Week 5 – Proposal for final assignment

Based on the two courses(Spatialisation for Installation and Performance, Sound for Screen) I chosen, I decided to design the sound for a short film. And in addition to creating a stereo version, I will also try to create a 5.1 channel version.

<Blue> is a short film about a man’s state of being after a breakup. In this short film we can see the director frequently use of reminiscences pieces, which dictated the direction of the sound design for this short film: the POV, the voice from the man’s inner world (subjective voice). I decided to add some sounds that were not in the frame, and to amplify some of the sounds. Because this is the world of the man’s memory, he always amplifies some details, and so do the sounds. At the very beginning of the film we are able to distinguish reality from memory by the difference in tone of the images, but at the end of the film the director cunningly makes the tone of the two worlds converge. In this way the director tries to bring the viewer into the world of this man, a world where reality and memory are constantly pulled together.

Why I wanted to try to make this film in 5.1 channel. Because the climax of the short film is an emotionally charged section and I wondered if presenting it in 5.1 would be more likely to allow the audience to feel those emotions and have some immersive experience. My current idea for that section is to have the different memories appear in different directions and then rotate clockwise to come together to reach a peak. It feels a lot like constantly remembering different things, welling up with different emotions, and then those emotions intermingle and clog up in your chest, and finally you can’t take that much and you explode.

<Blue>This short film was written and directed by my friend, and I was involved in the sound recording during the shooting stage. It was shot in the summer before I came to the UK last year and I had finished the sound post-production when I first finished shooting it last year. But it left some regrets at the time. So this time I decided to recreate the sound of this short film and I have finished the second stereo version and I plan to make a 5.1 channel version by the end of November.