Sense of Space - The Bates Motel Editing

With the Bates Motel edited, it is very hard to show exactly how we have been creative with our piece. We didn't encounter any problems as such, only where a lack of recordings is concerned. We could have done with a few more recordings of breathing and the movement of clothes in order to give a detailed sense of a character within a place (i.e. Marion in the hotel room).
The greatest triumph I feel was the atmosphere underlying the whole piece, it gives a real sense of movement from the bedroom to the bathroom. I think our creative use of panning gives a sense of where everything is in the room, in particular, the bathroom and window in relation to the character at the desk in the bedroom.

Here is a visual example of our editing

Here you can see how panning and volume was used to give the impression of Marion leaving the bedroom and heading for the bathroom. We stay static in one place as she moves away and then reappear with her in the bathroom.

Sense of Space - The Bates Motel Planning

The Bates Motel

Equipment List

1 x Marantz 660 Recorder

            Settings:         PCM 44.1k

                                    Presets 1 and 2 (Mono and Stereo)

                                    Phantom Power 

1 x Omnidirectional Microphone

1 x Rifle Microphone

1 x Tie Clip Microphone set

1 x Hydrophone plus contact rubber

The Bates Motel

Visual and Audio Timelines

This is the initial stage of our planning. We watched the scene through from 0 to 3 minutes exactly and charted exactly what was happening and when.

This is the 0 – 1 minute visual representation of our audio timeline. There will be 4 tracks, and the first track will be saved for atmos tracks.

This is the 1 – 2 minute audio timeline. As you can see, the fourth track is from now until the end reserved for the shower sound FX.

This is the 2 – 3 minute audio timeline.

Ideas for sound recording:

Stabbing – a knife thrust into a boned chicken

Quiet room atmos – near a window with distant traffic

Bathroom atmos – room in which heating can be heard, recorded near a radiator

Shower – 2 x mono tracks, one close to the head of the shower, one where the water hits the tub

Curtain rail – actual curtain rails OR coathangers

Curtain pulled off – coat poppers and metal nails

Body thump – chicken dropped on the floor

Everything else can be made with the actual object at close range.

Sense of Space - Proof!

Proof that the scene in question in Psycho is not nearly as effective without the music

Link to YouTube (embedding disabled)

Sense of Space - Douglas Gordon

In researching art based around Psycho itself, I found the work of Douglas Gordon. He has created '24 Hour Psycho'. I have included pictures and exerts from the Guardian Arts archive to describe the work and the interview with the artist himself.


Link to Guardian Arts article on 24 Hour Psycho

Douglas Gordon's exhibition 'What Have I Done?' begins with a slowed-down version of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho. A different take on a familiar classic, it introduces many of the important themes in Gordon's work: recognition and repetition, time and memory, complicity and duplicity, authorship and authenticity, darkness and light.


Douglas Gordon in his own words:
"24 Hour Psycho, as I see it, is not simply a work of appropriation. It is more like an act of affiliation... it wasn't a straightforward case of abduction. The original work is a masterpiece in its own right, and I've always loved to watch it. ... I wanted to maintain the authorship of Hitchcock so that when an audience would see my 24 Hour Psycho they would think much more about Hitchcock and much less, or not at all, about me...

A large mirror reflects Gordon's 24 Hour Psycho back at itself, beginning a game of spatial illusion and psychological instability that continues throughout the exhibition. Also caught in the mirror is a new work, Fog (2002). Using original footage shot by the artist, Fog takes its inspiration from a 19th-century Scottish novel by James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824).

I think it is very interesting that Gordon's aim is to elevae appreciation of Hitchcock's work by slowing down his piece: "I wanted to maintain the authorship of Hitchcock so that when an audience would see my 24 Hour Psycho they would think much more about Hitchcock and much less, or not at all, about me". This too, is our aim in creating 'The Bates Motel', to take away from what I believe is fairly unimaginative and poor sound for such a beautiful piece of cinematography, and make the sound match the brilliant tension created by Hitchcock visually. 

Sense of Space - Jym Davis

Following the theme of 'horror'/'thriller' that comes with Psycho, I have proceeded to look for some further artistic inspiration. In my research I have come across Jym Davis, painter and video artist, who does a lot of haunting pieces with evocative soundscapes.

Jym Davis Website

Link to Jym Davis Art Website


Link to Jym Davis YouTube Channel

White Space

Here is the first example that I came across; a variation on the theme of creation, inspired by the creation of Adam...
"formed man from the dust of the ground"
A human head emerges and descends from a chalky white pool, referencing the original man being created by God, though it possesses qualities of science fiction with its etherial quality.
I think that this piece is useful to my project because when you listen to the sounds, you can really sense tension and an uncomfortable atmosphere from the digital warping.

In Flux

The description on Davis' YouTube channel reads:

"If "White Space" is about the materials of the Genesis Bible creation account, then "In Flux" is about the spiritual...a figure passing from life into death. We are again presented with a figure's head, this time the white mud is replaced by a blurred light and eminating colors."

This piece is especially beautiful in terms of sound. The recordings in this can be derived from natural sounds, but they have been digitally edited to make body sounds, which I think is a really interesting concept. It is this avante garde style that really evokes a terrifying atmosphere when you close your eyes and listen to the soundtrack.

Sound and video art

Jym Davis also plays with how sound and video art is presented. For example, His works 'Chapel' and 'Peep-hole' are sculptures through which videos can be viewed. I like the idea of playing with how the audience would experience our sound art piece, perhaps through headphones rather than speakers.

'Chapel' (w/a Brett Mullinix), video sculpture, LCD screen, video loop, 2009

'Peep-hole', video sculpture, wood, LCD, video loop, 2007

Sense of Space - Rich Ragsdale

In my research on YouTube I have found director and composer Rich Ragsdale, whose filmic pieces are extremely inspired by his own music.


The first piece I came across was this test for an experimental dance piece. Like Psycho, it relies heavily on its soundtrack and camera/edit techniques to create the effect that it does, however, I have picked out some really fantastic moments of sound where the low frequencies and almost electronic wavering create such a spine chilling atmosphere. Like Psycho, the music comes to a definite climax, and I think we need to pick this out in our sound piece - we need to do something digitally to make the stabbing of Marion a landmark in the project.

Continuing to research Rich Ragsdale, I found that he takes a special interest in German expressionist cinema and silent film. Many of his pieces are based heavily around a soundtrack, so there is not much more that I can take from his work. 


Link to Rich Ragsdale YouTube channel

Sense of Space - Psycho

The Bates Motel

For the sense of space project, we debated several different ideas, including creating Dante's Inferno - which we decided would be very ambitious as it required many layers of sound and a lot of tracks to keep up with - and a piece about the famous 'Hole In The Road' which used to exist in Sheffield.

However, the most interesting and evocative idea that we came up with was to recreate the shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film, Psycho. The idea was born out of the consideration that some very famous cinematic scenes are completely defined by a non-diegetic soundtrack. The murder scene in Psycho is a fantastic example of this. Upon watching the clip of this scene in Psycho, we noticed that the sounds are very limited and thin, and the famous score by Hitchcock's most frequently used composer Bernard Herrman creates all of the shock factor that the scene is so famous for.

We decided that we would attempt to create a 3 minute soundscape of the Bates Motel, recreating this scene with the aim to induce more tension than the film itself. We will attempt to edit it so that it could be laid over the muted sequence and it would fit completely.

In terms of the development of sounds in the piece, it will begin with Marion writing at the desk in the motel room and then move from the bedroom to the bathroom, really picking out the sounds of her movement along the way. The tension will rely on very acute attention to detail and a very quiet solitary atmosphere. We will use a variety of microphones to evoke tension in the listener, for example, the possibility of using contact microphones to feel Marion's footless into the bathtub, and hydrophones to feel as if we are with Marion in the shower. We will use sounds that cannot be heard in the film that we feel would add to the atmosphere, for example, the breaths of the killer, Norman Bates.

The biggest question is, from whose perspective should the sequence be. We could do it as if we are Marion, or we could do it from the perspective of the camera. There is also the possibility of doing it from the perspective of the killer, but that would assume that he was hiding in the room the whole time. We think that it would be most effective to act like an omniscient presence, but staying very close to Marion throughout.

We feel that the recording of the piece will be fairly easy, it is the creation of tension that will be difficult, and to do this, we need to be subtle about our manipulation of tracks. Too heavily edited, it will be very difficult to feel as if we are in a real place. The other difficulty will be making the track fit with the sequence, however, it is not an impossible task if we chart a sound map of the film as well as our project.