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.
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.
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.
