Multimedia
Instructor Margaret Noble

On May 17th of 2011, fifty 12th grade students presented a silent film festival with live sound performances at the Sushi Performance Art Center of San Diego, California. The project consisted of ten student groups (each with 4-5 team members) adapting a short narrative by classic and contemporary authors into a five minute time format. The resulting silent films were then presented by the same student groups with live sound scores ranging from original music to foley work and turntable mixes.

Please note: The beauty of live performance is the magic and energy it brings to an audience in real time. Nuance, spatial sound, and gestural motion is often lost when trapped in two-dimensional video archives. Below, the films are encoded with rough cut sound mixes from student rehearsals. As you watch these films, try to imagine that every sound effect, sample, and underscore was triggered live.

 

Happy Endings
Written by Margaret Atwood

,

Performance and Production Student Team:

D.D., E.C., L.S. and A.G.

 

In the Night
Written by Varlom Shalam

Performance and Production Student Team:

B.L., R.P., N.R., E.F. and M.C.

 

The Necklace
Written by Guy de Maupassant

Performance and Production Student Team:

L.R., C.H., B.S. and J.C.

 

Currents
Written by Hannah Botany

Performance and Production Student Team:

Adapted by D.T., A.B., C.O. and C.A.

 

The Lottery

Written by Shirley Jackson

Performance and Production Student Team:

J.N., A.E., N.A. and S.W.

 

The Barbie Birthday

Written by Alison Townsend

Performance and Production Student Team:

K.M., E.P., S.M. and O.E.

The Hit Man

Written by T. Coraghessan Boyle

Performance and Production Student Team:

M.A., K.N., W.S., E.B. and A.A.

 

The Personal Touch

Written by Chet Williamson

Performance and Production Student Team:

R.P., V.S., B.O. and A.K.


The Bank Robber

Written by Steven Schutzman

Performance and Production Student Team:

N.A., F.B., J.F. and A.M.

Sleeping

Written by Katherine Weber

Performance and Production Student Team:

H.R., R.V., C.O. and E.P.

 

Yukionna

(Classic Japanese myth, author unknown)

In this instance, students developed their story through animation. Due to the enormous amounts of commitment involved with hand-drawn visuals and detailed motion programming, students worked until the very end on visuals alone. Their sound score was embedded to video rather than live. However, their final product was incredible.


Performance and Production Student Team:

L.L., S.S., N.A. and P.A..