"One can look at seeing but one can't hear hearing" - Marcel Duchamp As you may know, silence is the topic chosen for this month here at Designing Sound. One may think silence is not existent if we value it as an absolute sonic absence, but here I'm going to examine its role and possibility towards the act of listening to sound, silencing, not as that state of complete sonic … [Read more...]
The Negative Space of Sound
Guest Contribution by Jeff Talman Seong Moy, my drawing professor at City College of New York, had students lightly shade their sketchpads with hand-smeared charcoal to prepare a background for the drawing. This neutral background helped to create an illusory sense of depth in a 2-dimensional medium. The negative space of the drawing was activated by this treatment. Had there … [Read more...]
A Moment (Month) of Silence
Anechoic chambers aren't necessarily "silent," but what other image can you actually use to represent the subject. The nature of silence, like nearly every other aspect of sound, is truly a subjective idea, because true Silence...the complete absence of sound...is impossible to experience unless one has a medical condition which induces it. [If you want to get solipsistic, we … [Read more...]
In Pursuit of Silence…
It's not often that we post Kickstarter projects here on the site. Then again, it's not often we find one for that is so focused on sound, let alone a film focusing on one. Make it a documentary, and now it's all kinds of special. This is the pitch for "In Pursuit of Silence," from a filmmaker who's done some pretty stellar indie work in the past (La Source, The Philosopher … [Read more...]
Sinister Resonance – Rob Bridgett
The field sepulchra blog has a fantastic post by Rob Bridgett about recorded silences. Blurb: Listening back to many of these recordings, it is clear they are still recordings of ‘something’, there is activity that just about be heard in nearly all of these recordings. What that barely perceptible activity is, I usually have no idea, and even though it could just be traffic, … [Read more...]
Silence
"The ultimate metaphoric sound is silence. If you can get the film to a place with no sound where there should be sound, the audience will crowd that silence with sounds and feelings of their own making, and they will, individually, answer the question of, "Why is it quiet?" If the slope to silence is at the right angle, you will get the audience to a strange and wonderful … [Read more...]
Walter Murch: “The Perfect Sound Film has Zero Tracks”
Wise words of Walter Murch: I think it's generally misleading to say, "Well, that sequence had eighty tracks, it must be great." Ideally, for me, the perfect sound film has zero tracks. You try to get the audience to a point, somehow, where they can imagine the sound. They hear the sound in their minds, and it really isn't on the track at all. That's the ideal sound, the one … [Read more...]