Jessica McDermott is starting her own campaign to get her trailer viewed – give her some feedback and she will screen the full version of the film during the festive period.

Follow the #HOFIFOU50x50 conversation on twitter to find out more.

Click on the vimeo logo to see more of Jessica’s films.
We also enjoyed this short:

There are 42 days left – get yourself featured in our 50×50 promotion and in the running for cash prizes. Find out how here.

The frenetic finish in the Savalas studio last Friday left me feeling like Wily Coyote falling through the air before hitting the ground in Edinburgh this Sunday Night.

Thanks to everyone for working so hard. Whatever happens they can’t accuse us of slouching.

We’ve not shown our dominos to anyone yet. In fact we’ll only see what we’ve got as the curtain goes up on Sunday night, which is thrilling but which could also mean we get a very public doin’.

So if anyone wants to see the moment when the ‘poof’ of dust lets you know Wily Coyote has hit the bottom of the gulch. Sunday Night 9m at In-Space, 1 Crichton Place Edinburgh is the place, Phone 0131 623 8030 to book a seat.

See you there, RB

We were closeted in Studio 2 at Savalas with Michael – and his faithful and incredibly patient hound Somhairle (reference Google for spelling, it’s Gaelic for ‘Sam’) –  for about 8 hours bashing out the final mixes for the two films. Michael is the third sort of engineer/producer type we’ve been lucky enough to have tolerate us at Savalas, and his skills confirmed our suspicions that an entry qualification for working there is ‘devastating ProTools speed’. If we asked him to do something to a mix, he had either already done it or was finished by the time we were done trying to vocalise it. Which was handy, as we used every last drop of time we had, trying out different things…I suspect our seemingly limitless indecision threatened to drive Gaia quite mad as she kept us on deadline…

At times throughout the whole process, we’ve discussed with Roddy and among ourselves the peculiar dynamic we’re working with here – we’ve never really soundtracked anything before, and Roddy hasn’t been that involved with soundtrack-ers. Hey, that’s why we’re all here, I guess… However, today in particular I really got the feeling we were all pulling together and speaking the same language – there was even a strange sort of excitement when we all realised we were obsessing over the same single note at the end of one of the films. We were literally leaping out of our seats over a single plucked violin note – it may seem a bit pedantic, but in a heart-warming way. A lot of the process thus far has involved us sending sound mixes and film edits back and forth, sort of like audio/visual tennis, so it was great to knuckle down both with the locked edits and for the first time properly really together, with ourselves and Roddy. Obviously we’ve met up and so forth before, but we’ve never done a huge amount of work while in the room together, more just showing off results and taking reactions from that – more tennis. We were able to be open and honest about what we were aiming for and doing, on a point-by-point (almost note-by-note) basis, and it really showed up the collaborative side of the project. Even where we had disagreements  - no, it wasn’t all plain sailing, which I guess rarely really happens when you get five or six creative people bouncing ideas off of each other – we knew it was because we all genuinely cared a lot about the project and wanted to make the best soundtrack possibly possible, and we came to conclusions we’re all happy with.

And that’s the sort of final word, the perfect cadence at the end of our little bonus-features composer commentary here…we got a bunch of creative people together, and created something that we all like. “This is making me happy”, as Roddy would say. I think I can speak for the entire Wasabi collective when I say it’s been a tremendous experience for all of us, both as a sort of learning-curve, a creative challenge, and in terms of just being great fun. You’ll notice I’ve not said that much about the actual details of the soundtracks or indeed the films themselves – so I guess you’ll just have to come along to the Edinburgh International Film Festival next Sunday and see them for yourself…!

Phil (Fear Wasabi)

There has been a rise in the amount of blogging by the other members of Fear Wasabi recently, which I’ve been glad of.  In the earlier phases of the project I worried that I was failing to properly represent them, being as we were submitting collectively and so on through my individual profile.  Writing in the 1st person can have an ego-trip effect on me, I bet this turns into a philosophical ramble of some sort…

Anyway, following our now-customary travel disaster, yesterday we were back at Savalas “plush is not the word” Studios, situated in a renovated section of the old Govan Town Hall, which we found still has it’s main hall area hidden away, in all it’s grandeur.  While part of the team played with recording the reverb in there (leaping around in the dark, frightening the janitors), the others got on with some recording and arranging in-studio.

Fear Wasabi has been referring to Giles as our “5th Horseman”.  At one point yesterday while he was out, we de-tuned a violin (a hammer would have been a more subtle method to how we achieved this) and bowed some double-stop harmonics, creating a frankly bizarre noise.  That kind of stunt would have swiftly lead to our expulsion from any orchestra in the land, but upon his return, Giles simply grinned and said “cool sound”.

Apart from being tremendously encouraging and understanding, Giles has been manning the mixing-desks for us, and until we met Iain he was the fastest man we’d ever seen at the controls of Pro-Tools.  There were one or two moments of revelation for us in there, first hearing our rough sketches played through the Dolby system in the studio, and then hearing the difference once Iain had a chance to do a quick (really quick) 5.1 mix and give the various sounds some space…completely different listening experience.  The skills these guys bring to the table totally transform whats being produced.

Yesterday afternoon also brought an always-welcome opportunity to talk with Roddy and Gaia about the ideas and sounds we have been toying with.  Different perspectives and opinions are, to my mind, essential in the creation of work that is interesting and satisfying not only to those making it, but objectively too.  I can’t help but feel privileged to have been able to work with such a group of diverse talent as this.

Enough talking about working, best go get on with some!

Andy (Fear Wasabi)

PS. Told you I’d ramble.

25.05.10

Edit polish

So that is the last polish of the edit done before Andy gets a shot at the music.  The changes that made were a few compositional changes, timing changes for a couple of camera moves, order changes so Roddy felt happy with the juxta position of images, and a few additional images.  I can’t wait to see what Andy will do with the score.

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17.05.10

rough edit

Based on discussions with Roddy I put together a rough cut of the piece.  I also did a short test of just presenting the photographs for a couple of seconds punctuated by a second of black.  Roddy liked elements of both approaches so I made another cut using the roaming camera as well as the still photos separated by black.  This seemed to have a variety and texture that worked well not only to display the photos clearly but it also provided interesting visual rhythms that the composers could work with.   The next stage is to polish the edit…

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15.05.10

beginning editing

I have worked with Gaia before so she contacted me about the job.  I had an initial meeting with Roddy and Gaia to discuss what was needed and how I could contribute.  On the strength of that meeting I was made responsible for the editing and motion graphics side of the tattoo project.  I began by putting together some ideas for animation and transitions.  I explored a few techniques on how to present the photographs and how to transition from one to another.  Roddy and I discussed them and although some of the ideas were interesting, a simple approach seemed to work best.  Roddy wanted the camera and editing to be as objective as possible so how the camera acted needed to be unostentatious.

Next stage: rough edit…

The Business End

The Fear Wasabi bandwagon rattled down from it’s HQ in Dundee to Glasgow yesterday for a very pleasant afternoon chatting with Gaia and Giles at Savalas.  The discussion occasionally touched on our “working dynamic”, which now needs to expand a bit given the deadlines and so on, as well as the need to work quite closely with Giles.  My effort at describing our working practise as Fear Wasabi (which, prior to this project was more a semi-improvised live-performance creature rather than a recording one) was that we had “several long discussions before sitting down to record over the space of an evening”, which probably wasn’t terribly enlightening.  I think it’d be fair to say that what we try to focus on is the root concept that we want to convey, and that how we go about making actual sounds follows that.  Sometimes specific ways of conveying an idea will come to us, but often we work just by trying things and seeing how the others react.  Each member of the group plays some sort of instrument, for example on our Traffic interpretation we really liked the video’s simple energy, so you can hear me strumming away at a violin, Gomango playing a harmonium and rattling some fruit-shakers, In/visigen bowing some violin through a guitar effects-pedal and Phipsim playing his beloved Korg x-50 and MicroKorg…all of us huddled around a small microphone.
Anyway, a few hundred words later I feel I’m no closer to really pinning down how exactly we make these noises, hopefully through the mysteries of the internet this will have made some sense to someone somewhere…
Upon it’s return to HQ, Fear Wasabi is pleased to report that it enjoyed some excellent fish and chips from The Silvery Tay (yes, in Newport rather than Dundee.  If ever a city was in real need of a good chipper, it’s Dundee) and sat on the roof of a castle watching the sun go down.

Congratulations to Andy Sim for winning the Roderick Buchanan Soundtrack
competition.  Central Station, Savalas and Roderick Buchanan are very happy to
announce the winner and we are really looking forward to working with Andy
at Savalas Studios over the next few weeks to develop his ideas and realize
an amazing soundtrack for Roderick Buchanan’s new Films ‘Lament’ and
‘Tattoo’.  Below is the selection process that led to our decision.

The shortlist

We managed to shortlist 6 composers out of over 50 entries which took a bit
of doing and actually was a pretty unique experience for myself and Roddy
and Paul.  Generally the standard was pretty high with some people obviously
putting a lot of time and effort into scoring the two very different films,
‘traffic’ and ‘out’.  We always aimed for the results of this process to be
very much part of the overall body of work.  The results were a real insight
into how sound can effect the appreciation and meaning of the films.
Amongst the myriad of entries varying from the movie soundtrack to sound
design to a more esoteric sound art/Musique concrete approaches, there were
a number of stand out scores.  What seemed to work best was not trying to
make a movie soundtrack but something more sympathetic to the films which
were made without a soundtrack in mind.

Daniel Paddens soundtrack for ‘Traffic’ worked beautifully in capturing and
delineating the constant variation of scenes whilst keeping a coherent
creative flow to the piece.  His use of juxtaposing music and found sound
captured the nostalgic ‘found’ nature of the piece.  We were impressed with
Lu Sisi’s beat driven cut up track and the fact that he edited the pictures
which then fitted the music showed a boldness and presence of mind and
captured the illusive equal partnership between picture and sound.
Nils Meisel’s soundtrack to ‘Out’ brought a smile to our face.  Its uniqueness
and bold approach revealed a strong underlying creative process.
Jonnie Commons electronic rendition for ‘traffic’ was very effective giving a real
sense of movement and momentum.  It had an organic nature sympathetic to the
film.  The use of scribbling effects also showed this originality and a real
openness to what a soundtrack could be beyond the stereotypes.
Martin Rebelski’s lovely piece for Traffic was really evocative and complimented
the images in a really hypnotic way.

Andy Sim’s score to traffic had a really quirky musicality and we like his
thought process.  The slightly folksy sound worked well and we thought there
is more than meets the eye (ear) from this guy.

Selecting the winner

So to the finals.  On April 9th Roddy presented 4 outlines.  All of which
were potentially very interesting but not all of them suited the kind of
budgets and timescales we are on.  The 2 rejected ideas were inspired by the
imminent world cup in south Africa but would involve a lot of field work
which was just not practical – we will just have wait a few years for these.
The 2 selected ideas, ‘Paddy’s Lament’, a juxtaposition of a 19th century tale with
a 21st century youtube movie exploring the ‘us and them’ paradox and
‘Tattoo’, part of Roddy’s ongoing work with Parkhead Republican Flute Band,
an animated presentation of body imagery.  These  were formed in light of
the soundtracks we had been hearing. Roddy makes films without a
‘soundtrack’ or at the very least a simple location sound so the requirement
of a soundtrack and the specific musical ideas flying around his head after
listening to 53 pieces of music for his other films helped form his ideas
for the films he devised.  To me this is important as it follows the agenda
of this project that the sound and music influence each other as opposed to
simply adding sound to a film. The challenge for Roddy is his self confessed
unfamiliarity with the language of film music and his dislike for the overly
dramatic preferring creative expression to be a distillation of reality.
The ideas presented for the final selection were generally excellent.  Time
was tight  for the composers and for Roddy, Gaia and myself to select the
finalist. There were 2 very strong contenders for the gig but practicalities
meant there could only be one winner.

Sadly Daniel Padden and Lu Sisi had  to pull out which left us 4 contenders
to choose from.

We all felt that the winner, Andy Sim’s score for tattoo was very strong,
complimenting the work very well and employing a well thought out creative
process.  With a very effective use of sound design and music exploring
innocence of rivalry contrasting playground sounds with football cheers and
an underlying abstract musical texture.  This had a lot to say and
contributed to the images whilst standing up as a coherent piece.  There is
great possibility with this piece.  Andy’s Lament was a little more spare
and underdeveloped but the use of the latin dance clapping reference was a
great creative analogy and again showed real potential.

Martin Rebelski’s Score for Lament I felt worked really well and was a very
close runner up.  It had a very hypnotic use of fragments of ‘film music’
and nicely panned horse hooves.  Subtle but effective.  As the big drums and
innocent music box sample came in, it evoked something of the peculiar
juxtaposition between the relationship building and standing ground in the
situation and introduced the youtube movie really well.   The score for
Lament was also strong the violin bowing sound and guitar worked well in
creating a backdrop which introduced the drums which built really well
through the piece.  The music reminded me of Sumu Yakoto – no bad thing!

Jonnie Common’s soundtrack for Tattoo was also strong.  The flutes had a neat
connection with the subject but created an ‘other worldliness’. His blog
described using windup marching toys which sounded interesting. We were not
sure where the soundtrack was going with the cut up beats towards the end
however it sounded musically strong. His score for Lament was much more
sparse, it was an interesting perhaps a little too sparse.  He had some
strong concepts behind the work (using tape loops) which, I didn’t quite
come across in this rendition.  The creative thought processes were strong
and given some time some very interesting things could come out.

Nils Meisel’s Score for Tattoo’s was very different to the other entries
with a bold use of piano sound fragments.  As an improvising pianist this
was right up my street and was very captivating.  The introduction of sound
effects was interesting and obviously a lot of work had gone into this. The
end result sat firmly in the sound art domain which was not quite where
Roddy wanted to take the piece. In my opinion, a very strong piece. Nils
Lament was very evocative and sucked you in with a lovely piano arpeggio and
using real sounds to set the scene was a nice touch.  The sound didn’t
really evolve and as such lacked a certain dynamic we were looking for.
Having said that it was a great sounding score and the production values
were second to none. We were impressed with really all the work gone into
giving options of stereo and surround mixes.

It’s a wrap!

The Roderick Buchanan Soundtrack project culminated in last Sunday’s event at Inspace at the Edinburgh International Film Festival . It was an opportunity to share this adventure with an audience, chart the project genesis and get to know all the talented individuals who brought this experiment to life. I would like to take this occasion to say a big thank you to Savalas, Fear Wasabi and Roddy Buchanan for all their hard work and their enthusiasm in accepting this challenge and also to the Edinburgh International Film Festival for their support and Inspace for being such a fantastic host. And, of course, thanks very much to all the members of this group who followed the project all along with great interest and anticipation! You can now watch Tattoo and Lament by clicking on the links.

We’d love to keep hearing from you!

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14.06.10

As eloquently described by Fear Wasabi’s Phil in his blog, we did indeed hit a crucial deadline for the project last Friday at Savalas, as the soundtracks and final mixes for Roddy Buchanan’s Tattoo and Lament were finally completed during an intense, fast-paced, caffeine-fuelled afternoon in the dubbing suite -  under the incredibly patient supervision of another one of Savalas‘s sound gurus, Micheal.

So, here we are (nearly). I don’t mean to sound corny, but it does feel just like yesterday when we were sitting in Central Station revising the submissions from all the composers with Giles, while Roddy was talking to us from Australia through a laptop screen. It’s been all very fast, a real challenge and it’s truly exhilarating to see it all coming together.

However…it’s not over yet. For a producer, one of the most panic-inducing parts of the production process it’s getting the masters organised and delivered and that’s exactly what I will be focusing on in the next few days, in view of the screening this Sunday at the Edinburgh International Film Festival where we’ll be finally able to unveil the results of all this work.

I would like to use this occasion to remind everyone who has been following this group and is interested in joining us for a free drink, a screening and a presentation of the genesis of the project, that you can book a free ticket by ringing EIFF’s box office on 0131 623 8030 or in person at the Filmhouse.

Hope to see you there!

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10.06.2010

So the embargo has been lifted and the much awaited programme of the Edinburgh International Film Festival has finally been revealed.I must admit that this year it has been particularly exciting for me with my two hats as Short Film Programmer for EIFF and producer of the Roderick Buchanan Soundtrack project. As Roddy and Matt are polishing final edits and Fear Wasabi are working away at Savalas to complete the soundtrack, I am now delighted to be able to reveal a few more details about the event the Composer Wanted initiative will culminate in.

We are thrilled to be hosted by one of the exciting new venues of the Festival, state-of-the-art Inspace, the University of Edinburgh’s laboratory exploring the synergy between informatics and new media practice. Aptly labelled Sound:Image:Art, the event will showcase the two pieces of experimental filmmaking produced as part of this audio-visual collaboration as well as a panel presentation charting the evolution of the project and the possibilities offered by Central Station to devise more creative collaborations of this kind among its members.

It’s guaranteed to be an evening of discovery, in the best spirit of EIFF, where you’ll be able to hear from all the people involved about the opportunities as well as the challenges offered by this sort of ground-breaking collaborative process.

The event is free but ticketed and you don’t have to be a delegate to attend.The best way to book a space is through the Festival’s box office, either in person at the Filmhouse or over the phone on 0131 623 8030. Please note that tickets for this event cannot be booked online.

So here is the info for your diaries: Sunday 20th June at 9pm at Inspace. Come along, learn about Central Station, have a look around the site, watch some faboulous films and have a drink on us!

EIFF will be releasing a blog about the event in the next couple of days, I won’t fail to keep you posted!

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31.05.10

Roddy certainly didn’t get too much of a chance to rest from his long-haul flight from Australia as we went straight into a voice recording with actor Billy Mack the morning after his arrival! We met Billy at Savalas Studios and after having a chat over coffee to discuss the idea behind Paddy’s Lament and the way it’s going to be used as part of a short film piece – as explained by Roddy in his creative blog – Kahl at Savalas took great care of us at the mixing deck. By fine-tuning his storytelling approach with each reading, Billy did a fantastic job in bringing the text to life under Roddy’s direction.

This week is going to be packed with important dates for the project. Last week Fear Wasabi had their first full-day session at Savalas during which they met Roddy for the first time, exchanged ideas and used the studio’s facilities under Giles’s guidance. Imogen recounts their adventure in her latest blog inclusive of pictures documenting the band recording in the studio as well as the slightly less exciting aspects of their trip from Dundee to Glasgow, which was fraught with an unexpected logistical problem!

Tom, another member of Fear Wasabi, also gives his rendition of their first session at Savalas in the form of a beautifully fragmented account capturing the short, glimps-like nature of the creative process characterising this project and the diverse group of people who are bringing it to life.

Tomorrow our editor Matt and Roddy will meet up at Central Station’s headquarters to lock the picture for both pieces to be able to provide Fear Wasabi with it in time for their next recording session at Savalas on Wednesday. To add a ittle bit of glamour to all this, tomorrow is also the day of the launch of the programme of Edinburgh International Film Festival, so I will soon be able to reveal the details of the special event as part of which the Roderick Buchanan Soundtrack project will be showcased. In the meantime, grab yourself a programme and look out for us!

The week will wrap up on Friday with yet another sound session at Savalas, which will bring us very close to having a final soundtrack and mix.

So more news to come very soon!

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24.05.10
Exciting week ahead for the Roderick Buchanan Soundtrack project!

Andy, Imogen, Tom and Philip (aka Fear Wasabi) are putting together ideas for their first session at Savalas Studios on Wednesday. As described by Giles’s latest blog entry, last week’s meeting with the band highlighted how stimulating it can be for a group rather than a single individual to work on a soundtrack when everyone brings in their unique talent and expertise and keeps the process fresh with their input and criticism.

Today Roddy is coming back from stormy Australia to sunny Scotland – how crazy is that? – painfully jet lagged but with a busy diary ahead! As he was 30,000 feet above the ground, he managed to put together a creative blog outlining the history behind  the Soundtrack Project and where he drew the inspiration from for the two short films. If you have been following us, I’m sure you’ll find this an interesting reading.

On Wednesday we will all be at Savalas where Fear Wasabi will meet Roddy for the first time to talk through some of their ideas before spending the day in the studio with Giles‘s support to make the most of Savalas’s facilities. On Thursday morning, Giles and his team will be our hosts us again as we are back in their studios for the voice recording of Paddy’s Lament with actor Billy Mack.

On the visuals front, picture will be locked for both projects this week, our editor Matt has put the finishing touches and adjusted frame lengths and timings as per Roddy’s latest notes.

The planning for the EIFF event is also shaping up, but with the Festival programme under strict embargo until 1st June, I’m afraid I’m not allowed to reveal any details just yet but I promise I will provide more information as soon as the mystery can be unveiled!

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19.05.10

As you know by now, the much awaited announcement of the winner of the Roderick Buchanan Soundtrack competition has been finally made!

In his latest blog, Giles from Savalas gave an extensive breakdown of the selection process as well as providing detailed feedback on all the submissions, a truly inventive and inspiring variety of approaches. After much consideration Andy Sim was selected, much to his genuine surprise and excitement, as you can read directly in his words as he describes how elated he felt at the thought of embarking on this journey to complete the soundtrack for Roddy’s audiovisual explorations. A journey which indeed starts this afternoon, when we are going to have the first meeting with Andy and his faithful band Fear Wasabi at Savalas to discuss the 2 weeks and a half ahead of us.

On the other side of the globe, Roddy has been following the process closely whilst travelling around the country to end up in a very stormy Sydney. As we were having our regular skpye update, the sound of slamming doors and creaking walls trickled down the internet pipe making it all sound very spooky! Needless to say, Roddy sounded very excited about the way things were progressing forwards! As he expected to be told off by me, I decided to use an extra gentle approach and sweetly remind him of all the forthcoming stages by providing him with a neat list of unmissable deadlines. No pressure! This project is moving very fast indeed but it gets more exciting by the day.

On the visuals front, our editor Matt has been revising the cuts for both pieces, which are now very close to a polish stage, as you can read in his latest update.

Off to Savalas now to meet Giles and Andy and do some more planning.

Keep following us!

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17.05.10

And the winner is…
Well, not quite time for this yet, just a couple more hours and an official announcement will be made on the group by Giles from Savalas, who will be able to give a clued-in breakthrough of the selection process and feedback on the all the submissions we received.

What I can say so far is that, as I’m sure you can imagine, making a decision wasn’t easy, certainly not when you are dealing with such a talented bunch of people. What we hope is that everyone benefited from taking part in the project and, more importantly, that all the composers will stay involved and follow the forthcoming developments. I will regularly update this blog with news so keep your eyes peeled!

Talking about what’s coming next, starting from this week the winner will spend time at Savalas studios and work with Giles to bring his ideas for the soundtrack to life. The visuals are very close to a final picture sign off – brilliantly overcoming timezones,our editor Matt and Roddy have managed to bounce ideas back and forth and nearly finalise the overall structure of the pieces. You’ll read directly from Roddy about his vision on the group, so far I can briefly say that this collaborative project will culminate in two pieces of shortfilmmaking: an exploration of the collective identity of Parkhead Republican Fluteband in the shape of a journey through their tattoos, and a a juxtaposition of audiovisual sources to create historical perspective between two situations distant in time but resonant with common concerns.

Savalas will mentor the composer through a 3-week process culminating in the final soundtrack for both pieces, which will be showcased as part of a special event in June at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2010, so all very exciting!  More about this event will be released on Central Station in the coming weeks.

Keep following the group for updates from all of us, join the group if you haven’t already and talk about the project on your social networks: the more interest we generate, the better! It’s a unique collaborative opportunity for an emerging composer and we would really appreciate your help in giving it as much exposure and online presence as possible.

Check later today for the winner announcement and don’t forget to have a peek tomorrow for the winner’s initial reactions as well as the other composers’ thoughts about taking part in the project.

Over and out for now.

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13.05.10 Rough cuts…

In his first blog uur editor Matt Rochester talks about how he got involved with the project.

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13.05.10 Nearly There!

All the submissions are now in and have been sent around as far away as Australia, where Roddy has been eagerly waiting for them!

We are ready to start the reviewing process and, as the project producer, I’m personally very excited to see how each composer has envisaged and translated Roddy’s ideas into a soundscape. The blog entries have provided a precious and really stimulating insight into the composers’ creative processes and personal approach.

I would like to thank all the composers for all the time, effort and passion they’ve put into this project and for having shared their talent and inspiration on this group. We would encourage you to continue using this forum to keep the dialogue open and generate debate. The winner will use this space to chart the progress of his collaboration with Savalas in sculpting the soundtrack for Roddy’s visual explorations of collective identity and historical perspective.

I hope this experience has been as enriching for you as it has been for us. Time to start reviewing now.

The winner will be announced online on Monday. Watch this space!

Gaia

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12.05.10

Some final thoughts from our composers as they hit the submissions deadline!

http://bit.ly/soundblogJC2

http://bit.ly/soundblogAS3

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10.05.10

As Martin outlines in his blog entry, having some visuals to work from really ignites the creative process for a composer!

Roddy and our editor Matt have worked together on an edit which has been made available to all the composers. Andy’s initial reactions to this rough cut reinforced the direction he had decided to take his soundtrack in, while Nils’s blog provides a very interesting insight on how the visuals have sparked his imagination.

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3.05.10

Composers Andy Sim, Nils Miguel Meisel, Martin Rebelski and Jonnie Common share their thoughts about taking part in the project and how they are going to approach it:

http://bit.ly/soundblogAS1

http://bit.ly/soundblogNMM1

http://bit.ly/soundblogPLISH1

http://bit.ly/soundblogJC1

Tattoo: a group portrait by means of tattoos, our audio interpretation of which is a reflection of the journey from innocence to experience.  A recording of school-children playing cross-faded with the crowd at a football match.  We also felt that the soundtrack to the film The Proposition by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, in particular it’s effected violin (and viola) use, was a good reference and we used this to bring an abstract texture to the piece.  We’d also hoped to further the theme by deliberately degrading the sound as it progressed, by means of re-recording onto other formats and in other environments, but time constraints made this impossible.

Overall it’s been an exciting process, and we’re really hoping we’ll have the opportunity to continue it!

Andy (Fear Wasabi)

First of all I am sorry for not having posted many comments and information about my creative process. I have been very busy working. I know that there is always time to write something into the blog, but I am a very slow writer and my “Avatar” is a bit shy. It feels like the Russian doll effect, first having to write in a different language and than projecting my “internet presence” or avatar into a different culture, oh yes so it is, if I would just directly translate my thinking from Portuguese into English believe me that some things would sound rather strange or even wired.

Anyway… today I am going to talk a little about my creative process, ideas I have taken and ideas I have abandoned. The short listed sound designers or composers were asked to prepare two soundtracks for the Savalas/Roderick Buchanan soundtrack project. The projects are entitled “Tattoos” and “Paddy’s Lament”.

TATTOOS
As the title suggests, the video is composed by a sequence of Tattoo photos. The tattoos show pictures of Irish/Scottish national identity, pictures of imprisonment, of religious meaning, violence, death, oppression and symbols of freedom and hope. The tattoos are united by the same ideas and aspirations. The sequence of Tattoos tell a story in images, I will try to tell the story in sounds. I started by doing some research into related conflicts in Glasgow: Celtic v.s Rangers, Catholic v.s Protestant, Unionists v.s Republicans and so on. The only thing that keeps repeating is the “v.s”, representing conflict, competition, opposites and dialectic, the idea that one must be right and the other must be wrong. My first sketches are a result of the idea of conflict. I posted one .mp3 audio track, where you can hear the sketches. The audio track is divided in 5 parts: 1 is the sound of a football game, you hear to ball being kicked from the left speaker, the ball will hit a church bell in the right speaker, the idea is to combine the competitive element of football with religious elements. The second track is the sound of a table tennis game, again the sound goes from left to right to give the idea of conflict between two parts, but I have inserted the third part, as it is “collateral damage” goes always to the weaker parts like babies. The third sketch begins with the sound of a military tin drum and a church bell, mixing the religious and military elements, the sketch is composed by five national hymns, two of those hymns belong to countries starting with the letter “I” and the other one with “U” and the other with an “A”.  This made me think a lot, as national hymns have a very strong military and nationalist element, all national hymns are marching music, and some of the well known hymns have rather odd lyrics, telling us to kill and so on. The fourth sketch is directly linked to the physical element of the tattoo: the skin, so in the fourth track you will hear the sound of hands scrubbing skin, I was almost tempted to take this idea for the final submission, by adding the sound of someone taking a shower and whistling a hymn, having the element of naked skin, the water has another connotation. And finally the 5th and final sketch is very simple, but works as an idea, I managed to find all national hymns of the world and mixed them into one track, the result is noise and confusion, talking about the incommunicability between nations. These are only sketches that I used as an brainstorm exercise for the final sound. For tattoos I want to keep a very “close-up” approach, amplifying and recontextualizing everyday sounds.

PADDY’S LAMENT

Paddy’s Lament makes a historical link between past and contemporary conflicts. Paddy’s Lament is text rewritten by the author Thomas Gallagher. It is based on the original text by the English Rev. Osborne during his visit to western Ireland in 1840. Osborne writes in a rather poetic and romantic way about the famine situation of those times, showing a certain sarcasm and indifference to the situation. Thomas Gallagher’s reinterpretation emphasizes this “polite” and distant approach. It tells the situation where a young girl runs ceaseless after a coach, without words she begs because she is hungry, Rev. Osbourne and his friend sit in the coach and make comments about her will and resistance and only give her something when they fear she could die of exhaustion. It is a story of resistance. This text will be read out loud and than cuts into a similar situation filmed by American troops in Iraq. For the first part (text) I decided to have a more cinematic approach and build a more movie like soundscape to be in consonance with the romantic and poetic point of view, that I think is the main point of the text. I think that the text should be read with an Irish or American accent. Some parts of the text are talks between the English characters present in the text, in those cases the accent should be English-English. So, my approach to this soundtrack is straight dramatic and cinematographic. So is the music I have composed, resembling a little bit Yann Tiersen, but I only noticed after… the idea was to make a music that would create the “strange harmony” between the girls legs and the coach as described in the text. But when it cuts to the “real” video of the similar situation, I think we should keep the original sound, so the impact will be greater between the “poetic” atmosphere and the pure reality of the youtube video.

RESUMING:
Both videos can have a political approach in terms of sound. My work should only have a complementary relation to the ideas and images of Roddy. Sound has the power to change the meaning of any image, I try to work intuitively on both. I would like to give my own opinions on the subject explored but that is a personal matter. I will try to hit the target from a certain distance.

QUESTIONS:
Giles: What do you think about my “sonic ideas”? what approach would you take on Cinematic music for Paddy’s Lament?

Roddy: What do you thinks about my approach in relation to the poetic/romantic v.s The Real? Can I read your work that way? Can I ask you to talk a little about the historicity in your works?

Cheers

Roddy’s Reply:
Hi there, I’ve only just discovered the blogging element on this ‘Roderick Buchanan’s Soundtrack page’.

Cheers for throwing your research open for all to see.

It’s very exposed out there isnt it. I had Matt the editor sending me files to proof that went out to you guys before I even had the chance to say yes, no or maybe.

I’m trying to get closer to the visual today – just as you guys send in work to coax us on board with your ideas.

It’s a tough world out their – ‘Hump of die’ as Mel brooks would say in the ‘History of the World, Part 7′.

From your audio files I liked the showering sounds and the football crowds and bell.

However, whatever you offer I’ll give it my full attention, I’m also working flat out to bring this thing together as well, fingers crossed for all of us.
RB

Giles’ Reply:
sorry for taking so long to reply.  Likewise thanks for opening up your process.  It isnt easy and I must say I have always taken refuge in the privacy of music creation particulrly as it is so much judged in the eye of the beholder.  I am a firm believer in being as intuitive as possible when working to picture, if it ‘works’ for you then it will ‘work for the audience – whether people like it or not is a different matter.  You have really thought about the juxtapositional issues of sectarianism – not something I know a lot about but very much at the root of Roddy’s work.  I quote Roddy in saying he doesnt like dramatic artifice – he is a reality man which in some ways makes this whole process full of juxtaspoisitons because music’s power is in taking the audience away from reality and having ones emotional perceptions ‘manipulated’ altering how you percieve the pictures.  I love dramtic artifice and feel cinema is all about that.  The great thing with Paddy’s lament is with no pictures, the sound is the experience so you have a lot of creative scope.  Yes go cinematic especially as we have surround sound mixing – lets make the most of it.  I agree the contrast could work between the cinematic vs utube reality – I think you could use the sound to suggest the parallels between the narratives.  All great stuff.  look forward to hearing more.