…this image?
Often times, that’s what our job is. We’re given an image or an emotion to describe through the use of sound, or sometimes it’s a little easier. We’re tasked with creating something that doesn’t exist in our every day lives, but has enough visual elements we can relate to that we understand what it’s purpose is. Do we reinforce that expectation, providing sonic characteristics that people expect, or play with it to mess with their heads instead? Do we play a character on screen in the literal sense, supporting what we see, or do we dive into their emotional state and give the listener more information than what the visuals alone can provide? If you had to record a sound to represent the tactile sensation of the image above, what would you choose? [ed. That’s not necessarily rhetorical. It could be an interesting discussion! So leave a comment below.]
All of these questions focus on the character of the sounds we use, or how we create character using sounds. That’s our focus this month; character, and all of the ways you can interpret it.
I’m looking for answers to the question the title poses since a long time – I haven’t reached an answer, maybe there is none, not even a personal answer.
We dig with the attempt to defining a vision, an emotion by sound alone into the territory of (1) personal appreciation / evaluation (2) individual culture and history of experiences and exposure (3) current mood (tomorrow I may have different associations) just to name a few factors that contribute to the difficulty, – With abstract textures like this the question as to what does sound do to this image (underscore, contradict, expand, focus etc.) doesn’t even exist as there is no story in there that we would generally agree about.
In sum, any sonic solution to a scene that shows only this example image would be a personal one which tomorrow I may not like anymore.
The image is not entirely subjective in a sense that it is completely irrelevant and can be interpreted differently depending on your mood of the day. There are more or less ‘objective’ connotations to be drawn off it. I agree that it doesn’t seem like a story because the image isn’t moving. But what you see can be interpreted in a relatively universal way.
The texture is grainy. It is blue and white. Grains remind us of stones, gravel, rasping sounds. Blue and white are cold colours that we know from water and skies. All these things are connotated and sounds that evoke these connotations will work with the image.
Actually the image reminds me of something I did 10 years ago: https://vimeo.com/14712341