The Conversation Grows

I just wanted to respond to Malak's last three postings. Thanks for the feedback on my "Saving Private Ryan" post, it was interesting to read about your surprise at Spielberg's decision to suspend the score during the battle scenes. And I think you hit on something that I've been reading about in Bill Whittington's book, "Sound Design and Science Fiction." Directors, sound designers, and composers must re-think the function of sound for every project they work on. Bill Whittington discussed this in relation to many films like 'Star Wars, Alien, and Blade Runner.' He wrote that the first sound designers, Walter Murch and Ben Burtt, really understood the use of sound throughout film history, in addition to knowing genre conventions and even the inventory of some studios' sound libraries. With this knowledge, they were able to re-think the use of sound specific to each story. With this came the development of the craft and artistry known as sound design, which is a late addition to the film crew. Before, sound was passed between sound recordists, to sound editors, and finally to sound mixers. With the highly developed work done by Walter Murch and Ben Burtt, a new position was needed to describe sound artist who oversees the sound all the way through from recording to mixing. Ultimately, they must analyze how sound will function in a film in relation to the story, history, and genre conventions.
Malak, I appreciated your honesty regarding your fear of working with sound, but it seems that you're growing past your fears and I'm sure your films will be even better as a result. For your creative piece, I liked your description, but one thing stuck out which might help to develop it further. You said that sound can be used to create memories. This was interesting in terms of your project, because each of the three frames could represent a different memory. For example, with the shot of the mouse, you could add background layers to your soundtrack that could allude to a funny old computer game like "Carmen SanDiego." I definitely think you need to work with more layers in the piece and this will help you to achieve an experience.