‘We are all figures (in a landscape)’ (2019)
Running time: 3′ 00″
Brief: To make a film that explores sonic atmospheres and perspectives
- The goal is to create a strong sense of place, to capture the visual and sonic character of a location.
- Write a story that is simple and requires several locations.
- Use a variety of sound ideas in your script – a combination of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds: voice over, music, subjective sound, objective sound.
- The story must explore different perspectives – things happening in the foreground and the mid-ground as well as distant events in the background.
Summary
The concept behind this moving image is the idea that we are all figures in a landscape – we exist, live our lives in a variety of different ‘landscapes’; both external physical landscapes through which we move, and internal conscious/subconscious landscapes within our mind.
I decided to explore this idea through a very simple narrative – a man wakes up from a dream, which leaves an impression on him as he travels to work the following day.
In keeping with the assignment brief to create a moving image with a strong sense of place that explores the sonic atmospheres and perspectives of several different locations, I set out to make something in which the story is also expressed within the film’s soundscape.
I drafted a script with five locations, each with a different a sense of place.
I then defined the sense of ‘space’ that was unique to each of the five locations:
- The Hellfire Club – a dark, shadowy space
- Bedroom – a silent, restful space
- Wilderness – a mystic, beautiful space
- Tram – a solitary, introvert space
- City – a busy corporate space
Having defined the sound spaces I would be using within the moving image, I then began experimenting with various ways of representing the visual landscapes and sonic landscapes.
List of references