It has been a few months since I seriously explored this project having had other commitments (and a case of creative procrastination). As Ken commented during the tutorial “it seems like a different decade”. It hasn’t changed the relevance of the project, and I don’t want to pivot the project to make it about the current situation in any way. [For historical purposes the world is currently in the middle of a social distancing experiment to tackle the threat of COVID-19].

Since my last post about this project I have been working on another new edit that started around 2 weeks ago, having left the December 2019 edit for so long when I picked it up I couldn’t return my thinking to the same place and couldn’t understand the decisions that I had made.

I had been dogmatically resisting digitally manipulating the footage that I had captured but with a new perspective this didn’t seem to make sense anymore. The images are just pieces to be combined and manipulated to achieve the intention of the piece, they are not the piece on their own.

I am still focused on this being a cinematic experience, sound is part of that experience. During today’s tutorial we largely focused on the soundscape, we discussed my challenges with the darkness of the sounds, I feel that each attempt so far has resulted in a soundscape that is threatening, ominous, and destructive. This is not where I want to end up.

Ken suggested looking at voice again as a solution to this and exploring the possibility of a child’s or female voice. Voice is something that I have rejected and gone back to a few times because I have been having difficulty finding the right words. However, we discussed the way that it might help to anchor the experience for the audience and possibly act as a guide.

This does not have to mean a voiceover or narrative but could be as abstract as the visuals. Ken suggested looking at the Cut-up method I had come across this before but it had not occurred to me to use it here. Ken suggested going back to the original concept/inspiration for the work. This is Voyager for me so my next step is to research and select some texts that could act as the source for the cut-up.

Something else that I am going to explore that is a departure from the process that I have been exploring so far is to treat the sound as a separate sonic experience of the same ideas and concepts as the visual work. This will hopefully allow for some additional random, unexpected interaction when the pieces are united.

The visual elements of the piece have been a carful balance of deliberation and chance, I think that there is the need to bring this to the sound.

Next steps for sounds

• Not descriptive
• Whispering in their ear – immersion behind the audience
• Quality  of the voice
• Breathing reacts to the spoke words
• Different breaths in the sections
• Delicate
• Go back to the original idea about voyager