"BIRDS OF THE FUTURE": "MA" SOUL, AIR RAID SIREN + REWIND

Another excerpt from Skewed Visions’ 2019 live performance installation “Birds of the Future”, featuring original music and sound design by yours truly. I posted the first one here a while back. “Inspired by research into the nature of time and the combination of dystopian narratives in popular culture with resurgent political and social activism, ‘Birds of the Future’ explored what it is to recognize one’s place in a seemingly unending cycle of utopian impulses and dystopian realities,” Skewed Visions’ web site offers as a description of the show. “Rather than revel in a bleak aesthetic of apocalypse, ‘Birds of the Future’ wrestled with the possibilities revealed by chaos— among them, a new understanding of time in which each moment is open to the possibilities of a new way of being.”

Here we take a look at the musical accompaniment I came up with for a section that starts with performers Erika Hansen and Megan Mayer semi-improvisationally pronouncing the word “Ma” first conversationally, but gradually building a yelled crescendo, eventually singing the word repeatedly as lyrics to a 60s soul-style instrumental to reflect a temp track used by artistic director Charles Campbell. To me the somewhat forlorn repetition of “Ma” suggested a state of vulerability, a helplessness that no one ever arrives to rescue, and that the darker impulses portayed elsewhere in the show are grievance-borne as a result of the repetition we witness here.

I aimed to approximate classic Motown soul with the musical score, assembling an ensemble replete with a horn section entirely with virtual instruments. Eventually the frenzied ritual is cut short by an air raid siren, and the bird people scurry to safety in the provisional shelter nestled within Jess Kiel-Wornson’s wonderfully cluttered set, curling up like bugs to withstand whatever rains down on them. I even executed what I hoped to be a Eugene Chadbourne-esque freakout coda for the music once it’s interrupted by the siren. Never knew I could freak out with virtual instruments like that, but apparently I can. And as the video clip fades out, a rewind sound cue signals that our performers’ cyclical travails are about to restart.

= = = = =

FX EDIT + MIX FOR FILM: "RELENTLESS" DOORKNOB CUE

Above: A layer-by-layer exploration of my sound design depicting a single action from the feature film “Relentless”, directed by Barry Andersson and starring Rachel Weber.

The film follows the psychological journey of a woman who winds up trapped in her basement during a thunderstorm that turns into a flood. The event depicted here turns out to be pivotal, since it cuts her off from a means of conventional escape.

I’ve broken down the sequence to isolate various sonic elements that come together to form the final mix.

The “dripping water” layer should be self-explanatory; water is seeping into the basement from the storm outside. The “production audio” segment depicts what was actually documented live on location, while the camera was rolling. The “Cut FX” pass features sound effects that I assembled from audio library assets, dropping them into the timeline in sync with the action onscreen to complement what had been recorded on set. And “final mix”, of course, demonstrates all of this as I blended it together, with a smidge of Andrew Joslyn’s wonderful score taking us out.

GRITSTONE VIDEO WINS GOLD AWARD AT FOURTEENERS COLORADO MARKETING AWARDS

A fulfilling win the other night-- a video I sound edited and mixed won big at this year’s Fourteener Colorado Marketing Awards. The piece above won the Gold Award for Long-Form Video, and was nominated for Best in Show. Congrats to all involved!

The Gritstone Oncology T cell project was created by animation and design house Gravitation, under creative director Matt Faye. I worked with executive producer Glenn Kesner of the digital agency Equisolve to craft sound FX edit and mix with the right amount of whimsy and vintage sci-fi cheekiness to keep it fresh without undermining the seriousness of the subject. Given that the anatomical goings-on are portrayed as flat, hand-rendered paper shapes in motion, I deployed a variety of subtle shuffles and swipes. The occasional retro sci-fi visuals summoned sonar pings, synthy ambience and classic Star Trek-esque chirps and warbles. I made sure to tune many of the tonal library FX so they were in tune with the music. And this project also offered ample opportunity to harvest samples of the music itself as tonal SFX that blended with the musical score in a consonant, though barely noticeable way.

This promo aims to educate patients and cancer therapy professionals about Gritstone's pioneering T cell therapy Artificial Intelligence platform, Gritstone Edge. The objective was to both familiarize patients about T cell therapy, and introduce a promising new development that increases the efficacy of current T cell therapies. The challenge in communicating bio-science to a wide audience is always in keeping the story at a level that is complex enough to be authentic, and simple enough to be understood. The solution also has to be appealing in tone and visual design, a particular challenge on the subject of cancer and the realm of cellular biology. Secondary objectives included creating an animation that stood out amongst the crowd of 3D animated cellular animations.

= = = = =