final assignments: presentation + sound archive

team research project—on a sound artist (20% ~ to be presented april 22). the assignment asks students to work in pairs or alone to conduct research on an artist who experiments with sound(s). this artist could be a popular artist or composer, an avant-garde experimental musician/sound artist. in any case, students should be concerned with the artistic form and ‘genre’ within which the artist works (e.g. theatre: dinner or experimental theatre; visual art: audio-visual installation; popular music: electronic or new age) and the manner of the artist’s innovation. research efforts should be concerned with describing artistic intentions and processes, analyzing and interpreting key stylistic characteristics. research tasks should be evenly distributed. each team member should demonstrate that they have gleaned a basic knowledge of the subject of their team’s research and then take responsibility for presenting a specific aspect of the research (i.e. intentions, processes, style, production context) on the artist. unless directly relevant to the sound experimentation, keep biographical information to a minimum. each student must augment his or her verbal presentation with a sound clip of no more than five minutes in length. each individual presentation should be between 5 and 10 minutes long. finally, each team member must hand in a short, point-form summary on the subject of their presentation, along with a bibliography citing the reference material used, due the day of the presentation (5%) april 23

sound archive—using recording medium of choice (answering machine, voice-mail, cell, Internet download) students are asked to collect sounds that placed together communicate a coherent theme, idea or value—be it personal, aesthetic, or political. the collection can include voice elements and musical phrases but not complete clips from traditional musical sources. as with the panoramic picture project, students should consider the organization of the sound elements and their formal characteristics—consider amplitude, direction, timbre, pitch, duration.(20%) students are required to write a formal statement describing the theme, and formal considerations of the sound project (250 words each, typed and double-spaced) (10%). Due date May 6

tuesday, april 1 ~ class 10 (revised)

my apologies for missing class this week although i'm sure you were well entertained and properly illuminated by mitch's presentation on sound art.

i'll look forward to your reports next week.

i'll also look forward to seeing and hearing your presentations on the panoramic works.

please be prepared to present and discuss these works. for those of you who are not finished yet, please see me or contact me about accessing the lab.

tuesday, march 25 ~ class 9 'sound + silence: an introduction to sound art'

(our) mitch akiyama and intr-version

Ubu Sound Sources

John Cage: An Autobiographical Statement

Golan Levin ~ Telesymphony @ Fondation Daniel Langlois

Silophone
Silophone on youtube

John Oswald

Mike Vargas
clips

Janet Cardiff + Georges Bures Miller

Steve Reich
different trains

Marion van der Zon

Andra McCartney

Hildegard Westerkamp

Christof Migone ~ clips

class 1 ~ spectacles + spectators: images + projections

Vaudeville

Jana Sterbak

class 2 ~ the image + the archive

noah takes a picture of himself everyday for six years

victorian photographs

cartes de visite

archive

nan goldin

raymonde april

Cult of Celebrity

"Media + the Rise of Celebrity Culture"

class 3 ~ image + ideology: journalism + advertising

John Berger on Publicity


World Press 50 Years

class 4 ~ film: experiments with realism 1

man with a movie camera

the bicycle thief

grey gardens

dogme: vow of chastity

class 5 ~ sound in film (revised)

screening Singing in the Rain

class 6 ~ the art of photography + a short [early] history of film (revised)

screening: excerpts from art 21: art in the 21st century


the wikipedia short history of film

1895- 1906
Mutoscope (machine)
The Kinetoscope
Edison
The Nickelodeon

Lumiere
Melies
Pathe
Porter




1914-1919
D.W. Griffith
Charlie Chaplin + Max Sennett

class 7 ~ Modern Times / Editing + the Continuity System

Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936)

Editing
options for editing:

the straight cut
the fade
the dissolve
the wipe
the iris

Editing + Space
cross-cutting allows two sequences at two different locations to be presented at the same time; the effect creates suspense and speeds up the narrative.

Editing + Time
most films don't represent real time. story time is compressed. ellipses are signalled via such methods as captions, voice-overs, wips, fade to black, the cross-fade and dissolve.

Editing and Rhythm
the length of each shot will determine the pace of the action (including changes in pace) and will affect the mood of what is taking place on screen

Matching
shots are matched according to action, subject or subject matter. it ensures that there is a spatial-visual logic between the differently positioned shots in a scene. different devices are used for different purposes: a typical device to indicate a connection between two characters is to match their actions--a person looking a an alarm clock in one scene; another character turning their clock off in another...

Graphic Matching
a smooth visual transfer from one shot to the other--similar patterns of light + dark, or similar positioning of objects or characters

Compilation Shots
a series of shots spliced together that give a quick impression of space or time.

Montage
a rapid succession of shots juxtaposition images so that the over-all effect is greater than the individual parts

Editing and Sound
sound can establish continuity from one shot to another: connecting by musical score or sound bridges, where diegetic sound sound which belongs in the world of the film) continues from one shot to the next

The Elements of Continuity Editing
Continuity editing involves a series of film techniques that make connections between shots coherent.

180 degree rule/axis of action: a term used to describe an imaginary (straight) line drawn between protagonists in a scene. Ensuring spatial continuity and maintaining consistency of screen direction, the basic rule is to plan mise-en-scene around this line and to position the camera so that it never crosses the line.

30 degree rule: the camera position must change by 30 degrees between shots i order to avoid a jump cut. More than 30 degrees the cut will look like a new vantage point; less than 30 degrees and the it looks like the world has moved.

establishing shot: typically a scene begins with a long shot delineating the overall scene in which the scene to take place.

shot/reverse shot: conversation between characters usually use this technique. Shots establishing points of view in a two person shot.

eye-line matching : the first shot shows a character looking off screen at something and the second shot shows the object/character being looked at.

matching on action: an action is begun with one shot and completed in another.

re-establishing shot: after series of close-ups, re-establishing shot re-establishes setting.

class 8 ~ picture archive production + presentation (revised)

morning groups meet @8:30 in 3b6
afternoon groups meet @ 3:00 in 4G10

bring your pictures

class 9 ~ sound + silence: introduction to sound art

John Cage: An Autobiographical Statement

Ubu Sound Sources

Golan Levin

Golan Levin ~ Telesymphony @ Fondation Daniel Langlois

Silophone
Silophone on youtube

John Oswald

Mike Vargas
clips

Janet Cardiff + Georges Bures Miller

Steve Reich
different trains

Marion van der Zon

Andra McCartney

Hildegard Westerkamp

Christof Migone ~ clips

class 10 ~ film: sound in cinema + a brief history of film continued

the sound era

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

class 11 ~ sound artist presentations

class 12 ~ sound artist presentations

class 13 ~ film: sound in cinema 2