An RMIT media student reflecting and blogging on her experiences at uni, on making and learning.

Doodlebug (Christopher Nolan; 1997)

Christopher Nolan has obviously gone on to make huge productions in Hollywood (The Batman films, Memento and Inception – maybe there are some early elements of Inception in here as well?) In Doodlebug, I found a certain surrealist quality that make for an intriguing viewing for some people, but it could also put other people off.

The film also has a sort of ‘horror’ film feel to it as well – a lot of this comes from the soundscape, a very creepy atmospheric soundtrack and the magnification of small sounds such as the bubbling in the water, and the ticking of the clocks. This film, like Scorsese’s The Big Shave, only utilises one actor. The man, who looks extremely paranoid, and is within a small claustrophobic apartment, is holding a shoe and appears to be searching for something. We soon see and hear something scurrying around on the foor underneath a pair of boxer shorts. He lifts the shorts up, and sees a smaller version of himself. This small man repeatedly whacks something on the floor. The man than whacks and (presumably) squashes the smaller version of himself. The final shot shows the audience the huge face of the same man, appearing behind the first man. The first man, our main ‘protagonist’ is squashed with the shoe.

As stated above, the horror aspects that the film opens with are a very good tool for drawing the audience in, and work very well, as does the use of black and white photography. Again, there is no dialogue, but it is not required. The actor does very well in his role, and the use of the space and the sound design help emphasise his fear and paranoia. However, if some people found Inception difficult to understand, then this film would be way over their heads.

This film is less of a traditional narrative, and more experimental in it’s approach. It is more dreamlike, subjective and there is a nightmarish quality to it.

With regards to my particular craft, I was very impressed with the sound design. At the risk of repeating myself, the slow build up of the ticking of the clocks was very effective and one of my favourite things about this film. There was a greater use of diegetic sound and foley (the scuffling on the floor for instance, of the small man, came out of nowhere and even startled me a little, as I realised that the man was looking for something).

What I would take from this film to infer the work that we propose to make, is the clever use of settings. The apartment that the man is in is very small, or at least appears to be. Christopher Nolan has used the setting to full advantage, and I believe that this is something we need to do as well. The look of the film, and the sound design, are two very important aspects that can’t be ignored, even if we have an excellent story to hold the film together.

The Big Shave (Martin Scorsese; 1967)

Scorsese’s The Big Shave is roughly five minutes in length, so it is a few minutes shorter than the scripts that we are intending to produce. It is however, extremely effective, and what started as quite an ordinary scenario – a man shaving – became something quite horrific. The film is set in a single location, which is the mans bathroom. The film contains no dialogue and no diegetic sound, only a single song as the soundtrack (’I Can’t Get Started’ by Bunny Berigan, 1939). There are a number of close ups, of the white, clean bathroom before the man enters. He begins to shave. He keeps on shaving, what seems for a very long time until the viewer realises that as he is shaving, he is cutting himself. More and more blood appears, and the film becomes more and more gruesome until finally, he performs one long shave across his neck. The man is not dead, but the amount of blood that appears is almost excruciating to witness. The man simply stands there, emotionless. Some quick googling reveals that the film is seen as a metaphor for the self-destructive involvement of the U.S in the Vietnam War  - given that the film was produced in 1967, this makes sense. Reading this film in a different social context, the self-destructive metaphor is still clearly visible, though for a modern viewer it’s connection to the Vietnam War is perhaps less apparent.

The film works because it starts off with this sense of intrigue – what makes a film about a man shaving so interesting? When the blood starts, it’s hard to look away. It’s simply compelling (and, as stated above, highly allegorical). Perhaps the film doesn’t follow a ‘traditional’ three act structure, but I would argue that it does. The beginning – nice clean bathroom, man comes in. Middle – man starts to shave, blood starts to appear as he shaves his skin off. End – one final swipe of the razor, the man stands there.

Sound wise (as this will be the area that I focus the most strongly on in putting together our own short film), the only thing going on at first glance is the soundtrack choice. The song choice may have been random (the big band feel of the song is a striking opposition to the nature of what we’re actually seeing), and editing has been done around the music. The  lyrics speak of a longing – I read it as a love song. But the absence of all diegetic sound is important too – we are left with little to focus on but the images themselves.

There is a lot that can be taken away with relation to the films that we will make – the uncertainty in the build up, the creative use of the soundtrack (I will never hear a song like that again and not think of this), and the use of metaphor and allegory. It’s sometimes nice to imply or infer things, rather than stating them blatantly and for a short film this method works very well.

Since I started acting as the sound recordist on the shorts we made in FilmTV 1 and 2, everyone started to assume that sound would be my thing. I was a little surprised at first. I never imagined myself becoming a soundy on film sets, but I have – whether it’s a boom operator, sound assistant, or ‘Head of Sound’ as I was once credited as. And I’m cool with this. Sound is often something that people forget about until they have to do it, and then they realise how important it is to a film. There’s not a lot that can be done to cover bad sound.

Before the advanced skills workshop with David Chesworth, I was mostly concerned with making sure the sound I recorded on location was as clean and clear as possible. One of the first things David did was to close his eyes and describe all the sounds that he could hear. Sound makes up such a large part of our world and life, is so inherent in daily existence that we sometimes forget it’s there. Every now and then, I think it’d be a good thing to do what David did at the start of the workshop, to remind myself.

Of course, I had interest in sound design in film, but never really had any in depth input into the sound design. It has always been a collaborative effort (and collaboration is of course, a key thing in filmmaking). This time around however, I would like to go a bit further and really think about how the sound design will affect the mood of the script we choose to produce.

One of the key things that David said to us (and this may not be an exact quote) was: “Sound is there for a reason. It may not be your reason, but it’s there…” We can’t control every little sound that happens on a film set. Maybe some people say differently, but at this point in my life I don’t believe so. I can cover it with atmos, with music, with sound fx and other things, but sounds always happen whether we mean them to or not. We have to work around them, or make them work for us. Something entirely incidental may be the key to an awesome moment in a film.

I think some of the most interesting aspects of the workshop for me where listening to David’s creative work such as ‘The Masters Voice’ and ‘5000 Calls’ (all of which can be heard on his website). Again, the creative use of sound is something that I find has been overlooked a lot in film and television. While projects such as these weren’t created to subsidise the visual, I still feel that I have been given a lot to think about in terms of the creative use of sounds in our film. Depending on what script we choose, could I use sound to startle people? Will it be sad or melancholy? What types of sounds can I use? Will a particular scene benefit from the absence of sound?  (This is part of the reason that I will be doing a course on the Modern Soundtrack in film next semester – I want another opportunity to answer these questions).

Overall, I think I fully agree with a lot of what David said. ‘Sound seeks you out’ is another quote that I wrote down (paraphrased), and it’s true. Even films of the silent era were accompanied by live musicians. The introduction of ‘talkies’ was a Hollywood revolution. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences gives away Oscars every year for sound effects and sound mixing. This year, I’m going to try and put as much thought into sound as I possibly can.