Edgplay: The Final Film

After months of hard work, the film is now complete. I believe that the sound design reflects all of the research that I have collated. I would say that it definitely has the dark ambience that I set out to create. 


EDGEPLAY VIMEO LINK

Passwood - Donkey

Starring Clinton Curtis Hudson & Alex Kenney.


Produced by Gino Giuliani.


Cinematography by Shelton Sitima.


SFX by Estíbaliz Mellado.


Edited by Michael Dalton.


Sound by Luke Hall.


Music by DJ Klamidia.


Written and directed by Beat Natale.

Requiem for a Dream - Sound Design

Throughout Requiem for a Dream , there is very rarely any silence, more often or not you can hear electronic sounds bubbling away. This is a very effective as a tension builder and carries the story along nicely and reflects the dark tone of the film. The sound design also reflects the almost surreal side of the film, for example when Sara Goldfarb is opening the lids on her pill bottles, the noise heard is a very over exaggerated pop, it is almost comedy like. This works wonders in showing the film to be in almost an alternative reality, showing the effects the the drugs are having on the characters. 

I’ve seen Aronofsky mention placing the sound of an airplane passing overhead in the background of those sequences. He got the idea after being inspired by jumbo jets flying over New York from JFK. How often do you use sounds that “don’t belong?” In other words, how devoted to realism were you in the project? It’s a movie with lots of surreal and absurdist overtones, so how do you deal with that as a sound designer?

I’ll go on a limb and say that it’s common for good sound designers to do. Which lends itself to what I was saying before: intelligent choices of sound don’t necessarily fit, but they always have some sort of impact. The sound of say, a jet, the rising tension of it, is maybe exactly what’s required to make that impact—to say here’s the heroin, here it goes into the body’s system. The sound itself is so dynamic; it has that push, that rush of moving air to it. We routinely do stuff like that, where you’re juxtaposing things. Sometimes trying to jam a square peg in the round hole is exactly what you need. 

This is a short section from an article that I found on the sound design of the film, I found this to be massively interesting in way that the sound of a jet taking off is compared to someone shooting up heroin, although it does sound absurd it does make a lot of sense. I found that this could be a great way for me to get across the pain and thrill that the main protagonist in Edgeplay will feel. I want to try and create parallels between an everyday occurrence or machine that could draw similarities to the dark tone of my film.    

Requiem for a Dream - Lux Aeterna

After watching Requiem for a Dream recently I found that I could take a lot away from it, especially in terms of how music can work in a film. Throughout the course of Requiem for a Dream, a song can be heard; Lux Aeterna, the song was produced by Clint Mansell. I feel that the tone of the song fits in perfectly with the film and is used in two different ways. At times in the film it is seen as quite an uplifting song. I find it very interesting that a song can create two completely separate moods based on what is shown visually. This is something that I would like to concentrate on when it comes to the sound design for Edgeplay; I believe that due to the nature of our film; being that the main protagonist is actually paying to be tortured, but isn't revealed till the end, the sound design could play a massive part in building the suspense and creating tension for when all is revealed. 

Electronic Sound in Film

Sound of Cinema - New Frontiers; is a BBC documentary that follows the way that scores have been created over the last 60 years. A large part of it is to do with how electronic sounds replaced the traditional orchestra. An early use of this was the Theremin; an early electronic instrument that was controlled without an physical touch of the performer. In Alfred Hitchcock's film spellbound, it was used to create tension and to reflect the protagonists distress. I found this interesting as the theremin is a very minimalist piece of equipment, but has such a massive effect on the score of this film. This has given my a few ideas as to how I could use electronic devices in our film and perhaps distort them to create uncomfortable sounds and to reflect the distress of our very own protagonist.  

Alfred Hitchcock is someone that liked to use sound in his films as a way to make the audience uncomfortable, he is somebody that I can take a lot of inspiration from as we want to make our film very uncomfortable through the sound design. In The Birds the sound of the birds is horrific and creates a sense of terror, I want to create a sense of terror in our opening scenes so that the audience has an idea of what is to come. 
I want the sense of terror to be created through electronic and industrial sounds, I want to do this by distorting the sounds and using techniques such as playing sounds backwards. 

Sonic Style

Uploading is a very oppressive film and the sonic style needs to reflect this, the best example that I can find is the 2002 film directed by Gasper Noe, Irreversible. The opening scene shows a male running around a gay club looking for somebody, the visuals for these scenes are very strong, showing a lot of sexual content. The sound throughout is also very intense and I have found a lot of inspiration from this scene.

The scene in question is shown above, It depicts the oppressive style that we want to get across in our film. The sound in this scene is very dark and bassy, this is exactly the kind of sound that I want to use in my own design. Matching up with the visuals it is very hard to watch as an audience member. Uploading needs to be a film that the audience are going to struggle to watch and combining strong and painful visuals with a sickening sound design, this something we can achieve.

When Irreversible was shown at the 2002 Canne festival a lot of people walked out of the screening due to the brutal nature of the film. American film critic Roger Ebert was also quoted as saying; "a movie so violent and cruel that most people will find it unwatchable."
This is the kind of response that I want us to get from uploading.

Irreversible was scored by electronic producer and one half of Daft Punk; Thomas Bangalter, I found this really interesting as I'm a big fan of Daft Punk. In terms of electronic sounds this is something that I feel will play a crucial part in our film, even if it be quite minimal I want it to be very electronic in the approach. 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Trent Reznor scored the music for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, he is someone I can take inspiration from going into my project. He is all about dark industrial sounds, this is something I believe would reflect the style of our film. I feel that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has similar themes to our own project, we have scenes that depict torture and the brutality of it needs to be lifted by the sound design. This is something that this film does well; throughout you can hear drone sounds this gives a sense of dread and suspense, which is definitely a mood that I would like to create for our film. 






The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - SoundWorks


The link above is a short video discussing the sound design for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Trent Reznor talks about the sound that he wanted to create, he mentions that he wanted 'texture and uncomfortable tension'; this style sums up massively the direction that I want take with my own sound design.


Also in this video Ren Klyce a sound designer on the film talks about 'Taking advantage of a moment' and 'Strategically filling pauses in the dialogue'; I found this idea quite interesting, I believe that this technique would work great to cause the tensions that I want in the sound design.

Deep Ambient Sound

Our film surrounds the theme of torture, this piece will be very abstract, meaning that the sound design will play a big part in holding the story together. I want the sound design to be very ambient, with undertones of dark bass sounds.
I have been taking a lot of inspiration from the likes of James Blake and Jamie Woon, I find that in terms of a musical direction, I find a lot of different sounds in their music that I could take over into my sound design, I like the idea that a piano could create a low bassy sound. I like that these two artists create dark ambience, which is something that I want to achieve in my design.
In terms of our visuals, there is going to be a lot of greens and reds; two very strong colours which needs to be reflected in the sound design. I want to do this by bringing in and taking out the bass, this should move along nicely with the edit.     

The XX are a fantastic example of creating deep ambient sounds. Angels by The XX is a song that I feel I can take a lot of inspiration from, although it is very ambient and chilled out, It also has a very dark sound to it, I think this is something that will reflect the theme of our film. Although the main protagonist will enjoy being tortured, the theme will still be dark, this will show two contrasting elements of the story.