Creative Content Neigbourhood Portrait

The recordings Crystal and I made were a combination of sounds of motion: cars, walking, swinging, and streeter interviews. There was also a small recording of a Church sermon, which didn't make my final cut. I always had in mind the use of narrative for the neighbourhood portrait, which would either be interview and sound concrete-based or with use of voice-over. I didn't have an idea as to how the pieces would fit together, which is just as well, because any kind of narrative structure is often not recorded in order.

The choice of voice-over is perhaps a favorite of mine for documentary work. I didn't have enough material or time to make it interview based. There is a snippet of music concrete where an interview with two friends playing soccer is overlapped on itself, so it sounds as if five conversations are taking place instead of one. A sort of Row, Row, Row your boat scenario.

We recorded the data on a DAT machine, and a REEL to REEL (of which I didn't use). Microphones included dynamic and capacitor mics of directional and omni-directional usage. It is interesting to note that the capacitor mic used for the 'bowls' interview seemed to have no greater reasonance than the dynamic mic (both directional).

The DAT machine is a little more clumsy than the mini-disk, but the sound seems more inclusive, less taut, more natural: catching all the little burps that are omitted by mini-disk.

Emily Gan is my voice-over for this project.

Post production taught me a lot about how to plan my next production and what I will need to include, and measure the rhythm a little more.

Blog me, I'm tired!