S.O.S. Kitchen Sound Factory

Because I could not find any sound artists that uses the kitchen enviroment, kitchen sound effects or creates kitchen sound effects. So I gave up searching and just went onto the easy youtube...where I suprisingly found this!
It's not exactly what mine & Amy's project will be like but we think the rhythm of the different sounds work really well, although they could be put together more tightly. We like this rhythm beat going on in the kitchen and the over layering of sounds on top of each other being introduced bit by bit. We are going to have to have a think as to if the rhythm idea will work for our project. If we do we will have to see if it does create a sense of stress, chaos & panic (maybe by making the volume rise & rise as the duration goes on), but also will it work well enough with the script & narrative of the chef's & waiter?

S.O.S. Research

A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints - Dito Montiel - 2006
Unfortunately I could not find any video clips or sound extracts of this film showing the use of sound.

Although nothing to do with cooking or restaurant work when Amy & I decided that we wanted to capture a lot of sounds that creates a lot of carnage, anger & almost too much for the ears this film came straight to my mind.

I believe this film captures the sense of space of its setting extremely well. As the film is based in Queens, New York, when the main characters are walking around the city there is constant loud sound happening throughout. Sounds of:

-          Screaming & arguing

-          Police and ambulance sirens

-          Breaking of windows & bottles

-          Trash cans being knocked over

-          Car horns & vehicle crashes

There is a lot more sounds as well that are all at a high volume at the same time to the point where you can hardly hear the main characters say their lines. This captures the sense of city living I believe incredibly well as it also works with the message and mood of the film. The use of the sounds and what volumes they are at creates this unbearable sense of being trapped in the city, carnage, craziness, the city that never rests or sleeps, a sense of no escape & having no peace of mind.

  This is exactly the kind of sense Amy & I want to create & capture for our project as we want to create a sense of stress, anger & claustrophobia in a restaurant kitchen. Like ‘A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints’ we will layer the sounds over each other making the volumes louder & louder to put you in the chef’s stressed state of mind.

S.O.S. Research

Amy & I decided to watch films based on cooking & chef's to listen to how they use the sound in the cooking & kitchen scenes. We have done this to gain an understanding on how they capture the sound to see how they can help us with our Sense of Space project.

Julie & Julia - Nora Ephron - 2009
Unfortunately I could not find any video clips or sound extracts of this film showing the use of sound.

At 33 minutes & 26 seconds in Meryl Streep’s character Julia is in a cooking lesson along with her fellow trainee chef’s cooking what seem to be pancakes. Amy & I both like how the volume of each sizzle of melting butter from each chef is captured on the same level throughout, even when there is speech & the saucepans are off screen (this is the same with the clattering of the saucepans onto the cooker). These two sounds together are of high emphasis, repeated over & over & the volume is also raised when the mixture is added to the saucepan.

Amy & I believe this gives a sense of pressure & stress to the trainee chef’s but also a sense to succeed which is definitely what Amy & I are trying to capture for our Sense of Space project. However we will use a lot more different cooking sounds that are in kitchens, layering them over each other to get a more claustrophobic, manic & stressful sense of space.

S.O.S. Research

Amy & I decided to watch films based on cooking & chef's to listen to how they use the sound in the cooking & kitchen scenes. We have done this to gain an understanding on how they capture the sound to see how they can help us with our Sense of Space project.

The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover - Peter Greenaway - 1989
Unfortunately I could not find any video clips or sound extracts of this film showing the use of sound.

During the kitchen & cooking scenes throughout this film there are many ways Peter Greenaway has chosen to use sound that Amy & I found very interesting & definitely works well for our idea on how we imagined to use sound for our project.
There was great amount of emphasis on certain sounds that are happening in the scene but also further away from the camera which allows you to hear them as though you are right next to them. For example:

-          Sharpening of knives

-          Chopping & preparing of food

-          Movement & clattering of cutlery & plates

Also even in the scenes that are not based in the kitchen but in the restaurant where customers are eating there meals, there is the constant sound of cutlery cutting food on plates, chewing of food & slurps of drinking. These sounds are constantly changing levels of volume depending on the focus of the story and main characters in focus as well.

At 32 minutes & 20 seconds in there is a scene in the kitchen where there is the use of a strong echo which makes the sound of beating of food, whisking of sauces & knives being sharpened stand out & more dominant. Also the level of volume is raised when these tasks are the only thing that is in focus of the camera, capturing every minor detail in the sound of these actions.

At 36 minutes in & 9 seconds in attention to the sound again is raised when the Pot Washer is in the scene where you can hear the slightest detail in movement or action. For example:

-          Scraping the leftover food of plates with hands

-          The slightest ripple of water & splashes when plates are placed into the sink

-          Clattering of the plates when they are placed onto the drying racks

Throughout these scenes where there is great emphasis on the sound characters are speaking & the narrative is happening in the film normally as it would be like in real life which Amy & I found very interesting.

Towards the end of film there is a great scene which we believed captured sound greatly. When the main characters are in the kitchen they walked past certain cooking appliances so they were in focus of the camera, which then the volumes was raised. When the characters walked away from the appliances & they were no longer in view there volumes was lowered again so you could no longer see them. For example:

-          The bubbling of boiling water in pots that sit on top of cookers

-          The hissing of steam from hot water when near the sinks & the Pot Washer

After we watched the film Amy & I tried to find out how they could have captured these sounds in this certain way, maybe by placing hidden mics on characters & hid mics behind certain props (also record the sounds out of screen & when editing placing them in sync with the images). As there are no visuals in this project we believe it will be slightly easier to capture the sound as we can place the mics anywhere because we do not need to worry about them being in view of a camera.

S.O.S. 1st Tutorial

Just had our first tutorial with Debbie explaining our idea for the project ‘Sense of Space’. She gave us a lot of helpful tips such as being wary not to fall into the generic kitchen genre pieces, such as Gordon Ramsay’s television cooking shows with just a lot of swearing & arguing & to be just more creative with what sounds we capture (possibly create a rhythm of sound with sounds like a musical piece?). She also gave us the name artists who we should research whose work sometimes capture the sounds of kitchens in different methods and styles such as Vicki Bennett.

S.O.S. Initial Idea

Today I had a meeting with Amy to discuss possible ideas and story for our project ‘Sense of Space’. Because we did similar tranquil pieces with our previous project ‘Portrait of Place’ we both agreed very quickly that we wanted to go down a different route and capture sounds or create a story that captures a lot of noise & carnage & make it almost too much for the ears.

After a few discussions of possible ideas we decided that we would like to capture the sense of stress & anger in the workplace. Our chosen workplace would set place in a restaurant kitchen. The moods we want to capture are stress, panic, chaos & anger. Luckily I know of someone that works as a Head Chef in a restaurant so I will ask if it is ok to make the piece in his kitchen workplace. If not due to the kitchen being too busy or health & safety risks Amy & I will ask to enter the kitchen for a short while just to make notes of the different sounds & get an understanding of how a kitchen works.

  Just to be safe that we are not allowed to make our ‘Sense of Space’ in the restaurant kitchen Amy & I created a fictionalized rough script for the project with details of sound effects & what order they go in but also the narrative of the Chef’s & Waiter who work at the restaurant (to give a simple idea of what we both are looking for). So therefore it will be a fictional ‘Sense of Space’ but based on real situations that happen in kitchens, hopefully this will come through successfully as we try to re-create the mood. We both decided that we will use my kitchen with a number of different microphones placed around different spots in the kitchen to capture as many different sounds & sound effects as possible.

 Amy & I also created a list of films we should research that have kitchen scenes in them to research the way they capture sound. These films include:
The Cook, the Thief, his Wife & her Lover
Ratatouille
Julie & Julia

We also together made a list of sounds we would expect to capture in a kitchen and placed these into the scripts in certain stages as well:

- Chef’s talking and giving orders

- Knives being sharpened

- Clanging of pots

- Cutlery moving

- Pots being washed in sink

- Boiled water bubbling in pots

- Sizzle in pans of oil & food

- Radio in background (have to be careful of copyright infringement)

- Plates being broken and clattering together

- Orders being made from waiter

- Slicing & preparing of food

(These sounds will be repeated over & over & then layered on top of each other to create a sense of chaos, the volume levels on certain sounds will also be heightened & lowered at certain times so the audience can focus & distinguish what sounds they are hearing throughout).

S.O.S. Thomas Bangalter & Gaspar Noe

There is another piece of what I find to be strange, eerie & unsettling piece music i discovered also created by Delia Derbyshire called 'Music of the Spheres'.
To listen click the link below:
http://www.myspace.com/deliaderbyshire1937/music/songs/doctor-who-4553346

When listening to this piece of music it instantly reminded me of the music created by Thomas Bangalter used for the highly brutal & disturbing film 'Irreversible' directed by Gaspar Noe.Although I believe its an incredible piece of filmmaking & I highly praise Gaspar Noe, I found the film extremely shocking & disturbing & pretty much destroyed my whole entire life for a good couple of weeks. Especially as I was about 15 when I first watched it not really knowing what I was getting myself into.

The confusing, dizzying & disorientating camera work & lighting with the music by Thomas Bangalter included for the highly distressing scene in the underground sex club called 'La Rectum' pysically made me sick. If your going to watch the film, seriously not for the faint hearted!

'Rectum' - Thomas Bangalter

Thomas Bangalter also created the soundtrack for Gaspar Noe's third feature lenght 'Enter The Void', which again I found to be visually incredible & a brilliant modern masterpiece of filmmaking. Here is one of the greatest (but most disorientating) opening sequences I have ever seen (especially on the big cinema screen) from 'Enter The Void' featuring the music by Thomas Bangalter.

S.O.S. Delia Derbyshire

Delia Ann Derbyshire (5 May 1937 - 3 July 2001) was an English musician and composer of electronic music and musique concrète. She is best known for her electronic realisation of Ron Grainer's theme music to the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and for her work with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Some of her work reminds me slightly of the Ambient work of Brian Eno. Click the link to listen.
http://www.ubu.com/sound/derbyshire.html

Whereas most of her work sounds very haunting and unsettling but in a very different way from Hildegard Westerkamp, Instead Delia uses a lot of deep & heavy electronic riffs which is incredibly eerie. 

'Nightwalker' - Delia Derbyshire

'Depression' - Delia Derbyshire

'Psychadelian Waltz' - Deliah Derbyshire

'Blue Veils & Golden Sand' - Deliah Derbyshire

S.O.S. Hildegard Westerkamp

‘Beneath The Forest Floor’ – Hildegard Westerkamp – 1992

Extract 1
 http://audiogallery.musiccentre.ca/en/work.php?section=electronic%20frontiers&work=52775

Extract 2
http://soundcloud.com/ear-room/hildegard-westerkamp

Throughout creates a sense of space of unease as it comes across to me as very chilling & haunting.

Throughout you can hear the sound of birds, flapping wings, bugs, howling winds brushing leaves & possible bats & other wildlife that I cannot distinguish. However for me it does not create a space of peacefulness, the mood is very eerie & unsettling & along with the added low bass rumble it gave me a sense of being lost at night in the forest.

The Panning of the sound from speaker to speaker showed movement & made me feel as though you was there in forest with the wildlife moving around you.

'A Walk Through The City' - Mildegard Westerkamp - 1981

Extract 1
http://johnroach.net/wordpress/lab/?p=78

Extract 2 (At bottom of page)
http://www.ymxmedia.com/en/oeuvres/fiches/a/w/a-walk-through-the-city-westerkamp-ruebsaat.php

Based on a poem with the same title like Westerkamp’s other example ‘Beneath the Forest Floor’ this again does not create a sense of positivity.

From the beginning of the sound of planes over head to the brakes of cars to the whistle of trains, this all creates a sense of space of intrusion of personal space as it is all very loud and almost unbearable, I believe it creates a negative impression of the city as there is not escape from all this noise.  The sounds come in with very immediate quick cuts that are alarming, sharp & somewhat painful. It gets into your personal space and stays there so you cannot escape or think about anything else, there is also a constant low rumbling and the sound pans from one speaker to another throughout which create an unsettling sense of space and again make you feel you are there amongst all the chaos.

S.O.S. Possible Ideas

From making a tranquil & peaceful piece in the 'portrait of place' project, I like the idea of creating something incredibly unsettling & haunting or something that gives a sense of chaos, anger & stress...maybe in some kind of certain setting, situation or work enviroment?

I'm going to do some research on music composer's such as Hildegard Westerkamp & Delia Derbyshire & also look into how sound is used in certain films to create a sense of chaos & stress etc.

S.O.S Examples

Example 2

'Jarman's Garden' - Sherre DeLys - 2000 - 14'49''

http://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/library/4-jarman-s-garden

Before British filmmaker Derek Jarman passed away after his long battle with AIDS he put a lot of time into creating a very unique garden. Sherre DeLys visited the garden and created this impressionistic piece of her experience there.

Through most part of this audio piece there is a lot of ambient music used in the background along with the sound of calm wind & wind chimes. We can hear footsteps on pebbles & the sound of waves & seagulls which gives a sense of space of being near the shore. This all creates the sense of space of calmness and tranquillity & allows the listener to have a sense of what it is like there even though they cannot see it.

At one point the ambient music fades out & sounds of creaking & movement on floorboards fade in which give a sense of space that they have left the garden and now ventured inside the cabin.

I like how this piece mixes both natural & un-natural sounds together as throughout there are sounds of what seems to be clanging on metal, which could be ornaments created by Jarman in the garden, which I believe is trying to give a sense of space to the post-industrial feel of the garden as well as the natural calmness.

Towards the end of the audio piece there is no sound but waves brushing on the shore for a long period. I believe this is trying to create a sense of space into what it may have been like for Jarman to live there. We are going into Jarman's mind & discovering what it was like for him to sit there and listen to the sound of nothing but the waves and the wing giving a peaceful and atmospheric sense of space. I believe this could also be used as to make the audience reflect on Jarman, his work & what he did for people.

Sense of Space

Just been given our new Creative Media Project in which we have to create a 3 minute piece to create a Sense of Space through the use of audio only. We have to work in pairs again and this time my partner is Amy Jackson.

  In the class we was shown a number of audio listening materials to give us an idea of what we shall have to do for the project but also maybe give us inspiration for our own idea and final work. Here I'm going to briefly write about my personal favourites and why I liked them.

Example 1

‘Meat Factory Ear Worms’ - Rishie Beirne – 2008 - 13’47’’

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/the-curious-ear-doconone-meat-factory-ear-worms.html

In this audio piece Rishie Beirne is reliving his time when he uses to work on the killing lines in the Irish slaughterhouses.

Throughout Rishie Beirne is narrating his time working in the slaughterhouses. Two pieces of music keep repeating & replaying throughout the piece which Rishie calls 'Ear Worms' as they get stuck in his head. He uses these pieces of music as an escape from the tough & grim work he does.

There is a lot of repetition throughout the piece which gives sense of a never ending dullness and also slight sense of disorientation, this is also created with the use of certain words being repeated over with sound effects such as alarm clocks. In the background throughout there are sounds of machines, movement and knives being sharpened they are repeated over & at times come out of nowhere at a high level of volume, which gives sense of Rishie being brought back to his unhappy & grim environment & work.

  This piece also goes into the personal space of Rishie as well as we enter his mind, thoughts & emotions. He goes into a very forward and blunt detail of how he kills the animals with the sound of the machines & knives in the background throughout however there is no actual sound of animals being killed or cut or actually just being there throughout. Again I believe this gives sense of his escapism as to do his job he has to lose any kind of attachment or emotion for the animal and they are not included in this piece as it reflects him shutting it out of his mind.

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights - Andrea Arnold - 2011

Never really been interested in the book, but director Andrea Arnold is incredible. Her past films are a major influence of mine. She is also collaborating with Cinematographer Robbie Ryan who I think is brilliant and have top respect for.

P.O.P. Presentation Notes & Final Thoughts

Mine & Katie's Film 'Earth Man' explores the human condition in the natural world. It leaves behind the contemporary issues to do with man's negative destruction of the enviroment and instead looks at how man himself can become at one with the earth once again.

Our original idea was to create an experimental film that showed a flow of natural life interrupted by humans through the displacement of bizarre man-made objects in an outdoor setting.
We proceeded to plan and storyboard this idea in detail and this was filmed in Edale but with little success. We concentrated too much on the content rather than the cinematography and overall just didnt work.

We re-planned a film with a similar theme, but a more positive outlook and with a much more simpler content. With this in mind, we took camera's back out into a rural location and created 'Earth Man'.
Me & Katie worked on the planning stages together in both instances with the same vision and on set Katie filmed the shots with myself in, though I was involved in saying how I wanted certain shots to look. I also did camera work when it came to experimenting with the pull focus & close up's while Katie looked at how the camera could fuse with light.
In the edit suite, desisions were made together, sequences cut equally by us both and Katie worked with the effects, transitions & titles.

Katie & I were inspired by the work of Joe King & Rosie Pedlow, who capture changing enviorments without drastic movement or human involvement. We were also influenced by Emily Richardson's 'Aspect' which plays with detail amd light in a woodland using experiemental approaches to close up's and transitions. This is clear in 'Earth Man' where the detail in leaves and water are brought to the screen in close ups and pull focuses. We intentionally used over exposed shots and sun glare to create a tranquil, dream-like atmosphere and our pivotal moment comes when the protagonist and his enviroment are shown through this style to mark the moment when the man immerses himself in the earth.

Watching 'Earth Man' Katie & I both felt we could have made the turning point in the film much more powerful; at present it is just a change in cutting speed and euphoric colour, though we feel these shots add to the surreal moos of the film and the hypnotic way in which the world is taking the 'Earth Man' in. At times the cuts seem a bit disjointed, and we feel that maybe we should have planned better how the shots would fit together, especially where a moving cuts to a still. We played with the manual focus a lot and this works in some sequences, but perhaps we overused it. Apart from that, the film suffers in a small way from a slightly weak narrative structure, though we have done our best to structure the man's journey chronologically and at times we see a small wobble of the camera - a case of poor attention on set.

P.O.P Editing

Screen Grab From Our Editing

The editing process of our project came together very successfully with very few problems arising. The only main biggest problem we came across was coverting our hard drives so that they was Mac compatible so we save our work. After a meeting with our tutor Debbie Ballin she gave us a lot of helpful tips which included just tightning a few cuts so the whole piece worked well together and creating a much more powerful turning point for our main protagonist in the film.

Screen Grab From Our Editing

Screen Grab From Our Editing

Hors Satan

Hors Satan - Bruno Dumont - 2011

CANNOT WAIT TO SEE THIS!

BRUNO DUMONT!

THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY.

P.O.P Re-plan & re-shoot

The New Plan
After a tutorial with Debbie where we had to show a rough edit of our work for Portrait of Place project, Katie & I came to the conclusion that we will rethink & reshoot our idea as we was completely unhappy with the outcome of the original shoot.
Therefore Katie & I had a meeting between ourselves where we decided to film a more simple idea but with more creative shots rather than just focus what was in the shot. We still liked the idea of our main focus being nature and the interaction of the human world with nature. So at the end of the meeting we decided that our idea would be a more positive and peaceful idea. We planned to shoot man walking in the Peak District where he begins to drop and leave his clothing and possessions therefore becoming at one with the earth once again. We decided we would have a lot of shots focusing on certain parts of the environment and the human body, using a lot of close ups, zooms, pans & tilts also playing around with the focus to get a lot of peaceful, dreamlike shots.

After The New Shoot
As we didn't have enough money to go back to Edale Katie & myself decided to start out filming in Endcliffe Park and walk our way out into the beginning of the Peak. Overall we were more than happy with our shoot, especially as the weather was much more permitting allowing us to get more interesting shots without damaging the camera. We are now currently in the process of editing...

P.O.P St. Johns Asylum

I recently went for a trip with a friend who does photography at a University in London. She had a project to do & she wanted to do something unlike she has done before. Therefore the day trip ended up in us driving to Lincoln & breaking into an old, run down, closed Asylum called St. Johns Asylum (not sure I should put on this blog that we broke in but oh well!). The Asylum was founded in 1848 & closed in 1989.
Along with my friends very nice, beautiful, proffessional camera I took my very old, basic camera along with me so I could take some shots as well. To be honest even though my camera isnt the best or proffessional I got some shots that I like very much and thought I would upload them on here for you to see. Overall it was a very interesting day, although the Asylum was HUGE & EXTREMELY creepy, was not a lovely atmosphere at all, you could just tell there was a lot of horrible, unfortunate events that happened in each room we entered.
If you click on the photo's you can see a larger slideshow of each photo.

A fair few but there you have it , a good day out...Need to break into abandoned old places more often :P

P.O.P 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.