A work for piano and film, which will explore the relationship between sound and image and in particular between the use of a live instrument and film.

The practice-lead research carried out during the period of University of Huddersfield Research Leave (July – December 2008) will result in the creation of a non-fiction film, No Escape, which will be approximately 20 minutes long and will focus on the relationship between sound and image. It will specifically attempt to make sound equal, or even dominant in its aesthetic importance in this relationship and hence explore its potential to create richer and deeper levels of signification and hence meaning. Since the invention of sound-on-film techniques, the importance of sound in filmmaking has long been recognised by filmmakers, critics and academics: as early as 1929, filmmaker and theorist V.I. Pudovkin discussed the potential for building varied counterpoints between sound and image in order that ‘the rich deeps of meaning potential in sound film creatively handled be discovered and plumbed’. However, the relationship between the two tends to be seen as stratified or hierarchical in nature in the sense that sound is often treated by filmmakers as subordinate to image. Whilst this has been challenged, to some extent, in the realm of video art, and music video and, to a lesser degree, in fiction film, the conventions of documentary production implicitly impose aesthetic restraint on the text, preventing an examination of the aesthetic possibilities of sound. Bill Nichols argues that a ‘discourse of sobriety’ prevails whereupon ‘aesthetic innovation is subservient to documentary conventions’ , whilst John Corner points out that ‘the aesthetic (as distinct from the cognitive) possibilities of sound in documentary are in most cases not significantly mobilized at all’.

Central to the recent collaborative work between myself and filmmaker Keith Marley (3 Rhythmic Etudes, Cider Makers) is our aim to reorder the hierarchical relationship between image and sound, in an attempt to make sound an equal or even dominant signifier. Various strategies have been employed in past projects to achieve this such as the adoption of a visual editing approach that does not draw the audience into the search for meaning via narrative development and its logical resolution so as to allow the audience to concentrate more on the sonic elements of the production. This has been enhanced by the use of techniques drawn from musique concrète when constructing the soundtrack. In addition, and to the same end, this new work (which is entirely a solo project) will explore ways in which techniques of musical / sonic structuring can be employed in conjunction with montage editing such that the former drives the latter.

The subject of the film concerns the relationship between one’s inner emotional world and the external environment and supposes the premise that deep emotional sentiment is largely unaffected by external surroundings. Pudovkin describes the image as an objective perception of events with music expressing the subjective appreciation of this objectivity; hence whilst the montage of images will juxtapose contrasting city and country landscapes filmed during different seasons, the piano music will remain mostly static and unchanging throughout. The use of a live instrument to accompany a film bears some relationship to the use of live performers in the silent film era and this subject will be researched whilst preparing the piece. Of particular importance are: the strategies one might employ for the synchronisation of live music and image (which may involve technological solutions), the relationship between live music and on-screen sound (both diegetic and non-diegetic / asynchronous) and a desire to re-stratify the normal hierarchy of sound and image whereby sound is subordinate to image.

V.I. Pudovkin, Film Technique (London, 1929), 165.
Bill Nichols, Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary (Bloomington, 1991), 35.
John Corner, ‘Television, documentary and the category of the aesthetic’, Screen, 44/1 (2003), 98.
V.I. Podovkin, ‘Asynchronism as a Principle’ in Film Sound: Theory and Practice, 91.