At the Museum of the Moving Image I was able to see many aspects of what happens behind the scenes for films. The first part of our tour consisted of viewing vintage portraits of actors. What was interesting about these photos was the fact that they were themed to a particular actor's role. For example, there was a picture of Shirley Temple looking all innocent with her curly hair and happy smile. These pictures were very important because they could help casting directors see what a specific actor could bring to the a role just at looking at their portrait.
For the next part of the tour, we viewed masks and makeup. Two masks stood out to me the most in the exhibit, Chewbacca's mask and Jim Carey's mask for The Mask. One very interesting fact brought up by our tour guide was how simplified Chewbacca's mask looked was compared to the one worn by Jim Carey. This is so because in Star Wars, Chewbacca doesn't really have any lines of dialogue besides the occasional growl or snarl so there isn't much needed prominent facial features. Jim Carey's mask totally relies on facial features to fully see every expression that he can make.
We then moved on to costume design. There were many outfits on display at the exhibit from Bill Cosby's iconic sweater from The Cosby Show to Robin Williams's Mork outfit from Mork and Mindy. It was very interesting seeing the many costumes and how vastly they varied from one another. One important piece of information our tour guide told us about costume design is that not only do outfits help to give the viewer a sense of the time period a specific character is in, but it also helps to give us a window into the character's personality.
Lastly, we visited a sound recording booth. In the booth our guide was talking to us about automated dialogue replacement(ADR). To demonstrate it's importance, we had three volunteers dub over a scene from Babe. While it was humorous, it did help to give me a better sense of how dubbing works in post-production. Overall this was a very informative trip and I'm glad I came along.
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Thursday, November 6, 2014
My Sound Walk
I attempted my sound walk on Halloween. The reasoning behind this was to compare the sounds of my neighborhood in the afternoon to the wild chaotic sounds of Halloween night. To do the comparison, I took advantage of the fact that I had to work from 12pm-7pm and during this shift I would have to walk around nine city blocks to and from work. This was due to me having to pick up a client's at her house and bring him back to my job (dog daycare).
On my way to my client's house I could hear the wind brushing against all the trees and brushes around me. Accompanying the wind was the sound of idle car engines as the drivers were waiting for the traffic lights to turn green. An interesting thing I noticed was that as certain streets got narrower (which is common in Harlem), the easier it was to hear bits of conversations from strangers whether it be from their phones or their friends/family. Along my afternoon walk, I came across a brownstone building that was preparing for Halloween night by testing out their speaker system and blasting classic horror music. One song caught my attention, the theme to John Carpenter's Halloween. It felt weird hearing that horror theme playing in broad daylight. The theme only invoked the imagery of the pumpkin in the opening credits to the Halloween franchise, not the masked killer Michael Myers. I did not feel that sense of dread one would feel while listening to that song. That gave me a real lesson about how not only does audio invoke emotion, but the atmosphere around you can also have a great effect.
At around 6pm I went back outside and Halloween had officially started. The most noticeable thing, audio-wise was all the laughing and screaming from nearby children. The wind was picking up speed and kids started to yell at each other across the street from one another about how scary one particular building was or how much candy they received from said house. Off in the distance I could hear Michael Jackson's "Thriller" playing faintly. Once again I heard more classic Halloween songs playing from multiple houses as children walked inside. Just hearing the music and the children having fun brought me back to the time when I used to go trick-or-treating with my parents. I thoroughly enjoyed this exercise, especially comparing the calm relaxing sounds of the afternoon to the chaotic sounds of Halloween night.
On my way to my client's house I could hear the wind brushing against all the trees and brushes around me. Accompanying the wind was the sound of idle car engines as the drivers were waiting for the traffic lights to turn green. An interesting thing I noticed was that as certain streets got narrower (which is common in Harlem), the easier it was to hear bits of conversations from strangers whether it be from their phones or their friends/family. Along my afternoon walk, I came across a brownstone building that was preparing for Halloween night by testing out their speaker system and blasting classic horror music. One song caught my attention, the theme to John Carpenter's Halloween. It felt weird hearing that horror theme playing in broad daylight. The theme only invoked the imagery of the pumpkin in the opening credits to the Halloween franchise, not the masked killer Michael Myers. I did not feel that sense of dread one would feel while listening to that song. That gave me a real lesson about how not only does audio invoke emotion, but the atmosphere around you can also have a great effect.
At around 6pm I went back outside and Halloween had officially started. The most noticeable thing, audio-wise was all the laughing and screaming from nearby children. The wind was picking up speed and kids started to yell at each other across the street from one another about how scary one particular building was or how much candy they received from said house. Off in the distance I could hear Michael Jackson's "Thriller" playing faintly. Once again I heard more classic Halloween songs playing from multiple houses as children walked inside. Just hearing the music and the children having fun brought me back to the time when I used to go trick-or-treating with my parents. I thoroughly enjoyed this exercise, especially comparing the calm relaxing sounds of the afternoon to the chaotic sounds of Halloween night.
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