Reflections on Sound Design

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SheaMMd8H5g&NR=1

I apologize but for some reason this script would not upload as an image under a .pdf file, so i've simply copy/pasted it here:

FADE IN

INT. Cell - Night

ANDY sits at his cot with rope in hand, glancing up at the poster on the opposite wall. He gets up and slowly walks over to the poster. Andy removes his shirt and then begins placing his belongings in a plastic bag. Lightning strikes and he begins his slow crawl through a cramped tunnel with only a flashlight to make out what lies ahead. Andy shimmies out into an open crawlspace and climbs down onto a large pipe, his silhouette outlined as lightning crashes and illuminates his descent. As he reaches the bottom he pulls out a rock and waits for each lightning strike to smash the rock against the pipe. The third strike yields a fountain of thick dark liquid spurting upward from the pipe and into Andy's face. He gazes down into the pipe once the liquid subsides and begins to crawl through another narrow, cramped passageway.

ELLIS

Andy crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of shit-smelling foulness I can't even imagine...

Andy can be heard vomiting all over himself as he continues to crawl.

ELLIS

or maybe I just don't want to. Five hundred yards. That's the length of five football fields. Just shy of half a mile.

Andy exits the pipe-system and falls into a river, he proceeds to get up and run down the river with a guard tower in the background. He rips off his shirt and spreads his arms out as he gazes upwards, embracing the rain and laughing.

FADE OUT

critique:

This scene was one of the most powerful in the movie for two major reasons: space and time. Throughout the entire scene the protagonist, Andy, is confined in a jail cell, cramped in tight tunnels or narrow crawl-spaces. This is reflected through the sound design with the very flat sounds in the jail cell, giving the perception that the size of the cell is extremely small. The directionality of the sound changes and gets louder as Andy moves into the tunnel, the audience can hear his shirt rubbing against the walls as he breathes heavily. These sounds become echoed as he reaches the crawl-space where the tonal center seems to shift a little bit. The ambient rain, the thunder and Andy striking his rock against the pipe all have a very loud and fast resonant sound that seem to resonate within the confined space that the character is trying to navigate. As the pipe breaks and Andy enters, Ellis's voice can be heard narrating what "happened". This gives the illusion that Andy's trek through the sewage system was a long one and creates a subjective time contrasting to the quick on-screen transitions. Finally when Andy gets out of the pipe and into the river, the rain and thunder are at their loudest, but he is now in an open environment. The open space around him reflects the freedom that he longed for, and the ambient sounds create that space as he laughs and recognizes his accomplishment.

Finding Your Howl

Jonathan Flaum addresses two stories in his piece "Finding Your Howl" (found here: http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/51.01.YourHowl ). His first story introduces the concept that everyone has their own individual voice they must find. He presents this with a story of a wolf that must learn how to howl instinctively since it was never taught to him. This segues into the second story he had heard in fifth grade. One of his classmates wrote a story that reflects life in a different sense: A tiger plans his escape from his captivity in a zoo, but repeatedly finds himself in a new cage. Despite how many times he attempts to escape, he still winds up captive. This is reflective to human nature in the sense that we are what we make of ourselves, and just trying to escape our problems on a direct level doesn't necessarily means those problems won't come back. We need to analyze our problems and figure out how to accept them before simply running away from them.

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - H.P. Lovecraft from "The Call of Cthulhu".

This quote happens to be my particular favorite. The gothic-horror fiction author H.P. Lovecraft was referencing how the human mind often can not gather all that it's learned or seen into one coherent and fixed thought or idea. This reflects the second story Flaum was retelling as well as inspires me on a creative level. It reflects the story of the tiger because often times we, as humans, will ignore what has happened in the past and continue to repeat an action, expecting different results (isn't that the definition for insanity?). This speaks to me on a creative level because it is essentially stating that I will need to get creative if I want to keep sane. Lovecraft implied that humans' natural-bred insanity is "the most merciful thing in the world" because it keeps them ignorant and unaware of what the real problem is. At the same time he is making the statement facetiously because it's a shame that people can not simply see what's right in front of them. A little self-searching would do a lot of us some good.

Deconstructing a Character

For my Media 203 class we were instructed to create two characters in teams of two people. Ideally a protagonist and antagonist.

Here I will deconstruct the character I created into its basic elements and why I chose how to design my character like I did.


Let's address the color of my character first:

I chose to go for a color scheme similar to "The Joker" because I felt the cool colors reflected my characters calm, collected nature. His intentions and emotions are difficult to read because he generally keeps them to himself. This color scheme seems the perfect fit for what i'm envisioning.

Next I will address the lighting I wish to cast on my character:

I imagined a harsh or dramatic light. Probably a white or blue hue to it to put emphasis on the cool color scheme. The light would be appearing from behind the character to wash over his form in a contrasting shadow, covering up maybe 50-60% of the character. This shadow would hide some of the character's features, but accentuate others more dramatically. The result making him seem mysterious, going back to his introverted personality.

Lastly I had to determine the shape that best represents my character:

I wanted my character to seem tough, so I imagined a more square frame. This character does not look like someone you would want to mess with. His intimidating size and shape amplify the fact that he keeps to himself. He is "well-guarded" much like a tank is well-armored. He's built himself to be tough and won't let much of anything stand in his way.

My partner's character was the polar-opposite in every way possible:

His character was using a warm color scheme, reflecting that his emotions were usually voiced or easily read.

The triangular shape of gru represents the unrealistic and dramatic shape of the character that seems to be very opinionated and active

The unrealistic shadow is not only because his character is a cartoon, but also because he has little to hide. He will let other characters know just how he feels

My character is from a beautiful colorful cartoon world, where he lived with his family.  One day a mysterious portal opened tearing him away from his family.  He was thrown into a dark eerie world in which he did not belong.  He didn’t know what this world was, but he knew he would stop at nothing to find a way back to his home.

Both characters are intended to be antagonistic towards each other, but neither is a "good guy" nor a "bad guy". They must learn to deal with each other and figure out how to overcome their differences to live peacefully.

Media 203

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