Film Proposal

In the experimental film, we want to make it obvious that there is a daily routine that takes place partly in the main living area, in this situation, the kitchen. As in the sound piece we want to show this through the 'eyes' of fish. We want to carry on this idea of projecting the Sense of Place through the fish. The film will be shot from one angle just behind the fish bowl, opening with the light through the blinds.

The main thing we want to portray here is a sense of daily routine, with the atmosphere of water and fish swimming around watching all the action unfold, a complete plan of what the 'action' is yet has not been decided of yet but we have some ideas.

• Waking up
• Opening blinds
• Use of the kitchen appliances
• Housemates/couples argument?
• A party?

The point of us filming the action through the fish bowl is so that the audience cannot clearly see what is happening, or clearly understand. The sense of place will be apparent through the use of the one shot, watching everything happening and passing them by, with it beginning quiet, building up and then quiet at the end, leaving the fish swimming a lot. Refections will be key to show the action, if you actually look at a fish bowl from different angles, you can see that the curved glass shows the fish bigger or smaller from all angles, then with the blurriness of the background with the interesting underwater effect sound to accompany this could make for an interesting piece.

We are researching ways to shoot and after effects we can apply, for example using a fish eye lens as well. We may also play with colour like in the film Rumble Fish (1983) were in one scene everything is black and white apart from the fish.

Second Sound Recordings

Chris, as the editor went away, with occasional input from me started to edit the sounds we recorded together and found we needed a few more, so after research we weirdly read that if you put a microphone in a condom it could create a interesting sound underwater, which as you see to the right we did try. It worked better than the Hydrophone did, things became clearer, with this technique we mainly recorded bubbles, for atmos sound as a 'base' for our piece.

"Historically speaking, underwater sounds are very muffled, as if water mutes high end.  This is of course exactly backwards from what water actually does.  But the audience has grown accustomed to hearing muffled sounds underwater, so they will expect that to some degree."
(http://filmsound.org/QA/underwatersounds.htm)

Here the writer says that underwater sounds are traditionally muffled by we have got used to it through film and other sound which is interesting, 

Finding Nemo

Finding Nemo may be just another children's Disney Pixar film, but with the subject of my experimental film being centred around fish, it is helpful to look at how they have approached the idea.

One particular scene of interest is the scene in the dentists, when the fish are looking out on their surroundings, even with the film being an animation it helps with developing my plan and idea for how I will soon shoot my own film.



The shot to the right is the part in the scene when a child arrives and 'plays' with the fish. Parts of this scene are from the fish's perspective, this provokes ideas for me, with the idea of looking at the day to day happenings of my flat. I could film the scene completely through the reflection of the fish bowl, were the viewer could not completely see what is happening, with the fish being in the foreground or the focus of the film. This would leave the scene to the viewers visualisation.

This scene points out interaction with the main subjects. No matter how we end up filming this, interaction could make the scene more interesting, engaging the audience. For example maybe someone tapping or banging on the side, or putting there hand in. Using sound from the sound only piece we are currently editing, it could create a nice effect.

I personally like this angle (left), it briefly is an animated image of what I picture the final piece being. I imagine a fixed shot with the main focus being the fish, with the background being a blur in the background. This is partly because of the size of fish's brains, surely they don't take in that much information and another with it being a daily routine, it gets repetitive and 'boring' so the blur is visually portraying that.

Tango - Zbigniew Rybczynski (1983)

Zbigniew Rybczynski's short experimental film Tango won an Oscar in 1983, it shows 36 figures continuously entering and exiting the claustrophobic set. The characters all repeat the same actions, starting with a boy climbing into the into the window to retrieve a ball he kicked/threw in and the last character being an elderly woman that enters to nap.

The characters slowly build up, showing a busy space, this is one of my favourite short films out of those I have researched. Tango focuses on a routine and repetition of the characters, audio is key to present this repetition. Each character has their individual sound, for example a child crying, a mans scream as he falls off a chair. This use of sounds is inspiring, with my sound project repetition is key, and with the idea being the daily processes this piece really does help me.

As for the experimental film part of my project, this idea of everything happening at the same time, contradicting this idea of time, making the idea of repetition in our life obvious, I feel this could be appiled to this 'fish' idea. The fish linger in the corner of the kitchen watching all the activities throughout the day, the idea of a time lapse comes to mind, although this could be too simple.

Sound Sheet

• Fish 'pop' (made by ourselves) 
• Tap
• Footsteps
• Microwave
• Toaster 
• Kettle
• Yawn
• Fridge
• Conversation
• Doors
• Feeding fish (using milkshake powder) 
• Various different splashes
• Water pouring 
• Outside (out the window) 
• Cars
• Tap on the side of the fish bowl
• Bottles clashing 
• Filling up a glass with liquid
• Running the kitchen tap
• Washing up
• General movement
• 30 minutes of general usage of the kitchen
• Falling over
• Chairs
• Breathing 
• Various water sounds
• Some general sound using the hydrophone in the fish bowl

These are only some of the recordings me and Chris created today, I also recorded 30 minutes of general activity in the kitchen. As the editor Chris will give these sounds the distinct underwater effect that fits into our desired sound piece. 

We may need to do some more recording if we feel that we need more sounds to 'fill' the time or create a sense of wholeness to our piece. I feel we sound repeat the sounds, with the fish pop and splashes being the most important, so the audience will know that we are recording from a fishes view point. 

Sound Recording

This morning myself and Chris started recording for our Sense Of Space project, with our idea being the day activity of my kitchen from the perspective of two fish we have. We recorded a range of sound from water drops to the sound of a microwave.

We struggled at first technically with setting up the  Marantz but we quickly sorted that, we first tried recording with the hydrophone in the fish bowl. Using the hydrophone did not work very well, there was too much distortion, the majority of sounds recorded with the hydrophone were distinguishable, but didn't have the distinct underwater sound we were looking for. Chris as editor suggested we could use effects in soundtrack pro to create the underwater sound.

We experimented making the sounds relating to fish ourselves, for example with the sound of the fish food, I used my milk shake powder shown in the image to the left, and with the fish 'pop' we simply made that sound ourselves. I shall post a sound sheet in the next blog post.

Once the Marantz was set us we found it easy to record sound, with us doing the daily activity. There was a lot of activity in the kitchen as my flat mates start to wake up and get their breakfast. We are recording Morning and Evening, so later on I will record conversation and general activity around 7pm, to get the realistic representation of my kitchen.

Sense of Place: Sound Idea

Chris and I have been meeting over this week, talking about ideas and concepts. We initially wanted to capture a process or a routine such as a journey or a day of work. We then realised after tutorials that did not fit into the brief. After more meetings, going through different ideas such as recording sound at a an old industrial museum.

 We came up with an idea that roughly fits into our original one. Thinking about processes and routines, we thought about what happens in one place throughout the day. We thought of an idea of 'through the fish's eyes', our idea is to record sounds of a fish or create the stereotypical sounds of a fish through different methods, using underwater microphones and editing techniques. My flat mate conveniently has a fish bowl so we are able to do this. I feel this idea allows for some interesting techniques to be applied. With this sound piece idea solidified it is exciting how we can adapt it into a video piece later on. The recording starts tomorrow.