An exercise. watch short video clips with and without sound. Taking notes to discuss how sound affects image.
First clip How can I Tell I Miss You directed by Eva Tang 2020
https://www.marinabaysands.com/museum/events/asos-film-miss-you.html
I decided to watch with audio first and without second.
With audio: At the beginning the ambient sound makes you feel immersed. Creating thoughts of environments that i can imagine of nature in my head. Despite the footage not always matching. The close up recording of the vocals makes it feel more emotional and attaches themes of sadness. You can hear the subtle noises of the lips moving and contact within the mouth using a close mic technique which makes it feel more personal as if someone is speaking close to you, it makes me feel a connection. As if an old friend is telling me how they are feeling. The silence makes me feel uncomfortable. Even though its not pure silence it’s a very quiet ambient noises. It allows me to concentrate on the speech which also emphasises about the loneliness aspect of the pandemic. The ambience also made the images feel real and relate to the natural ambient sounds. When speaking about people wanting to escape, and hearing nature sounds with photos that don’t match was an interesting contrast. The sounds of the ocean towards the end made me feel relaxed.
Without audio: It seems like a diary. Less effective. I focused more and felt encapsulated by the glitchy part and focused more on the videos/photos. Photos of tiredness no longer felt related to escapism but It makes me think about how hard we work. It added an element of humour with the sleeping humans and dog. Some of the scenes felt a bit cheap and random. I felt confused and trying hard to understand it and sometimes i felt nothing. Although the last shot of the plane made me feel adventurous.
Contrast: I think in this first clip the sound added much more than i thought initially. When i watched it the second time without audio i was surprised by how much the sound at least for me carried this clip. With audio the clip seemed more personal and emotional. It added depth to the photos and clips shown. It got me more immersed in specific parts that didn’t have a lot going on visually. But also when the audio played the more interesting parts that captured me visually didn’t strike me when audio was being played.
Second clip Mr Foley dir. D.A.D.D.Y 2014
I decided to watch first without audio and with after. To create a variable in the exercise.
Without: At the start I found it funny, casts on his ears seemed stupid and like it was a comedy. I was confused as what’s going on. I feel like the patient is me or from my perspective. He’s deaf. Theres bass being played? Why is the jelly moving? It started making me frustrated and that I wanted to hear what was going on. Slight anxiety and claustrophobia. Again more confusion the nurses facial expressions creep me out. I related with why he wanted to run. The Cgi effects of the sky was cheap. And the bird as well. Felt like he could hear the bird. Realised he was deaf. But it’s actually someone playing a bird noise. So he is deaf? I get it its foley art. The title makes sense. So they’re doing all the sound effects.
With: The casts are creating the sound effects of tape and once removed didnt clear up. It’s funny and aesthetically interesting. Mabye it’s all in his head what’s happening. Is he in a psych ward. Why are they copying his every action. Cool concept. surrealism. Performance felt forced and weird from. Slightly more psychotic as it goes on. The silence made me concentrate more on the sound effects. And what the band are lacking such as footsteps and what he’s doing. The sound was his ears the vinyl crackle. Lack of ambience makes you think about the sound effects more.
Contrast: I’m unsure if me listening without audio first influenced my decision but i feel like i preferred it without as only at the end i realised it was foley sounds being played. The cliff hanger took me a while to get which i think was more effective. Without sound it seemed more surreal and had elements of a thriller or horror movie. It made me feel more uncomfortable than with audio, although with audio it was more humorous. I concentrated more on the footage again without any sound effects. With sound the nurse in particular stood out as more crazy with the audio which without i didn’t really pick that up.