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Film Analysis "The Hurt Locker"

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The Hurt Locker is definitely one of my favorite films, however this is the first time that I’ve watched it where I only focused on the sound. I noticed how surrounding the sounds are, as well as isolated in certain parts of the film. It reminds me of the sounds in the films Gravity and Sicario . There also isn’t really a score in this film, which is very interesting. If there was a score that was present throughout the film, I think it would have taken a lot of the tension and realism of the film. I learned through one of the articles I read that the sound cues that are used are used for three key storytelling purposes: establishing specific locations, isolating the audience in character’s individual experiences, and promoting a sense of realism (Klingman). Every location in the film has its own sound and feeling. In the opening scene of The Hurt Locker for example, the audience gets a feel of the chaotic city that they’re in. Loud traffic sounds, people/soldiers y...
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JPEGMafia Playlist

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Fiona Apple – "Werewolf" This song was probably my absolute favorite on the playlist. It's just beautifully made and the sound of the piano is so present.  From the beginning of the song there is sound of someone stepping into a studio, and you can literally hear the footsteps on the floor, which becomes its own continuous sound on the track. What I get from this song is that the artist wants the piano to be equally heard as her voice. I don’t know anything about this artist, but listening to this song makes me want to hear other songs of hers.  Bjork – "Oceania" When I first heard this song I was so confused whether it was only human vocal sounds or if there were some instruments hidden. When I looked up the song and the production methods, I found that the entire album that this song is from, was made solely off of human vocals. It's just fascinating when you listen really carefully to the sounds, because they each ...
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Recording

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For this assignment I wanted to reconstruct the sound of a diner, specifically, in this case, iHOP. I recorded this on a Sunday, which is probably one of the busiest days of the week for a breakfast place. The two sounds that I wanted, was first, the sound of the dining area with all the guests, and second, the sound from the kitchen. In order to get the sound of the kitchen, I had to ask the manager for permission to which she replied "yes", but only if our waiter would do the actual recording... Surprisingly, it worked out pretty well and I'm happy with the sounds that I got. I would have wanted a little bit more action from the kitchen, but I think it's evident on the track that it's the inside of a kitchen.  I really wanted to capture the sound and feeling of sitting in a busy restaurant/diner such as iHOP. When you're sitting at a restaurant, you don't really think about how and where your food is being prepared, or how the employees are t...
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Listening Assignment

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I really enjoyed this listening assignment of the Beatles’ Revolver and and The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album! It forced me to focus on so many things that I normally don’t think about when listening to music… What especially stood out to me was is how present all the instruments are. In Tomorrow Never Knows , there is a sort of echo sound to the voices, and the instruments are very present but at the same time sound distant from the voices. I read that there were a lot of technical techniques that went into the recording of Tomorrow Never Knows . For example, the song includes four different tracks, and each track is compressed in its own unique way. In Eleanor Rigby , the violin really seem to be the base of the song, but I noticed that there seem to be a lot of different violin sounds, some louder than others. A lot of the songs on the Pet Sounds album are very harmonized and reminds me of Christmas music, I think this is because of the sleigh bells in tracks such as God O...
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