Sonic
Cinema formed as an idea around 1990 after teaching
courses like Historical
Markers of the Modern Soundtrack and Collapsing
Rock, Pop & Noise at RMIT Media Arts since
1985. These two courses fluidly mixed ideas of sound and
image - the former dealing with 'how image sounds', the
latter with 'how music sounds'. Never was the idea of 'cinema'
central - nor has it been since, due to very term leading
us predicatably and fatefully back to the most undyamic
arts: literature and photography. Such a bird and its attendant
bird-spotters exist without any notion of the prime energy
of cinema: audiovisuality.
Initally,
the
book was developed as a meta-theory of audiovisuality and
how it shapes this thing we call cinema, rather than audiovisuality
being treated as an 'effect' of cinematic narrative and
form. Some inital shopping around for this proposal proved
akin to trying to sign up Christian fundamentalists to a
death metal cable channel. That proposal has since formed
Volume 2 of the Sonic Cinema project.
Volume
1 was then developed around 2000, focussing on
breaking down the soundtrack into key layers of dynamic
forces which generated audiovisuality. The breakdown of
this book is based more directly on the course modules like
Historical
Markers of the Modern Soundtrack. But shopping
this around was like trying to develop a Christian
death metal show I could sell to cable so I could then sign
up Christian fundamentalists. The general schema of Volume
1 has since been reconfigured at the sugggestion
of Andrew Lockett at the BFI for the commissioned book 100
Modern Soundtracks. Sonic Cinema -
Vol.1 however focuses on fewer films and goes into
detailed analysis of key exemplars of audiovisuality in
the cinema.
Volume
1
Sonic
Cinema 1 - Book proposal/outline
Proposed outline for book, 2000 >>
1. Snapshot - summary of proposal
2. Pitch - fulll details of proposal
3. Breakdown - proposed outline of book
CITIZEN
KANE - The Sound of the Look of a 'visual masterpiece'
unpublished, 1998
THE
BIRDS
- The Triumph of Noise over Music
published in Essays In Sound No.4,
Sydney, 1999
Volume
2
Sonic
Cinema 2 - Book proposal/outline
Proposed outline for book, 1990 >>
1. Snapshot - summary of proposal
2. Pitch - fulll details of proposal
3. Breakdown - proposed outline of book
Sonic
- Atomic - Neumonic
paper presented at The Life Of Illusion: 2nd International
Conference on Animation, Japan Culture Centre, Sydney, 1995
1.
Akira.
2. Laputa.
3. Patlabor.
4. Giant Robo.
5. My Neighbor Totoro.
6. Urotsuki Doji.
7. Akira.
The Animation Of Sound
paper presented at The Illusion Of Life: 1st International
Conference on Animation, University of Sydney, 1991
published in The Illusion Of Life: 1st International Conference
on Animation, Power Publications, Sydney, 1994
Edited
version reprinted in "Movie Music: The Film Reader", Routledge,
New York,
2003
1. The Animatic Apparatus.
2. The Symphonic Experience - Notes On Early Disney Animation
(Silly Symphonies & A World Is Born).
3. The Cacophonic Destruction - Warner Bros. Animation (Bugs/Opera
cartoons & Coyote/ Roadrunner cartoons).
The
Architecsonic Object
published in Culture, Technology & Creativity In The Late
20th Century, John Libbey Press, London, 1990
talk delivered at Sound In The Cinema, MIMA, Linden Gallery,
Melbourne, 1992
talk delivered at International Year Of The Film Composer,
AFTRS, Melbourne, 1991
1. Dolby Stereo & THX Sound
2. Spectral Recording
3. Dennis Hopper's COLORS.
©
Philip Brophy
