Month: October 2024

I watched Gaze dir. Farnoosh Samadi 2017. The sound of the motorcycle and the footsteps built a sense of tension through out the film even without any background music. The contrast of the ambience: with traffic vs silent and the rhythm of the steps really contributed to the nervousness that does not need any voiceovers.

Please consider Akomfrah’s approach to sound on this film and write a paragraph about this on your blog. How does sound change POV? Include images in your blog.

Beyond the Archive: The Work of Remembrance in John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses

1. Emotional Resonance: The use of melancholic music underscores the emotional weight of migrant experiences, establishing a mood that enhances the viewer’s connection to the narratives being presented.
2. Voice-over Narration: The narration often shifts perspectives, introducing personal stories that provide context and depth. This change in voice can alter the viewer’s understanding of a scene, prompting empathy and reflection.
3. Contrast and Conflict: Akomfrah contrasts industrial sounds with the natural soundscapes of Alaska, creating a dialogue between the harsh realities of migrant labor and the beauty of their journeys. This duality invites viewers to grapple with the complexities of migration.
4. Point of View Shift: The sound design often shifts the point of view, aligning the viewer with the experiences of the migrants. For example, when archival voices recount struggles, the accompanying sounds draw the audience into that moment, making it feel immediate and personal.
5. Cultural References: The film incorporates music that resonates with the cultural backgrounds of the migrants, enriching the narrative and grounding it in specific histories and identities.

In The Nine Muses, Akomfrah’s innovative use of sound significantly alters the viewer’s point of view, creating a layered auditory experience that complements and deepens the visual narrative. The film’s soundscape intertwines melancholic music, industrial sounds, and poignant voice-over narration, effectively immersing the audience in the emotional weight of the migrants’ journeys. As the narration shifts perspectives, it personalizes the experiences being depicted, inviting empathy and reflection. For instance, when archival voices recount the struggles faced by migrants, the accompanying sounds evoke the historical context, making the past feel immediate and relevant. This interplay between sound and image not only enriches the narrative but also facilitates a nuanced understanding of the complex realities of migration, drawing viewers into a shared emotional landscape.

Images to Include

1. Stills from the Film: Choose images that highlight key moments where sound enhances the emotional impact, such as scenes of migrants with accompanying music or evocative soundscapes.
2. Soundwave Visualizations: Include graphical representations of sound waves to visually convey the layering of audio elements.
3. Behind-the-Scenes Photos: If available, photos of Akomfrah and his team during the sound design process can provide insight into the film’s production.

The day when we are having our first session for Sound for screen, I used hydrophone to capture sound of the water from the little area outside Castle Center. I recorded three clips, and found that only the first one has sound. I listened to it with headphones and visualised it at home and generate this image which is so different from what came to my mind when we are doing the eye-closed listening exercise with Jessica.

The sound under water recorded by hydrophone sounds like trains and metal hitting with sparkles of strings and bubbles, which make me think of a pumpkin shaped jellyfish with beer foams in it and a train to pass by. This picture was very different to what I used to visualise that is more graphical and made up of fundamental shapes. What’s more, the sound quality and texture the hydrophone gives might not be good as the pole when we come to the application in commercial film production. What captured by H5’s microphone sounds more realistic to what we expect to how the water sounds.

When I was walking on the street today, with the symphony of traffic and passerby, something suddenly came upon my mind. Sound is so all pervasive and passive, which, in Chinese expression, could be explicitly translated into “through every hole”, which reminds me of the growth of hair through pores- also unstoppable and could spread out the whole body.

Obviously human only grow hair on certain places, and even we take measures to get rid of extra hairs, but why we would be greedy on our desires. In Buddhism, greedy is one of the reason why we suffer. From money to interrelationships, we felt jealous, envy, ignored, unsatisfied because of the desire that could never be met. When we are saying “it could be better if…”, we are chasing a vision that could never be compromised. More does not necessarily means better. Experiencing the present is the best present I have.

I constructed an image with a human covered in hair, never been shaved. On social media hair is considered to be the symbol of liveliness, however we only felt disgusting seeing the person covered in hair. That’s how the Golden Mean meant to say.