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.

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.