It's not all aural you know

We interrupt the normal flow of this blog to bring you three things that I was involved with, but didn't do any sound for. 

Fans of bread-related 21st century silent film, amusing-yet-thought-provoking-yet-entertaining-yet-intelligent independently-produced magazines, and drone music set to the work of Thomas Edison, should read further...

"Encouragement"

The first of these non-audio-related adventures is the short film Encouragement, which I helped Benjamin Neil Scott Martin make back in the blissful, carefree days of 2008. You know, 2008: when everybody was rich as Croesus, and the very notion that the Lib Dems would one day cosy up to the Tories did not exist outside the most psychotic of nightmares. Ben describes it as a film about love, loss and loaves, and I could not put it better myself. I helped write the script, chanced my arm at a bit of cackhanded camera operation (the results of which which were probably cut), and, in my finest hour, gave an Olivier-level performance as The Man (he's such a bread head).

The music for this film is by Theo, or Sam Knight as he's known to those who do not call him Theo: www.myspace.com/theo1000. Ben's blog, featuring his latest artistic accomplishments, can be found in my link bar at the bottom right of this site, or at http://theseglyphsaredusty.tumblr.com/

"Husk" 

Also over at These Glyphs Are Dusty, you will find a free download of vol. 1 no. 1 of the most excellent Husk, a periodical sans-period, edited by Mr Martin and his co-conspirator Mr Gerstrom. I myself contributed a couple of articles, for my sins. Click on the picture below to download, and be sure to pay Ben a visit to thank him for his tireless work in creating such an artefact.

 

"On Decorum" & "Pumffor"

Finally, but not leastwardly, I present On Decorum, a film piece which I made in collaboration with sonic superstar Gruffydd Johnston. He gave me a piece of music that he had made, and I cut together a film to accompany it. The footage that I used is all taken from the output of Thomas Edison's 'Black Maria' Studio. 

This film was put on as part of the Evening of Music & Film that I curated at RWCMD, and was described in the programme notes as "being a meditation on the meaning of the word 'decorum', with particular attention given to the antics of those involved in the burgeoning moving-picture business".  Gruff's own workblog can be found in my link bar, or at http://gruffyddjohnston.blogspot.com.

Another one of Gruff's pieces was put to film by the inestimable Abigail Foulkes. This year, Gruff has set himself the task of making pieces of music solely out of 5 random sound files culled from other people's hard drives. I gave the him the 5 sounds for this ditty, which he called Pumffor'. 

Abby then set the music to excerpts culled from Jan Svankmajer's 1980 retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's Fall of the House of Usher. I absolutely love it, I do. Once again, this formed part of the Evening of Music & Film. More of Abby's work can be found at her blog - http://duplotable.blogspot.com - where, alongside other film shorts that she has sonically enhanced, you can learn of her work designing and constructing her own version of the ReacTable.

OK, that about wraps it up I think. Why not visit Ben, Abby, Sam and Gruff personally, and thank them for creating such wonderful pieces of art? Why not indeed!