Sound Observation #2

We stopped in a Barnes & Noble while recording sound. Our first thought was to get sound from the cafe which was sure to be filled with different people there for different reason.
While we recorded, we got the babble of people talking and the music of the store playing faintly in the background. The loudest thing I could hear, though, was the crinkle of a woman's wrapper as she ate her food from Starbucks.
We heard the scratch of metal chairs against the tiled floor and the cash register making noises while baristas took orders.
We kept moving around the store and I noticed how our footsteps changed based on where we walked. There was the obvious difference between our shoes tapping on the tiled sections and those same steps thumping quietly on the rest of the carpeted floor. But the center of the store was more interesting. It includes a raised platform and out feet thumped again, but it was deeper and much louder, almost like we were taking muffled steps along a boardwalk. It was one of my favorite sounds that we found.

Sound Observations #1

Walking across the stretch of grass in front of the library lets you soak in a lot of the campus sound without being surrounded by a crowd of bikes and bodies.
I can hear the steps of the students. Everyone's voices mostly congeal together into a murmur, but every once in a while I hear someone bark out a laugh that carries clearly. I can hear the people behind me talking about how many math assignments they have left. One of them is on a skateboard. I can hear the wheels sliding along the cement and bumping across the cracks.
I can hear the clicking of bike chains too. Most of them are steady, but some of them slow down while their drivers touch on the brakes, trying their best not to run into someone.
When I get closer to the sidewalk again, I can hear people stepping off the cement and onto the grass. Their steps move from hard to soft, the grass making a shhh sound against the rubber of their shoes or the skin of their bare feet.
I can hear the doors to buildings opening too. Students shove their hands against the metal and it makes a sound close to a crash before going quiet and then slamming closed again.

In response to "Theory of the Film: Sound"

One of my favorite parts about the use of sound in film is the sudden importance of silence. Balazs mentions this in his section on sound where he describes how impossible it is for anything to create silence in the way the sound film does. The best part is when he says that silent films couldn't do it. Naturally, we might assume that silent cinema is the master of silence, but it's much harder to be quiet when you're allowed to be loud than to just continue to be silent where you never could be anything but that.

I also think it's useful how he talks about the isolation of sound and how, when working with sound, we have to be careful not to completely isolate them because they may sound unnatural.

In response to "Amateur vs. Professional"

"Amateurs" was the title of the first set that I worked on. So seeing Maya Deren place a loving weight on the word feels extremely encouraging.
I can definitely connect with Deren's words about the intimidation that comes with being an "amateur" anything, whether that be a filmmaker or something else. It gets scary when you hear others around you talk about their long list of experience.
It's also interesting to think about the contrasting dynamics as you move further in the film world. Usually, as someone moves along in their field more and more opportunities open up for them. While I'm sure this still applies to film, Deren also seems to be describing another aspect of the film industry in which you sometimes have to stop working with just your friends on just projects you love with all your heart and start having to sometimes work with people you don't like on projects you don't completely love. It's not enough to make me feel like I dread what's coming, but it's enough to encourage me to enjoy my time as an "amateur".

In response to "What is experimental film?"

Every time I learn about experimental film, I feel like a majority of the discussions are based on the question of what experimental film is. It's difficult to pin down because everyone has a different opinion on what it means to experiment with film.

I've taken notes on the six criteria presented in Camper's piece multiple times and they seem to make sense. The one that always feels most important to me is number four, the idea that experimental film is conscious of being film. This concept includes the process of physically changing the film with methods like bleaching it or scratching it or any other number of things in works like Brakhage's Mothlight. I feel like this part of the "definition" puts importance on the act of performing an actual experiment where film just happens to be part of the materials used.

I feel like experimental film should strive to add something new just like scientific experiments strive to prove theories or add new ideas to the world.

In the end, I appreciate that Camper acknowledges that the criteria he lays out are not necessary to define a work as "experimental" because the illusiveness of the definition is part of the medium itself by now.

Artist Bio

My name is Danet. I was originally born in Portage, Indiana, but my mom, sister and I moved to the Garner area when I was in the fifth grade.

Constantly encouraged by my grandma's urging to always put my love of art into practice lest I lose the talent she saw in me, I grew up thinking there was nothing else in the world for me except doing art and adopting several cats. So far, the art part of my life is going great. And I've got one whole cat.

I mainly want to pursue a career in production design, but I also hope to learn a thing or two about animation and possibly build a place for myself in the world of concept art.

The picture here is of me (when my hair was cooler) in a front of a really rad sculpture made completely of cardboard.