The presentation regarding our experimental projects.

1. Ross Walker, James Swallow, Caitlin Willcox

2. Our initial idea
 The very first incarnation of our idea was coined "Kitchen
Song". It was intended to be a rhythm consisting entirely
of sounds associated with the typical kitchen.
 After seeing Tango (1981, Zbigniew Rybczyński), this idea
evolved.
 Tango creates an incredibly chaotic and abstract scene
using numerous overlapping and intertwining visuals.
 Could a similar idea be done with sound?

3. Developing our sound project
 Since our idea still revolved around the theme of rhythms, we
decided that the subject of the project should be something
that exhibits some form of rhythm.
 We decided that the rhythm would be presented via the
monotony of a person's repetitive morning routine.
 Sounds would consist of things such as yawning, making
breakfast, and getting changed.
 The rhythm would not be a rhythm in the sense of a song, but
rather as a series of overlapping and repeating sounds.
 The sound of a heartbeat was added to provide a metronome;
created by rhythmically tapping on a pin board.

4. Sound project complete
 Using the sounds that we had recorded, we were able to arrange and edit
our sounds with relative ease with the use of Avid Pro Tools.
 The final product mostly stayed true to our original idea: a series of sounds
would intertwine and overlap to create a very chaotic and abstract scene;
similar to that of Tango.
 We were mostly satisfied with the final sound project. We felt as though
the intertwining and overlapping sound succeeded in being reminiscent of
the visuals seen in Tango (1981); as was our intention. Feedback confirmed
this for us.
 In retrospect however, once we knew what we wanted to do with the
experimental film and how it connected to the sound project, many more
interesting and innovative ideas came to us. As it stands, waking up in the
morning turned out to be a very generic and derivative concept to base our
entire body of work around.

5. Video Project
 We then set about applying visuals to accompany the sound project that we
had created.
 Our initial idea was similar to that of Tango: one person would act out the
actions being depicted in the sounds; all of which would be shown within one
shot, creating the impression that this one person is simultaneously performing
all of these actions.
 However, we began to realise that this may have been a little too ambitious
given our lack of experience with special effects of this nature.
 Instead, we decided that the visuals should provide an interpretation of the
sounds, but not necessarily literally. This is where the experimental film An
Optical Poem (1938) helped influence our ideas.
 An initial idea was that a series of mouths would interpret the actions depicted
in the sound (not always literally).
 We then decided to expand this, in that interpretation of the sounds would be
done by numerous parts of the body, such as eyes shutting being coupled with
a slamming door, and the tilting of the head being coupled with the pouring of
cereal.

7. Om
 Om (1986) by John Smith is a short experimental film that
explores the ways in which sound and visuals can be used in
combination to evoke certain meanings.
 The focus of the film is a young man who is depicted to be
some sort of monk. He wears what seems to be an orange
robe and is breathing in what appears to be incense.
 He hums "Om", a sacred sound and spiritual icon in Indian
religions. The man then begins to have his hair shaved; his
humming coupling with the sound of the razor to imply that
this is in fact where the sounds originate.
 The end of the film reveals that the robe is in fact a barber's
gown, the incense is in fact a lit cigarette, and the man is
what appears to be a skinhead.
 Smith intelligently uses a combination of sound and visuals in
order to coax the viewer into developing false assumptions.
 This idea inspired us to explore the ways in which
combinations of sounds and visuals could be utilised to
connote various meanings.
 In our film, sounds could be coupled with several different
video clips to create several different meanings, similarly to
how the combinations of visuals and sounds in Om trick the
viewer into developing false assumptions.

8. What type of experimental film is ours?
 Given its focus on the combination of sounds and visuals, its
frequent close-ups focusing on specific parts of the body, as
well as its noticeable lack of narrative or structure; we believe
that our film falls into the category of "Pure Abstraction".
 The definition of an abstract piece of experimental filmmaking
is that it focuses on things such as sound, shape, colour, and
light rather than a narrative or a particular theme. Our film can
be quite easily categorised into this description given its focus
on shape, sound, colour, as well as the ways in which these
elements can be combined to create a variety of effects.

9. Critical analysis of our final film
 We feel it provides interesting combinations of sounds and visuals in
order to create a variety of effects, including comedy.
 It was an original and stylistic idea that unlike our sound project,
wasn’t too similar to those of our peers.
 The imagery of the last two cycles lacked the polish and
synchronicity of the first two. This is due to Avid Media Composer’s
operations slowing as more and more clips were layered on top of
one-another. By the end it became a chore just to place clips.
 The film could have perhaps been more visually interesting with
alterations to the mouth or using different subjects. Indeed, we had
ideas to improve the visuals before filming, but ultimately, those
ideas were simply not included for time.

10. What would we do differently
next time?
 Industrial sounds such as those captured from the myriad of
construction sites around Sheffield would have created a
greater dissonance with the bodily visuals and thusly reflected
our intentions for the imagery to provide a representation of
the sound, but not necessarily literally.
 The mouth is rather uninteresting and could have been made
a much more interesting subject. We came up with the idea of
badly applying lipstick or using a variety of mouths with a
variety of colours. We attempted to rectify this during editing
but ultimately, it seemed altering the colour of one screen
during the split screen sequence altered them all and finding a
work around was too much of a hassle given our time
constraints.

11. Individual Contributions
 James Swallow: My most prominent contribution was being the editor for both
the sound project and the experimental film, during these processes I had to
learn how to use the Avid software, Pro Tools and Media Composer and how to
export a session of Pro Tools to Media Composer, something the programme
was apparently not meant to do. My second most prominent contribution was
being the subject for both projects, i.e. - I was recorded making weird noises
and then later I mimed my mouth to them. Most of these were improvised.
 Ross Walker: The concept of our final film originated from my initial “Kitchen
Song” idea; in that rhythm would be used as a medium through which to
present the relationship between visuals and sound. In the actual production
of the projects, I aided James in editing by helping with small issues and by
researching different useful editing techniques. During filming, I used the raw
recorded sounds that I had uploaded to my Soundcloud account in order to
provide our subject (James) with a reference from which to interpret these
sounds visually. I also wrote most of this PowerPoint.
 Caitlin Willcox: I was responsible for a majority of the camera operations and
cinematography present during the film. I also recorded most of the raw
sounds that can be heard in both the audio project, as well as the final film.