Blog Assignment Four: Reflections on Sound Design

The following post will be based upon the sound design of one of my all-time favorite scenes in cinema, wherein Margot Tenenbaum picks up her brother Richie Tenenbaum at the pier in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums.



Below is a transcription of the scene.

The “By way of the Green Line Bus” scene from The Royal Tenenbaums wonderfully illustrates the perceptions of space and time that can be created through the use of sound.

Space is conveyed through the use of echo, panning, and varied levels which create a sense of vastness on the pier and emulates the camera’s distance from the actors. A slight echo on the footsteps of the pedestrians and on the ships’ horns which blow throughout the scene give the sense of a large pier off-screen. And the panning of the sound of footsteps and luggage carts is used to convey the movement of the extras through the space even after they move off-screen, giving a sense of directionality to the sound and a horizontal vastness to the space of the pier. Thirdly, the lowered levels of the actors’ microphones during dialogue and the raising and lowering levels of wind and car noise put the spectator in the camera’s perspective and enhance the distance between the camera and Ritchie when he is talking to the fans.

Time is conveyed through sound primarily when the passage of time slows down as Margot gets off the bus. The ambient sounds of the pier and the street fade out, as she gets off symbolizing the slowing down of time. It becomes obvious through the cut to Ritchie however that this is more his perception of time than time itself, particularly when the background noises regain their original loudness as time restores to normal.

Blog Assignment Three: Brainwashed

This post is based upon the manifesto "Brainwashed, which you can read here.

The manifesto discusses seven "levers" which allow people to achieve success. I've summarized three of these below.

One of the levers Seth Godin mentions in “Brainwashed” is what he calls “Acknowledging the Lizard”. According to Godin, the “lizard” is the part of our brain which fears embarrassment and failure. This portion of our mind, which he says has been present since pre-historic man, keeps us from reaching our full creative potential by embarrassing into conformity. Another of Godin’s levers is “connecting”, which is going out of your way to create an actual personal connection to your consumers through the use of social media as opposed to treating them as tally marks in your list of followers. It also entails truly interacting with the consumer to create a more viable product and a more personal brand. A third lever of Godin’s is “Being Generous” which goes hand-in-hand with “connecting”, generously providing services and gifts to build said connections and increase your personal brand’s worth.

The levers I’ve summarized above strike me, largely due to their similarity to the manifesto delivered by one of my biggest professional inspirations: Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary’s latest book, The Thank You Economy is all about creating generous connections with consumers in order to receive feedback, build brand loyalty, and become a more socially conscious content producer. His previous book, Crush It, discussed “acknowledging the lizard” extensively stating that with the right amount of stubbornness, self-awareness, and capacity for embarrassment anyone can start a profitable business based on their passion.

Reading various professionals opinions and methods in this vein always inspires me as a student and as an artist. I think there’s a lot to be said about those who have achieved personal success and are willing to offer up their personal attitudes and strategies to those aspiring to be their competition. Reading these kinds of manifestos and evaluating them helps me to create my own attitudes toward success, creativity, and the “social web” environment our field is creating. People like Godin and Vaynerchuk have rode in on the first wave of this revolution, but they are more than willing to admit that the tide is building and it will be my generation which ultimately rides the biggest waves of this new phenomenon.

Keeping that in mind, I try to acquire as much advice as I can from these “trailblazers” and “trendsetters” as I can, because I know that I’ll shortly be launched into the same troubled waters they’re traversing. Its inspiring to see their success, but it also motivates me to one-up them and do it bigger and better than they ever dreamed. These stories are becoming increasingly common, and each one is more inspiring than the others, but they all share the same common threads Godin outlines in his manifesto. Seeing these commonalities gives me a roadmap to follow in my pursuit of similar success in my own projects.

In order to succeed in the Thank You Economy I need to: acknowledge my own personal lizard, create art, build connections, be generous, crush it, ship it, and keep those caring about those connections. This becomes increasingly clear to me with every new social network launched, every online retailer that goes public, and each YouTube superstar who records a successful single or becomes a red carpet host at an award show.

In that regard, I think that these exercises are immensely beneficial to me as a student, artist, and even as a person in this day and age.

Blog Assignment Two: Finding Your Howl

The following post is based upon the manifesto Finding Your Howl by Jonathon Flaum which can be downloaded and read free of charge from the link in the title.

One of the stories told in Jonathon Flaum's “Finding Your Howl” is that of an assignment he received in fifth grade wherein one of Flaum's classmates, Nick Thompson, wrote a short story. Thompson's story told the unfortunate tale of a caged tiger who plans his escape from captivity only to jump the cage and land in another one. This jumping from cage to cage goes on indefinitely until the end of the tiger's life presumably, which becomes a metaphor for the endless struggle we undergo to escape our self-made prisons and find our creative voice.

In finding my own howl, I often am drawn to a line spoken by Owen Harper from the BBC series “Torchwood” where he says of a complicated task he's attempting “Trust me, I'm an improviser.” This quote, to me, summarizes the process of finding one's own howl and also implementing it in an otherwise uncreative life.

Over the course of my life I've found that one of the hardest parts of creating anything is overcoming a fear of my own inabilities and ignorance. I get so self-conscious about the quality of work I can produce that I sometimes don't even attempt to create anything, or if I do I create based on a tried and true formula I've achieved success with previously. Learning to ignore the twinge of embarrassment and “Trust me” and the work I produce is something I constantly struggle with. I've also always had a tendency to over-analyze. I think myself into a box and then only allow myself to create within those confines.

While I'm confident of my improvisational skills I don't utilizes them as often as I should. “I'm an improviser”, but I take my improvised concepts and beat them to death in my head before I actually create anything out of them leaving the end result flat and uninteresting. Now don't get me wrong, a perfectly calculated, meticulously crafted piece of art or media is a wonderful sight to behold. However, there should also be a certain amount of unfiltered inspiration and improvisation in a work that places the artist's spirit into the work. Oftentimes I lose that spark within the larger context of the work, or I ignore it in hopes of pleasing a certain audience with the piece more than creating something I'm truly proud of. Finding that perfect balance of improvisation and craft is going to be one of the most difficult, but ultimately the most rewarding, steps along the way to finding my own creative voice.

As I get closer and closer to finding my howl I realize that it's going to be difficult at times to shake others with it as it has shaken me. Sharing ideas is one thing, but moving people with them is entirely different. In order to create in the way I hope to I'm going to have to get people to believe me when I say “Trust me, I'm an improviser.” I'm going to need to prove the strength of my idea as well as my flexibility and willingness to come up with quick changes and solutions when an issue arises with my original concepts. Part of this is going to come from building relationships in the field and building up a reputations; however, a majority of it is going to have to come from trusting in myself enough to take an improvised idea and follow through with it as far as possible.

When Owen says “Trust me, I'm an improviser” both the viewers and the other characters immediately get behind him. They've seen him work miracles in the past and they know he's going to give his all trying every solution he can come up with until the problem is solved. I can only hope that upon finding my howl I am treated with the same trust, respect, and willingness for collaboration.

Blog Assignment One: Character Deconstruction

In deconstructing characters I've chosen two iconic characters from the same film series. I won't reveal who the characters are until the end of the post for those interested in guessing.


Protagonist

For the protagonist's color scheme I chose black, white and gold. They portray the character's elegance as well as their viewpoint on the world. This character tends to view things in a good/bad kind of way often taking issue with characters who are ambivalent in nature. Thus, the black and white contrast. Everything this character does has an element of class and refinement to it. Even the most drastic of actions taken by this character are done gracefully or with an air of superior class and coolness. Their calm demeanor and smooth handling of nearly every conceivable situation gives them a mysterious cool that has been emulated for decades.

For the protagonist's lighting I chose a horizontal angle of light leaving a noticeably dark shadow over one side. The two aforementioned elements of the lighting both represent key features of this character. The horizontal angle of the light accentuates a sort of duality that the character has. This individual has two very distinctive sides, which can essentially be boiled down to the lover and fighter stereotype for protagonists. The two sides sometimes create inner conflict, but often coexist with slight blending as in the above photograph. The shadowing over one side of the statue's face in the image is also representative of this character's dark side which often appears when they are angry or in the heat of an intense sequence. The dark side of this individual is fairly relentless as evidenced by the lack of definition in the shadowed side of the statue in the photo's face.

The sharp, but sleek echelon shape of the above yacht is highly representative of this character's symbolic appeal. They have a few sharp edges, but are overall incredibly sleek and often referred to as such. The sharp edge accentuates the sexy sleek aspects and vice-versa, creating the perfect blend of hard and soft for which this character is known. While they lead with their sharp, confrontational edge most often they do quickly reveal their smooth, refined sides which become one of their most prominent features. The strength and military associations typically afforded to the echelon as a shape are accurate depictions of this character and his adventures.

Antagonist

For the antagonist's color scheme I chose the above combination of tans, oranges, and reds. Their nearly monochromatic, yet slightly complementary, combination show the mostly one-sided way in which this character is portrayed throughout the film series. The tan shows this character's practical nature and almost generic feel (which was later replicated and lampooned by many). The oranges and reds show the anger and, of course, evil which this character possesses. While this color scheme at first seems bold it slowly becomes uncomfortable and, to some extent, offensively bland with the occasional (almost out of place) element of blaring red as evidenced by this character's sometimes misplaced anger.

The above image showing the spotlighted chair is a very appropriate representation of this character's role within the story of the universe of fiction they inhabit. Initially shadowed ever so slightly in mystery, this character gradually gains prominence within the stories of this series just as the chair in the image gradually emerges into our vision out of the darkness of the background. Just like the lone spotlighted chair though, this character is placed in a class of their own during their time on-screen, but quickly fades away in the context of the series almost like a piece of furniture or a slight obstacle for our protagonist to quickly step over.

Much like this backwards chair our antagonist isn't completely revealed at first (both visually and conceptually). They are visibly supported by other smaller antagonists, which build suspense about their identity, but isn't fully revealed until long after their name is introduced. They have a very square, uncreative method of going about things. Their antagonistic actions aren't particularly original and usually take the least amount of originality possible to still be interesting and threatening. Their supporters, their air of mystery, and their one-sidedness are really their key traits as evidenced by this simplisticly designed backwards facing chair. The choice of subject in the last two images are pretty big hints as to the identity of this character.

Identities

For those playing along at home if you guessed that our protagonist was Agent 007, James Bond you would be absolutely correct. Mr. Bond's elegant brand of hard-edged violence against the universally "bad" villains and lackies in his twenty plus adventures has always greatly amused me so he seemed like a perfect character to deconstruct here. The antagonist, in case you couldn't guess from the number of chairs involved, was repeatedly underwhelming Bond nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld; the perpetually seated, cat-stroking, scar-faced leader of the international terrorist organization SPECTRE. Blofeld has always seemed like the most stereotypical of all the Bond villains and is certainly the most often mocked. His signature swiveling chair reveal is lampooned in many TV shows and movies and his character was so stereotypical he even served as the inspiration for Dr. Evil, the hillariously bland and dimwitted villain of the Austin Powers series.

Sit Down Stand Up

A short piece I made in high school in the style of Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls and inspired by the song "Sit Down Stand Up (Snakes & Ladders)" from Radiohead's Hail To The Thief (The Gloaming).

Welcome

Welcome to the 10am lab.