Sound blog tasks

Stalker (1979)


At the beginning of the scene, there is an absence of music. The diegetic sound of harsh wind that accompanies the visuals fades out until you can only hear the sounds of the environment. The sound of crowing and chirping in the distance as well as a softer breeze of wind create an isolated and ethereal effect, perfectly adding to the mood and visuals of the scene. There is also a loud sound of water droplets that sound somewhat like they're dropping in an empty cave with the way they echo in your ear. The use of sound effects overall creates a very isolated tone and builds up to the voice over and music.
After the moments of nothing but the sound of the environment, you hear the slight sound of breath that begin a voice over. The voice is quiet and whispery, yet still powerful in the way it speaks. There's also a contrast in the femininity of the voice and the unsettling laughter it makes occasionally, which makes the nature of the voice over very discomforting. During the voice-over, there are shots of poo and needles swarmed with flies that are accompanied with a very philosophical lexicon, perhaps making the voice over contrapuntal to the imagery of the scene. The voice ends it's dialogue with another giggle which then bridges over to the music that draws out the scene.
Extremely ethereal and mystifying music accompanies the drawn-out panning shot of the murky brown water, slowly rising along with the visuals. The music may be considered both contrapuntal and parallel, as the music matches the atmosphere of this bizarre, spaced-out dream sequence yet also the visuals themselves are not very ethereal in nature.

Parallel and contrapuntal sound task

In order to explore parallel sound, I edited clips of the anime 'Fullmetal alchemist brotherhood' to the song 'Sucker for pain', matching the lyrics and beat with the violent and explosive scenes. Halfway through the video, the visuals switch to clips from Peppa Pig edited to the music. This creates a sense of comedic irony due to the subject matter and themes of the song contrasting with the tame children's show, and is thus contrapuntal.