The following is a small brainstorming session I had to write down after a meeting with my friend Reuben. We met up in Weatherspoons and discussed for a sound meeting and I just had to get these thoughts written. Enjoy.
(Note: this is just very rough writing, the CAPS represent characters whose names I don't know. Also, everything is quite a bit all over the place!)
Part I: General Mood & Opening
To understand a significant element of Reuben’s film, a viewing of the opening sequence of The Conversation (Coppola, 1974) is recommended (if not necessary). My Film references this scene when the camera follows a couple through a square and the spectator wonders who this couple is and what they are speaking about. While designing the sound to My Film, I often thought of this scene as an inspiration for it fits so well with the theme of surveillance.
First, the sound space here is filled with the chatter of people wandering around a splashing fountain, some birds chirp away in the trees. This combination of sounds will become a leitmotif which will recur several times throughout the film, sometimes slightly altered in the mix to place emphasis on different elements, but the aim is that it will be instantly recognized as the sound of the first scene. Unlike the scene in The Conversation, however, there will be no music playing through the scene, and the dialogue of the couple will be made inaudible in the mix (either through volume or covering it with stronger sounds).
Second, point of audition is an essential aspect of both sequences (and will be considered and experimented with throughout My Film). When the couple walks through the square, it is my hope to present the soundscape as it would be heard from the place where it is observed (the hotel window from scene 4). From this distance the fountain, birds and chatter of the crowd would be audible, but it would not be possible to make out the actual dialogue. In my opinion, it is also not essential that this dialogue is heard because the audience will be able to interpret the couples feelings through their gestures (hugs, arguing, etc.).
Third, because the sound of this scene will be layered over the action, without any specific synch-points, it can be interpreted as part of the actual film which the CHARACTER later tries to create. He reinacts the scene, or this could still be his recordings, and layers a recorded atmos track of a square on top of the footage. Either way, I feel this constructed element and relationship between the sound and image works when considering the uncertain background of all scenes in this film.
Part II: Music
Similar to the scores of Ennio Morricone, My Film's score will attribute the TWO MAIN CHARACTERS with leitmotif's, short musical tracks which will follow the characters through the film, as soon as the first note of these tracks will be heard, the audience will automatically think of the respective character.
Music is significant in several scenes, not only to set a mood, but also to form a rhythm or beat for the scene to follow and even become a diagetic part of the scene. However, once again, the added music can be interpreted as an element which is added by the CHARACTER, is it the music he imagines to go with the specific scene/recording? The notion of the filmmaker and the editing, layering and manipulation of filmic material, both visual and audio, keeps recurring, it is the essence of My Film.
After speaking to Reuben, I have a good idea of what he expects the score to sound like. His influences are, funny enough, David Shire's score to The Conversation, and Jon Brion's to Synecdoche New York. From these examples I take that the score will be made up of mostly piano songs, a comination of jazzy tunes and melancholic, lingering, notes.
One of the key moments in the score is scene 11, when ALL THREE CHARACTERS are in the theatre stage in the cinema. Here, short cello notes will set a musical pace for the action, dialogue and editing. The ACTOR speaks his line, is interrupted by the DIRECTOR mid-sentence, who is then interrupted by the score, mid-sentence. The next few beats of the score will then follow the DIRECTOR's movement up on stage, the ACTRESSES glance to the ACTOR and so forth. If we manage to pull this off I believe this will become one of the richest and technically exciting scenes of the film.
Part III: Overall Mood 2
To go back on the overall sound design of the film, it will be very minimalist and stripped back. I will attempt to strip down the soundtrack to its essentials, if there is no point in hearing dialogue you will not hear it. The lines which will then make it into the final film will be emphasized. Each scene will be given a key sound which acts as the major sync point and mood-giver to the scene, be it the fountain in the square, the running film projector in the projection room or the soft patter of rain outside the dance studio.
As stated earlier, point of audition plays an important role in the film's soundscape and I am hoping to experiment with it in several scenes. For example, most scenes in the 'theatre area' of the cinema will have two points. One will be among the seats of the cinema, behind where the DIRECTOR usually sits. The sound from here will contain a looser foley and a wider room tone, e.g. the room tone will be clearly audible and the movement on stage will be heard, but not very clearly or emphasized upon. The second point is on stage level. The sound from here will contain a very clear, sharp, focused foley which emphasizes certain physical intimacies and cuts out any other unwanted movement sounds. The room tone here will be closed in to create a more intimate space in which there is space to hear the characters' movements and breaths.
Overall, almost all sounds used will be sounds that exist on set and are realistic. The only sound which clearly stands out is the sound of entering the DIRECTOR's subjective space which is heard at the end of scene 11 into scene 12. What Reuben and me were thinking is using a sound from the location, I used the projector as an example, and manipulate it so it becomes an alien sound, it moves from a realistic sound to a mood sound. When used at the end of scene 11, we would cut from this alien mood sound into the DIRECTOR turning on the projector in the next scene, the sound of the projector here would again be the realistic sound. Not only then does the alien sound reflect the DIRECTOR's mood as he comes up the stairs (accompanied by moody effect-lighting), but it would also act as a precursor to the real projector heard after the cut.
