Reflections on Sound

Working with sound was something entirely new for me. Not only was it simply new, it was also very different from other mediums I have worked with. Sound is harder for me to have complete control of because it is a new concept to to me, because I'm not as adept with the software needed to create and modify the sounds, but, most importantly, because it is a harder medium to control in general--it isn't just creating sound myself, by singing, talking, etc, it is piecing together sounds/bits of sounds someone or something else created. It's finding the interesting bit in a string of sounds. There are edits/controls to change the sound, but they depend on the original recording.

Sound can be positive or negative, it can add to or subtract from a piece. Silence or the absence of sound can be just as (or more) effective than the presence of sound. Like motion, sound requires sequence and pacing, but not necessarily the same sequence or pacing as the visual narrative.

I found hard to focus on the sound and the visual together and yet not have them compete. On the other hand, it was also hard to focus on the sound and image totally separately and have them result in a good partnership, both telling the same "story."

In my piece I used both diegatic sound (sound created by a source that is in the environment of the scene--the striking of the match) and non-diegetic sound (sound created by a source not in the environment--the laughing and talking). I chose to let simpler/more easily understood sounds (diegetic sounds) go with simpler/more understandable images (action/denotative images) and visa versa. The ticking when the match comes out of the box is used as a background tempo, and also a quite break from the louder sounds that fall before and after. It is meant to have the viewer focus on the concrete action that is taking place, as opposed to the allusion sounds that happen throughout the abstract scenes, which are meant to further the idea in the viewers mind that multiple/opposite things are happening here. The match strike can also be classified as a selective sync, and it is used to isolate the moment of ignition, the climatic moment where the fire can either do good or evil. The voices and even the laughter can be characterized as a narration/voice over as the speaker(s) are never scene but just heard.