At the Museum of the Moving Image

The Museum of the Moving Image provides an interesting perspective on movies and their production. At first I felt that the magic of movies was being spoiled by the reality of how those amazing effects are actually created. I wanted to cover my ears, shut my eyes, and flee before anything else was ruined for me, probably knocking over exhibits and causing a lot of trouble as I clumsily exited. Though this would have been an interesting story to recount in the future, I slowly came to realize just how interesting it is to discover how magic is created through people’s imagination. One demo that I found particularly interesting was the one on sound effects. My little tour group was shown part of the scene from Titanic where the ship is sinking which was played several different times. The amount of work that went into a few minutes of footage in just the sound production was astonishing. The limited amount of dialog for that scene was not shot with the video at all, but rerecorded by the actors in a studio and when it was played on its own with the scene it seemed awkward and out of place. Each layer of sound by itself was strange and revealed a new level of detailed work contributed to the production. The sound of a body falling onto a deck turned out to be a chair with four sand bags being knocked over and the suction of a porthole almost sucking a character through turned out to be the sound effect of wind combined with a lion’s roar played backwards. A gun with the silencer on helped create snapping cords and almost nothing that you hear in the clip was what it seemed to be. Until the clips were are played together didn’t even seem to go with the video. It was...ear opening? Sounds lame but the truth is it made me pay greater attention to the complexity of sound.

What I Hear

The sound walk assignment was a challenge in self-control for me. I had no difficulty disconnecting from technology and just walking, the problem was that when I have time to myself and I can listen to the world around me, I end up humming. So I ventured outside for my walk worried that I would end up listening only to my own thoughts and the sound of my own voice. The first sound I encountered was in fact humming but it was my grandfather’s as he went back into the house. The sounds that are most prominent in my friendly little Bronx neighborhood are those of cars passing by, the hiss of busses stopping and the chirping birds. A few of the cars hard the windows down or were really blasting the music so I could hear the songs playing briefly. There was a pretty consistent wind that I could hear as well as feel whooshing against me, rustling the leaves, flapping the flags in front of the more patriotic homes, and the jingling of a number of wind chimes. Dogs barked in some distant yards and people strolled by talking into their phones.

I heard a few ambulances go by, I was surprised I didn’t hear more since I live by a few hospitals. There was the soft scratching of brooms against pavement as some of my neighbors swept the sidewalk and the chatting of a few people standing outside apartment buildings in the area. When I passed one of the buildings a little girl was shouting “hi” down to all the people walking by which was sweet and was a good end to the sound walk.

Define a Space

Just Around from Rebeca Otero on Vimeo.