor (article only)

This piece was recorded in the Carmanah Valley on Vancouver Island; an ancient rainforest with some of the tallest and oldest trees in the world. 

Listening to the piece I found it extremely haunting, it was the feeling of a very detailed sense of where you are using microphones that pick up sounds that the human ear cannot. It was full of weird reverberations and bass sounds, ultrasonic sounds of bats and mice and insects and thick layers of atmosphere, leaves water etc. All of the low and high frequencies as well as those heard by humans have been carefully pieced together to create a sense of omniscience and more than anything, you feel as if you are there, very small and moving all the time (the effect here created by dynamics of sound). 
I thought that this piece was extremely chilling, and it would be wonderful if in any piece of work I could inspire that deep a feeling or effect on the listener.






Option 5: The Way It's Done
"Celestial Road"
Jacob Kirkegaard
Celestial Road (clip only)

Celestial Road is absolutely fascinating because the producer Kirkegaard developed radio transmitters to transform electromagnetic waves and electrostatic energy into sound. In "Celestial Road" he has recorded the sounds of solar winds and magnetic energy around the Northern Lights. 
During the session we listened to an interview with Kirkegaard before we heard the piece, and this helped us to understand the producer's aims. Throughout, we hear strange and unfamiliar sounds: buzzes, cracks and fizzles, beeps and haunting low frequency sonic drones. The sounds start thin and thicken, getting more and more dense, but as the producer says in his interview, there is no climax, the aim being to get the listener used to unfamiliar new sounds that have never before been captured (the same equipment is used by NASA). 
Personally this piece was my favourite, because it sounded surprisingly beautiful. Once I knew what the sounds were I really felt like I was surrounded by the greens and pinks of the Northern Lights. The process itself is absolutely fascinating and I really thought I was part of an unknown magical world; a place that was new and interesting and so peaceful. 
In terms of my project, this could be inspiration for a piece that charts a new world, devoid of any life and just the sound of the atmosphere to listen to. 


Option 6: Interviews and Archive
"Child of Ardoyne"
Alan Hall
Child of Ardoyne (article only)

This piece is a poignant recollection of the children that were killed during the wars in 1970s and 1980s Ireland. It is interviews and archive sound clips from the news and previous interviews, along with a rather moving reading of the names of the children killed, when and where they were from. It is read in such a way as war veterans are on remembrance day, and this is continued in the background of the other sounds. 

The piece is mainly voices, but you can always sense where these voices are placed in society; standing outside a school reminiscing, fighting with police officers, in a public high street, at home with a camera and an interviewer. In the midst of a battle. 

I mostly liked the stylistic way in which the names were read throughout the piece. It would be good to do something similar, that works for the project but also reminds you of something else, making a comparison. 

There were a few other pieces, but I didn't find anything that inspired me to create something similar. One was by wildlife recordist Chris Watson, but the sound of animals to me sounds generic and unoriginal. The other was another piece by Hildegard Westerkamp called "A Walk Through the City", and I found it very difficult to listen to, so found it equally as difficult to critically analyse and review. 

I will continue by researching more forms of sound art and then putting some direction into my research. 

Hidden Sounds of Temple Bar - Tom Lawrence

This piece was commissioned by the Made In Temple Bar Festival in Dublin, Ireland, and it is a glimpse into the Temple Bar Area at different times of the day and year. Lawrence picks out some beautiful sounds; the crackle and crunch of ice, the birds, the buzzing cosmopolitain nightlife and even the sewer rats.


What I find most interesting about this piece is the way that it will be heard. It is part of a scheme in the festival called Lights Out Listening, where members of the public will gather together to listen to documentaries in the dark. The experience will be shared together; as the description suggests, a bit like going to the cinema rather than watching a DVD.


I think this piece is well recorded and flows very niely, taking us on a journey through the night hours, taking us away from human contact, and then bringing it back round to the town waking up again. This circularity makes the piece have a definitive and comfortable ending, and the narration adds to the feeling that you can understand what you are listening to.


The piece does lack a narrative, but because it is simply a soundscape, it doesn't matter. It just works.


Doing a simple soundscape is an option for our project. I would like to keep researching and looking at more narrative pieces (both fictional and non-fictional) and pieces that do not have any dialogue at all.


Hidden Sounds of Temple Bar

Sense of Space (with Jordan Jones)

For the 'Creative Media Practice - Project' module we have been issued with a brand new brief. We are to create a three minute sound piece which creatively maps a particular space. This can be warped, edited, soundtracks included, narration laid on top, as long as you can get a clear sense of a place. We have 5 weeks to complete this project, and during that time we will be doing sound workshops to improve our sound recording and editing skills.


In order to come up with an idea for this project I will start to research sound art that does exactly what the brief entails; portrays a space to the listener.

Portrait of Place (with James Mellors): Presentation

When presenting our film, we must also make a 2 minute presentation about the intention of our film, a critical analysis, and individual roles. Here we have created a visual powerpoint to play while we speak, and we have scripted everything that we want to say. The only worry is that we will go slightly over the 2 minute limit.

We created the script together and I created the presentation.

Portrait of Place (with James Mellors): Editing

Editing our film was very successful, and with some advice from our module tutor, we made a few changes to clean up the film and make the turning point more pronounced through faster cuts and a repeated cut between the sun and the protagonist.

Here are some screen shots of the edit:

As for my personal contribution, I was responsible for titles and effects. In a few places I played with a cross-fade that was technically created by dipping the opacity between two scenes using keyframes, as opposed to a transition. I kept the title and credits brief due to length of the film. 

When exporting our film, we had to reduce the quality of the film because the higher quality quicktime file would not play without freezing and jumping. Luckily we played it through to discover this, and managed to change it before burning the film for presentation. This will affect the video quality on screen, but it is a playable file at least.

We also had our first taste of DVD Studio Pro, and by using a basic manual, we managed to create a clean and relevant menu for our DVD. 

Along with this we created a disc with a Quicktime file of the film.

Portrait of Place (with James Mellors): A New Idea

Following an edit tutorial with Debbie, James and I decided that our footage was not up to standard and decided to rethink our whole project. We decided that the themes and ideas would be the same, but the content much more simple in order to pay more attention to how the shots look. The portrayal of man's interaction with the natural world would be the same, but the outlook would be much more positive; less of a destructive interaction and more of a man getting back in touch with the earth.

At the weekend, we went to Endcliffe Park and headed towards the Peak District in order to shoot our new idea. This shoot went far more successfully, and we were much more pleased with the outcome when we came to edit.

We managed to rough edit in a day and are now close to completing our piece. Because of the change of mood, we also decided to rename our film. The new title is 'Earth Man'.

Portrait of Place (with James Mellors): After the Shoot...

The first location shoot was rather difficult for us, the weather and light was uncooperative. However, we managed to shoot all that we wanted to before the weather got really bad, without damaging the equipment. We had to omit various elements of our original storyboard due to practicalities; for example, the apple core rolling down the wall (we couldn't find a suitable wall), and various moments of the man-made surrealist sequence.

Going to edit, we discovered that our footage was poor: we had paid more attention to content of the scene over how the shot looked. It also looked like we should have made more use of the tripod to get still shots rather than the poor handheld shots we favoured. The next step is to make the best of what we have got and restructure the storyboard in order to be efficient with the editing.

In the edit suite, we have had a few problems with saving footage and losing shots, so we have had to start the project again. All we can say is that this was our first attempt at filmmaking, and we have learnt that we need to favour the cinematography over the events of the film, and be much more careful when working with Final Cut Pro.

Hopefully our next project will be much better...