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
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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..