Compose by Nature

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

I woke up around 10am on Sunday, May 11, 2009, Mother’s Day and went about doing my daily morning routin.I grabbed my tooth brush and toothpaste from my dresser top and headed to the bathroom, and took a shower shortly afterwards. After eating my breakfast, I realized that my dogs have not been walked as yet. I went back to my room to put on a more “public fitting” attire and off I went with my dog Tommy. 

            

 Somewhere between the sun beaming down and the wind stirring past me, I became more aware of my surroundings both visually and acoustically. Visually everything was more detailed. I started noticing things around my neighborhood that  I did not realize before, such as the small tree in front of my house and how

 neatly the trees are aligned along the road.  Its important to note that I have been living in my neighborhood for almost 4 years. I was also taking a panoramic view, as compared to focusing on a specific item/subject.

      

Acoustically, my ears picked 

up detailed sounds that would have

 gone otherwise unnoticed. On this sound walk I heard the wind rushing by the tree leaves over

 head, the storm door aggressively fighting with the wind to stay closed, the metal lash on my dog’s collar wrestling with him to contain his excitement.  It was a surreal feeling hearing these everyday sounds that are not so everyday. What was amazing about this whole experience was stopping and listening to this beautifully constructed and orchestrated soundtrack that was being performing, in which, I did not know was playing before.

Museum of the Moving Image

Going to the Museum of the Moving Images for the first time was quite an experience. I was presented with works of the first motion pictures made to modern day technology used in creating 21st century motion picture. It was a fascinating walk through the time line, of the creation of media as an art form. Things like sound effect, sound editing, and music supervision were some of the elements that has evolved over the decades that breathe life into this medium. A few interesting items that are worth mentioning include the first use of tri-color camera in film, early forms of video games, and sound editing processes used in movies.

The use of the tricolor camera had a major impact on the industry because introduced the audience to another layer of the narrative of movie making, color. The first feature films to utilize this technology are The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, and The Woman (1). As it was also pointed out by my tour guide, making a tricolor was very expensive, however the quality of the film remains intact for an extended period of time.

Video games also played an important role transforming media into the form we know it as today. This 10 billion industry had its major success early with video games like Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979), and Battlezone (1980) (2). It was also exciting to see some of these old school arcade video games, from the era they were built, at the museum intact and playable. On a closing note on the subject, video games has also given us some of our noticeable culture icon to date, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Pac-Man, Mario, etc.

Personally speaking, the highlight of the tour was the sound editing process used in film. I was blown away by the sound editing demo that had been shown to us. It never occurred to me as to how much work goes into the sound with respect to creating a feature film. It was brought to my attention that in a typical action film you have over 100 different layers of sound in one scene. This could range from the sound of a fire truck in the background, to the explosion of atomic bomb in the foreground. I was in awe by the process of putting together different sounds to bring an image to life on screen. I now have new profound respect for a Foley artist.

Sources:



1) http://www.films101.com/earlycy.htm



2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Video_Arcade_Games