Process Doc

The sounds involved in a haircut are almost universally recognizable. We’ve all had our hair cut and the sounds of scissors cutting and hair dryers blowing conjure memories of sitting in a chair with a cape wrapped around your neck. That is ultimately what we wanted our project to be - a collection of sounds that would evoke the atmosphere of a hair salon, in the same way that the acoustic guitar in The Smokehouse blends together all of the disparate mechanical sounds into a rustic atmosphere. Or in the way that the simple, straightforward images of Brittle elicit memories of our own home kitchens.

To create and hold that atmosphere in the minds of the audience, we didn’t want to linger too long on any one sound. We wanted to hear each individual sound long enough that the audience could recognize and process the sound, but not too long that their attention would start to wander away. There are many films/commercials/etc. that use this kind of sound editing philosophy, and one scene that we had in our heads comes from the BBC show Sherlock. In the third episode of season two, Sherlock makes tea in anticipation of a visit from his archenemy Moriarty. The process of making tea is condensed into a few seconds of time using very quick cuts: push button, cut, set platter down, cut, clinking cups, cut, boiling water, cut, push button, cut, platter, cut. Even reading this sentence takes longer than the scene took in the show. The quick cuts advances the story without wasting much time and contributes to the anticipatory atmosphere of the scene. And while it was partly an inspiration for our process doc, without the aid of images, we didn't think we could cut quite as fast as Sherlock did and not confuse our audience.

Looking back on the project, we wish we would have prepared better. We used a phone to record the audio, because we forgot to bring batteries for the audio equipment we had intended to use. Using better sound equipment would have given us clearer sounds to edit. However, the background noises of people talking and other haircuts adds to the atmospheric quality we were aiming for. Also, we wish we had thought to give the hair salon a little more advanced notice of our arrival and exactly what we wanted to do. Although, it should be noted that everyone we worked with was very accommodating and friendly.

Overall, we’re still happy with how our project turned out, even though it wasn’t exactly what we envisioned.

Morgan Akana, Olivia Taylor, Sarah Foley

Round Robin

As we all have looked over each other’s contribution, the overall plot arc for each story suffered a dramatic change. Looking at them all lined up next to one another, we can see where we wanted each story to go and contrast that with where the stories actually went. For example, Colton’s story started out following a detective and his wife, but when it got to Parker, it suddenly switched to a story about a lover with a raccoon addiction.

DJ Spooky discusses this disconnect in his article. He presents an important example involving the children’s game Chutes and Ladders. This game was originally played in India, around 2nd century B.C and was called “despada.” We now play this game for entertainment, but in its earliest form it was designed to teach morals and the classes of reincarnation in the Hindu religion. The British adopted the game in the 1800’s and slowly morphed it into the game we play today. This is a prime example of how different cultures and ideas will influence media, and slowly alter it into a very different form. We saw this happen in our tiny stories, where almost none of them ended as we would have guessed. Similar to the Chutes and Ladders example, we all separately added our own insight and good ideas and guided the stories in the direction that we wanted, without any concern for the original authors. However, just like in this example, each new element we introduced was something that somehow related to our middle-class, LDS, film student cultures — such as the wedding in the temple, film noir references, or even our generation’s fascination with super heroes. All of these elements were familiar to us due to our shared culture.

From an author’s perspective, it was also slightly upsetting. (We should note that not everyone was upset with the changes, but some people – Sarah – were.) That facet of this experience reminded us of Joss Whedon’s words on his experience writing the screenplay for the film Alien: Resurrection, which was drastically changed from his original treatment:

“It wasn't a question of doing everything differently, although they changed the ending; it was mostly a matter of doing everything wrong. They said the lines...mostly...but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong that they could possibly do.”

He wrote a script, sent it into the world, and it was transformed into something he barely recognized. As future filmmakers and artists, we will most likely experience this feeling again and again. We will have to learn to work with others and accept that when we collaborate with others, our original ideas will inevitably be altered by their creative contributions.


Day 1
Sitting in the green grass, under a blue sky, on a golden summer day, her bruises still made her feel purple.

Day 2
"You know Daddy loves you."

At least, that's what he always said.

Day 3
Before he sold me for eight horny chickens and llama.

Day 4
In a spectacular turn of fate, the llama devoured all eight chickens, and everyone else on the homestead. He claimed the land and declared himself the first king of LLAMTOPIA.

Day 5

After many years, the llama became bored and lonely. He decided to find someone to share his kingdom with, and soon married a southern llama lady friend named Dang'shifiine. They lived happily ever after.

Adventures of Kool-Aid Man

Music Mosaic

            When I was first listening to “Charley’s Prelude” by Don Byron, the music evoked images of a downcast man in a blue robe and also images of people playing tennis. I was really confused as to why this music could simultaneously conjure up two such contrasting images, one being the perfect image of melancholy and the other being a perfect image of carefree-ness. The music is in a minor key, which probably led to the first picture, but the rhythm and melody are upbeat and almost carnivalesque, which is what I’ve determined led me to the other picture. And this project, then, became an effort to reconcile those two feelings.

            I liked the image of a robe a lot, so I decided to stick with it throughout the project, and to use it as a symbol for deeper feelings and hidden problems. So I decided to create pairs of images: one image would be a Snapchat of a person or persons, and the second image would be a parallel picture, but someone in the picture would be wearing a robe and a more serious expression. (I wanted to use a blue robe, because the song feels very “blue” to me, but I was unable to get my hands on one.) The robe would be the physical representation of any weight that the person is trying to hide. I wanted to try and express the disparity between what some people show on the outside and what they’re really dealing with on the inside. I moved around a lot while growing up, and something I learned that everyone is good at, no matter where they’re from, is pretending like everything is okay, hiding their problems from the rest of the world so that no one really knows what’s going on. This is a theme that’s always stuck with me, and I think this goes along nicely with what Annie Dillard discusses in “Seeing.” Her whole article is about seeing and understanding instead of merely looking. With regards to this project, I especially like the part towards the beginning where she discusses light and how our eyes can only perceive 30% of it – light at different wavelengths cannot be seen. Also, I believe I had “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson in the back of my head while working on this project. “Richard Cory” is a poem in which a very popular man kills himself; the majority of the poem is about how well-liked this man was and how much everyone admired him, and so his suicide in the last line is very shocking. Why would someone like that ever kill himself? And the idea is that no one may ever know what was really going on. I’m not trying to say that the characters in these photos are all suicidal, I just have met so many people suffering from real grief and depression and abuse and other heavy burdens and nobody knows until much later that they needed help.

"Charley's Prelude" - Don Byron

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRZE-AdN4js

Richard Cory

By Edwin Arlington Robinson 
 

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.