My final project for the module 'sound design for picture'. I took the opening scene from David Fincher's 'Alien3' and turned it into a self-contained story.

Here's a section of my commentary for it:

I thought of the clip as being in three sections: space; surface; shelter. I wanted to give each of these sections a type of empathetic sound which would suggest Ripley’s subjugation by natural forces. Space, although naturally silent, I gave a low ominous rumble to, the surface, I made cutting and direct, and I retreated into Ripley’s own head-space for the shelter scene, so I added tinnitus squeals and low musical hums.

The atmospheric sounds for the planet surface were the first sounds to be placed in the clip. Michel Chion describes high frequencies as being present in our ‘frontal voice’ as they are acoustically more directional. I wanted to use this attribute to make the wind and sea sounds more cutting and cold. I dramatically reduced the low frequencies of the wind sounds I recorded, giving the high frequencies the dominance and thus robbing the original sounds of their warmth. The wind sounds also benefited from being heard directly after the rich sonic landscape of space - a metaphor for the womb.

There were several spotting points in the shots of the surface that gave me more opportunity to create a bleak character for the clip. The swinging chains and hooks visually give more physical indication of the wind, as does the blowing canvas. As wind has no visible or audible manifestation other than with what it interacts, the use of these spotting points would be beneficial to the layered portrayal of the surface. The natural sonic properties of these objects are harsh, dominating and, in the case of the metallic objects, piercing. To add a point of interest to this long, central section, I introduced a sample of a low tubular bell three times. The third of these instances acts as a hit point to mark the moment when Clemens is pulled out of his routine life by the sight of the EEV in the water. The other two occurrences are synchronized freely over images of Clemens walking funereally across the surface. The sombre bell speaks strongly of death and religiosity – a key theme in my interpretation of the scene.

The opening section in space consists mainly of white noise played in various low frequencies. Low rumbles can often be ominous and suggest pending danger, so I used these sounds to fill up the silent vacuum of space and give it its subjugating presence. I also added a layer of musical sounds to the white noise, using Sculpture, giving space a voice and a song, and in doing so, turning it into a character.

The other sounds in the opening (space) section are two different warning sounds created on a Roland Fantom x8. I gave the alarm a rich sonic field by fusing a disturbing and uncomfortable high frequency sound with a low sawtooth sound, indicating danger. It was useful to have the opportunity to introduce this sound at the beginning because it served to foreshadow the rest of the clip with a doomed prophecy. The heartbeat at the beginning is a sonogram sound, and was introduced to suggest Ripley’s metaphorical presence as a baby in the comfort of the womb. When heard side-by-side, these sounds affect each other and develop a meaning which was vital to the depiction of a stillborn child being born. The alarm informs the sonogram and visa versa.

Finally, the shelter section of the clip had a lot of careful spotting. Aside from this I saw an opportunity to design something fairly creative while Clemens attempts to resuscitate Ripley. David Sonnenschein writes about the concept of entrainment - where an auditory gesture or rhythm synchronizes with an organism’s natural pulse or dominant operating frequency. Sonnenschein notes that recordings of wind instruments (particularly flute) carefully edited to remove all breath sounds, would resonate with the listener, making them feel breathless. Ridley Scott utilised the concept in Alien (1979) - whenever he wanted to build tension he added a steadily increasing heartbeat which would synchronise the viewers’ heartbeat, making their adrenaline increase. I added a heartbeat sound to the clip as well as a consistently drawing breath, which should hopefully build the tension of what we hear inside Ripley’s head.

I finished the clip with two images which come later on in the opening sequence of Alien3, the surface under a yellow sky and the planet from space. I wanted to finish the clip on an ambiguous tone which would leave the viewer with the question of what happened next. I added the two images at the end so that I could contrast the omnipresent wind sounds with the quiet rumble of space and bookend the clip with the vastness of the space which has now engulfed Ripley.