As a professional company The Pin Hinge Collective has a high standard we wish to maintain. As sound Designer for the show i wished to make sure that this was achieved regarding our sounds for the performance, making sure all of our songs where all obtained legally. To gather this information I emailed the Stage Manager of the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, Darren Page, hoping he could offer me guidance.
(Page, 2017).
From Darren’s response i was able to understand I need a PRS form, which would allow royalties to artists whose songs we have used within the performance such as Billy Joel and Hans Zimmer.
Page, D. (2017) RE: Question about Copyright [email]. Sent to J.Lodge, 26 April.
Each Delusion brought challenges in their own way, however, the most challenging was Sam’s character Tom’s space delusion. The delusion follows, Tom’s dream of becoming the first British astronaut to walk on the moon, as well as portray him reaching this dreams. The delusion consists of physical theatre to create the weightlessness and the anti gravity aesthetic which the scene wanted to for fill.
The challenge this came from the dynamic changes that this delusion possessed, to counter act this, I had to make sure, i worked alongside Holly (the choreographer) to make sure the mood which she created matched the music which i produced for the scene. Essentially, the music had to match the emotion and the style of physical theatre which Holly was creating. The section had three differing styles, the first, was while Sam’s character was building the rocket. This section needed have a slight build to assure it gave the right emotion to the scene, as well as set a gentle overtone to the performance. For this opening movement peice, I decided that soft piano would set a nice pace for Sam to act out his scene to as well as set the tone for his delusion. Therefore, i believed that Hans Zimmer’s Afraid of Time was a suitable choice.
Afraid of Time was used in the Motion Picture, Interstellar (2014). I believed that the style of this song, suited the calm build up of ascending to space, as well as gave the same atmosphere as space, like the purpose is the tracks purpose within the film.
After this build up had been established and Sam’s character had arrived in space, i believed that the correct setting had been produced to the section, therefore i believed that the music itself could change, to compliment the different style which the scene was about to transcend to. The second, stage of the section turned into a pyshical theatre peice, involving a lot of breathing and wind like moves, so i wanted to capture this through the next piece of music.
(Chambon, 2014).
Therefore, I believed Philip Chambon’s Coupling Dance worked best for this section. The song possessed the breathing and weightlessness which the section required, furthermore the track solely builds in pace which strongly accompanies the movement of the section, as the lifts heighten so did the movement producing a strong build up for the final lift.
The Final lift was the climax of this performance, it would show Sam’s character finally achieving his dream. For this moment, I wanted to use something different to the previous tracks as well as a well known song which relates to the style of this section. I decided nothing, would suit this moment more then David Bowie’s Space Oddity. However, i believed that the original version did not hold the grandeur that the moment possessed. So instead I looked into different covers of the song to find something that could match the performances climax.
I decided to use the London Symphony Orchestra’s adaptation of Space Oddity. The track from 1:10 starts to build up on its entrance to the first chorus, i believed if this was edited and timed correctly, it would create a nice accompanying sound which would heightening the experience of the lift, as well as producing the grandeur that the lift rightly deserves.
work cited
Chambon, P. (2014) Coupling Dance [download]. 4 minutes. 56 secs. Between shadows. London: Phillip Chambon Music. Available from http://www.philipchambon.com/danceballet.html [accessed 23 April 2017].
edgycorners (2010) Space Oddity by The London Symphony Orchestra . Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB3k4wAAAQU [accessed 23 April 2017].
GSOAT (2016) Afraid of Time – Hans Zimmer // Interstellar Soundtrack (Deluxe Edition . Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzFDfGK6zG4 [acessed 23 April 2017].
Towards the end of our show, we started to finalise all of the delusion which will take place within the show. Leaving us only with Emma’s character Louisa remaining to have her delusion, with the story line explaining her character gave up love for her job and she did not gain the position, leaving her character in a position of questioning whatever she made the right choice.
For this final delusion, we wanted to explore other contemporary styles other then our previous sections such as physical theatre, dance and mime. This lead towards the group decision to explore how media could be applied to our performance. The group wanted to start by agreeing that this should be about her life, in the style show what her life could of been if she had chosen love over work.
Our, group took inspiration from the sit-com Scrubs season eight final. This episode was the characters JD’s exit from the show, showing how his time at Sacred Heart and he began to think about what the future would bring (scrubs, 2009).
The group thought this style of projecting the future through home movies would be a interesting style in how to finish our show and the last delusion. The video would allow the audience to see the life that Louisa had chosen not to pursue as well give the audience a style of media which could be consisted quite relateable if the video is shot in a home movie style, making the piece more moving.
After agreeing that this video was a style of performance that we wanted to presue, i began to research songs which may fit this style of video. My final choice was Billy Joel’s She’s always a women (1977). The song ironically expresses how women are strong indiviauls which i believe suits Emma’s character, as throughout the play we see here cold business women style, however i believe with this song it could contrast this character showing her more loving emotional side.
Works cite
PrimMichael JA (2009) Scrubs Series 8 – My Finale – JD Montage/Vision Of His Future. . Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=War9m52LrV4 [accessed 18 April 2017].
coolvideo76 (2008) Billy Joel – She’s Always a Woman. . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4nQB3V10i8 [accessed 18 April 2017].
Scrubs (2009) [television]. E4. Season 9, episode 19.
The shows contemporary staging was the factor that needed to be pushed the most throughout the performance process. Therefore be we as a company these delusions should be the opening to our performance which would mask the true meaning behind the performance, essentially tricking the audience to the meaning of the performance. However, The company began to steer away from the idea of using Phony sounds and soundscapes as the group decision was made these were not as effective as we once though, as well as the group believed the budget would not be able to cover the expenses of the props needed to produce the sound.
Instead, we decided that the first delusion would disguise our show, would be Jay’s Silent Movie. The performance consisted of mime comedy displaying Michael (Jay’s Character) as the hero, saving the girl and beating the villain. Thus required research into silent film, to create the correct theme. Research suggested that the performance musically wise required rhythm and a iconic piano, to help set the slap stick mood of the performance, which was the avenue in which we wanted to perform (Anderson, 1988, 1-5). Moving from Anderson’s comments the play, I began to study the Styles of music which often feature in silent movies.
Taking influence from Safety Last! (1923) The style story bases itself around three major factors; love, comedy and danger, all which require distinctive sounds to allow audiences to feel the correct emotion behind the performance. The Example below shows the how music can add tension towards a scene, instantly changing the meaning or narrative behind the section of film.
Thus, comparing the style of silent film we wanted to create, i looked a Music of the silent film era, however, during this time, recorded audio from singers was becoming a frequent trend, which posed a problem for our film as i believed this would draw away from the rustic feel if we wanted to created.
To challenge this by finding a piece of music which would allow that lighthearted nature if this move to be present. Finally, i decided on the desired track we wished for the performance, Scott Joplin’s Sunflower slow drag (1901).
This piece of music, created the right energy and pace to the section as well as being a song which would be easily looped, so the repetition would be allow the actors as much time as required, furthermore, having a singular song would not take away from the aesthetic of the piece as i believed a change in song may distort the rhythm.
Works cited
Anderson, G.B., 1988. Music for Silent Films: 1894-1929. A Guide.
The first step had been decided, we knew we wanted to place our first delusion within the 1920’s. So to tackle this as sound designer i began to research music of the 1920’s era. However, i had to bare in mind that our group also wanted to explore what other contemporary methods we could use to create an aesthetic for Beginning delusion. Firstly, the group discussed using manufactured sounds such as Foley Sound. Foley sound is the art form where everyday objects are used to produce sounds, which could be manipulated to produce different sounds, for example within phony sound, by using a two halves of a coconut shell, being beat in a certain rhythm could give a similar sound to horse’s trotting (Ramael, 2012, 263).
After investigating Foley sound our group decided to see what we could do to incorporate the style into our production. The company agreed we should devise a sequence with involves characters carrying out certain actions that the rest of the company could use foley objects to created the actions sounds. As the sound designer for the show, i began to try and find influence to how this art form and how it is produced correctly. After researching foley sound on the internet during the rehearsal whilst the rest of the company worked on blocking, I was able to find a video that could help our group gain a deeper understanding of how to produce decent foley sound.
(The Columbian, 2016)
After finding this video by The Colombian (2016) I was able to show the show the rest of the group ideas and techniques that Foley artists use. Knowing that everyone was now aware of the process of how to produce foley sounds, our group started to experiment within different sounds which would be used within the performance. We began by trying to figure out what we could use which we had present, however, this was very minimal in regards to what we need to produce the styles of sounds we needed, such as old telephones, briefcases unlocking etc. So to counterbalance this our group decided to make the remaining unpractical sounds sounds with our voices, to essentially fill in the gaps whilst we sourced the props.
This lead to another issue, it was the cost effectiveness for using foley sound, understandably we would only be able to rehearse when we had all the necessary props, yet, with our budget at the time our group didn’t know if this was cost effect as if the company made a wrong purchase it would lower the budget further, another issue stemmed from this. Our groups current plan involved several actors on stage at one time which not leave enough stage hands, to create the sound necessary or be able to create multiple sounds for multiple people. So we thought of a more cost effective and practical method to making sound, this led to the suggestion from Dwain, the Director of the company, of using a soundscape from the actors on stage.
From this we would be able to act out the scene, without any extra costs regarding props needed to produce sound. So exploring on from this idea, each actor on stage made on specific sound which would be able to identify their character as well as identify there job role within the office. each individual came up with a range of various sounds to accompany their character all allowing them to be identified easily, for example it was obvious that holly, was playing the receptionist through her sound effect of a phone ringing followed by a “hello”. From this as sound designer it was my job to decide how these sounds could fit together to make some sort of sound collage of the office.
This process began with each individual showing me their sound, by studying each sound i was able to see the amount of beats that they had within their sound rhythm, as well as their sound style. This allowed me to create a order which focused all sounds, however, to help the office aesthetic our group was trying to create, i decided to make each individual join in at a specific time, building the noise and sound on stage mirroring the sounds and hectic vibe of an office. over the next few weeks, our group will look into improving the soundscape as well as putting it on its feet.
Works Cited
The Columbian, (2016). Foley artist shows how sounds effects are made. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0pOLukIB4s [Accessed 9 Apr. 2017].
Remael, A., 2012. For the use of sound. Film sound analysis for audio-description: some key issues. MonTI. Monografías de Traducción e Interpretación, 4, 255-276.
