Optical sound by Guy Sherwin
Social & External
The people behind it
Set in Florida and inspired by Harmony Korine’s homonymous book, Leo Gabin’s film consists of a collage of YouTube videos, mostly self-made, which depicts negative yet realistic aspects of the lost American dream. Moreover, it interprets contemporary social and political reality similarly to how Korine’s novel collects allegedly documentary fragments of American culture.
Impressions of New York City. Experimental short.
1-channel film installation (21‘20‘‘). 2.00:1 aspherical widescreen, stereophonic sound. A wife waits for her dead husband. An adaption of three japanese poems in three different translations. An examination of waiting and the slowness of time. An exercise in slow cinema.
Super 8 experimental film by Claudio Caldini.
Firdaus is a Blackjack dealer in a Las Vegas landscape juxtaposed between glittering casino lights and the deteriorating desert oasis. Negotiating a missing husband and neighboring domestic violence, Firdaus’ world unfolds as a fragmented interplay between repetition and repressed anger.
Images of the Church of the Sagrada Familia by Antoni Gaudí confronted with brief flashes of housing projects and industrial areas. The furious display of a effervescent imagination is opposed to a grey functionality.
A series of eight moments captured over a single day in the Sussex village of Mayfield. From first light until night Daniel & Clara engage in a process of psychological orientation, their state of mind inexplicably linked to the countryside and shifting weather conditions.
"Like a Pig in Shit" is a twenty-minute video piecing together audio and visual material found online, a collage technique common to the artist’s practice. It comprises nine movements and a spiraling, ultra-introspective, stream-of-consciousness monologue that diarizes the cumulative effects of life in the mediated, surveilled, freelance matrix.
part 2 in the "LA in Lockdown" trilogy
Optical sound film by Guy Sherwin
One of my first 16mm films, made without a camera as an experiment in how to visualize rhythm. It equates four simple shapes with four simple sounds, made by punching shapes into black film and scratching into the film's optical sound track. The film uses a bar structure similar to a music score. Each bar lasts one second (24 frames of film) and is divided into 2, 3, 4 or 6 aural and visual beats per second (bps). These are used in alternating patterns such as: 2/3, 3/4, 3/4/6, 2/3/6 In each section of the film an arbitrary relationship is established between image, sound and beats per second, for example: circle = 12 scratches per frame (high pitch sound) at 6 bps rhombus = 6 scratches per frame (mid pitch sound) at 4 bps triangle = 3 scratches per frame (low pitch sound) at 3 bps rectangle = 1 scratch per frame (percussive sound) at 6 bps A print of the film was hand-painted in 2006 G.S.
A film made without a camera: A newspaper glued onto clear film is projected as audio-visual typography. "For NEWSPRINT I glued a newspaper onto clear 16mm film then punched out the sprocket holes to enable the film to run through the projector. Using a strong light I printed ‘newspaper-film’ to copy it onto another strip of film. This shows up the letters and words clearly, which can also be heard as they pass over the sound-head in the projector. Newsprint #2 is a live projection event for two 16mm projectors and two loudspeakers [...] Two identical prints are shown superimposed onto the same screen." -GS.
Railway tracks seen from a speeding train are converted into optical sounds.
One of a series of films that uses soundtracks generated directly from their own imagery. I shot the images of a staircase specifically for the range of sounds they would produce. I used a fixed lens to film from a fixed position at the bottom of the stairs. Tilting the camera up increases the number of steps that are included in the frame. The more steps that are included the higher the pitch of sound. A simple procedure gave rise to a musical scale (in eleven steps which is based on the laws of visual perspective. A range of volume is introduced by varying the exposure. The darker the image the louder the sound (it can be the other way round, but Musical Stairs uses a soundtrack made from the negative of the image.) The fact that the staircase is neither a synthetic image, nor a particularly clean one (there happened to be leaves on the stairs when I shot the film) means that the sound is not pure, but dense with strange harmonics. – G.S.
"One of a series of films that investigates qualities of sound that can be generated directly from the image track. The images that you see are simultaneously scanned by the optical sound reader in the projector, which converts the into sound. This particular film makes use of the aural effect of visual perspective; the steeper the perspective on the railings, the closer the intervals of black and white, and the higher the frequency of sound. I also wanted to find out what freeze frames and visual strobe would 'sound' like. Visual strobe is created both in the camera (camera shutter v. railings) and in the printer (printer shutter v. slipping frames)." -G.S.
Film by Guy Sherwin
To escape neglect and abuse from his parents, a young boy plants some strange seeds and they grow into a grandmother.
The Grinch decides to rob Whoville of Christmas - but a dash of kindness from little Cindy Lou Who and her family may be enough to melt his heart...
A nine-year-old boy gets a plastic Indian and a cupboard for his birthday and finds himself involved in adventure when the Indian comes to life and befriends him.
When Mrs. Claus travels to Pineville, the merriest place on the planet, a quartet of magical puppies stow away on her sled, granting joyful wishes to the town's boys and girls. However, something goes terribly wrong - the Christmas spirit begins to disappear. Now, the Santa Pups and Mrs. Claus must race to save Christmas magic from running out for all.
An ordinary young boy called Nikolas sets out on an extraordinary adventure into the snowy north in search of his father who is on a quest to discover the fabled village of the elves, Elfhelm. Taking with him a headstrong reindeer called Blitzen and a loyal pet mouse, Nikolas soon meets his destiny in this magical and endearing story that proves nothing is impossible…
Bitter and hateful, the Grinch is irritated at the thought of a nearby village having a happy time celebrating Christmas. Disguised as Santa Claus, with his dog made to look like a reindeer, he decides to raid the village to steal all the Christmas things.
When Puppy Paws, the fun-loving son of Santa Paws, gets bored, he finds Budderball on Santa's naughty list and figures he's just the dog to show him how to be an ordinary pup. When the magical Christmas Icicle starts to melt however, and the world begins to forget the true meaning of the season, it's up to Puppy Paws and his newfound Buddies to journey back to the North Pole and save Christmas.
Max imagines running away from his mom and sailing to a far-off land where large talking beasts—Ira, Carol, Douglas, the Bull, Judith and Alexander—crown him as their king, play rumpus, build forts and discover secret hideaways.
When Santa and his new best friend, Paws, discover that the boys and girls of the world have lost the spirit of the season, they take a trip to New York City. But after Santa loses his memory, it's up to Paws, a faithful orphan named Quinn, her new friend Will, and a wonderful group of magical talking dogs to save St. Nick and show the world what Christmas is really all about.
Self-centered and status-conscious, ten year old Ryann Hale journeys to Montana to visit her down-to-earth grandpa, Bill Hale. Ryann bonds with a wolf-dog, Buck, and schemes to save him from a cruel dogsledder.
In a fantasy world of opposing kingdoms, a 15-year old girl must find the fabled MirrorMask in order to save the kingdom and get home.
A wooden puppet embarks on a thrilling adventure to become a real boy.
An 11-year old boy believes that he is the best detective in town and runs the agency Total Failures with his best friend, an imaginary 1,200 pound polar bear.
Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
A boy and his dog, White Fang, must try to save the noble Haida tribe from evil white men in turn-of-the-century Alaska.
Tom Sawyer and his best buddy Huck Finn love going fishing, daydreaming about pirates and stolen gold, and thinking about Becky Thatcher - the pretty new girl at school. But when these pals set out on a quest for buried treasure, they end up face to face with the town's most "grizzly" bear, Injurin' Joe. Giving Joe the slip, they find themselves in the middle of a fantastic adventure that takes them from the mighty Mississippi to the mysterious caverns of a secret hideout where they discover fun, excitement... and a fortune beyond their wildest dreams!
A pampered cat takes for granted the lucky hand he has been dealt after he is rescued and loved by Rose, a kind-hearted and passionate student. When he loses his ninth life, fate steps in to set him on a transformative journey.
A royal relative steals a gem with the power to make things fly, the Paw Patrol takes to the skies to stop him and save Barkingburg.
Ginny Grainger, a young mother, rediscovers the joy and beauty of Christmas, thanks to the unshakable faith of her six-year-old daughter Abbie and Gideon, Ginny's very own guardian angel.
Scooby-Doo and Shaggy must go into the underworld ruled by The Goblin King in order to stop a mortal named The Amazing Krudsky who wants power and is a threat to their pals: Fred, Velma, and Daphne.