Sound Design (David Barker and Pacho Velez)

The lecture on contemporary sound design in documentary cinema, discussed about  foley, ambience, score and a fourth category David Barker and Pacho Velez explored, in documentaries. Barker and Velez began the lecture by showing a scene from a film. The setting of the scene takes place in a lab where persons are examining lobsters and stuffing them into boxes. The sound in the scene is mostly coming from the people doing this odd process. However, sound of tape being pulled and stripped is heard but no where to be found in the frame. Barker and Velez wanted to talk about this particular phenomenon. They mentioned that scores have been used for a long time to amplify emotion or convey abstract notions in fiction and nonfiction films. Now, sound designers and filmmakers are using sounds and sonic textures to get the same effects scores delivered in the past. Furthermore, Barker and Velez also talked about foley and ambiance and how they draw or pull attention away from the frame. They defined foley as natural sounds that occur in the scene, like footsteps or opening a door. Natural sounds that occur in the scene draw attention to what’s going on. On the contrary, ambient sounds pulls attention to what’s outside of the frame. 

I found the lecture interesting although I would have liked it if they explained the contrasting nature of foley and ambient sounds such as how one directs attentions to the frame and the other pulls away from the center of the frame. Before Barker and Velez discussed about the fourth category of sound in films and, showed us the scene where people were packing lobsters in to boxes, I thought the sound of tape being teared off was added to further establish the environment in the scene. I never thought of sound as an element that can be used to convey a theme or amplify emotions.

Whiskey Water Trick

      The Whiskey Water Trick is a short movie done by filmmaker Casey Neistat. In the video, Neistat fills up one shot glass with whiskey and the other glass with water. Neistat then films himself shuffling through a stack of pinup girl playing cards and picks a card out of the deck and places it on top of the shot glass filled with water. Carefully he flips the shot glass upside down while holding the card so the water doesn't spill and places it on top of the shot glass filled with whiskey. He aligns the rims of both shot glasses and slightly slides the card out, creating a small gap and allowing the liquid to travel between the glasses. Gradually, the denser liquid, water travels downward and the whiskey travels upward.
     While the whiskey water experiment is already awesome to watch as it is, the editing significantly makes the video more entertaining. The video starts out by playing Rye Whiskey, a song by folk singer Pete Seeger. Rye Whiskey complements the intrepid and rustic feel illustrated in the video. The duration of each shot are equally timed and reflects the tempo of Rye Whiskey. The duration of the shots only slow down when Neistat wants the viewer to focus on the details of the pinup girl playing cards as he is shuffling through the deck and, when the water and whiskey are trading places in the glasses. As Neistat proceeds with the experiment, different angles are used like an extreme close up shot of him opening a bottle of whiskey and a bird's eyed view of him pouring the whiskey and water into the shot glasses. The cuts in the video appear seamless because even if the video switches between multiple angles, the entire motion of an action is recorded. This technique allows Neistat to show the procedure in multiple perspectives without detracting from the seamless quality of the video. The fixed set of colors and the slight sepia hue used throughout the video also reinforces the connection between each shot.

Interview