Diary of a Woman is a feature film by Simon Aeby. For this film, I recreated approx. 97% of the sound, did the sound design and effects mix.
Initially, I joined this project as a sound designer to extend a pre-existing 60 minute version of this film to 90 minutes in length. However, after a thorough project review, it became clear that a lot of the sound had been lost in the almost 10-year-long editing process. This realisation meant that the project would take on a larger scope, requiring me to reconstruct all the missing sound. It presented an exciting challenge to find the right balance between a more raw and realistic sound design and a polished soundscape.
As Dolby Atmos has become a mainstream standard for high-quality sound and an immersive cinematic experience, sound designers are increasingly open to experimenting with immersive environments. My own fascination with Atmos began during my first year of my sound design studies. When I started to work in this medium, I realised that even though there was a lot of material on the technical side across various online platforms, the individuality in workflows made it difficult to know whether my own work aligned with the industry standard. Rather than consulting more manuals on Atmos, I wanted to know more about the practical implementation of this technology and how it could be used creatively. Recognising that the majority of professionals learn in auto-ditactic ways and constantly develop their own practices by relying on their previous experiences, I decided to conduct two surveys, one for sound designers and one for re-recording mixers. In this thesis, I will investigate how working in this medium influences and transforms the creative process of sound designers and re-recording mixers. Using the results of these two surveys, I will examine how the implementation of Atmos can facilitate the creative process in sound design and how Atmos can help enhance the screen's narrative in return.
DE: „watertongues – a female music performance“ ist das Ergebnis einer 10-tägigen Residenz im August 2023 mit einem transdisziplinären Team von Frauen. Inspiriert von Judith Butlers Schrift „Vulnerability and Resistance“ und dem Wunsch folgend, Vielfalt und Raum für Stimmlichkeit zu erforschen, hat das Team unter der Leitung von Kara Leva eigene Texte, vokale und instrumentale Soundkulissen erschaffen, die nun den Körper der Performance bilden und die Vielschichtigkeit weiblicher Stimmen und musikalischer Ausdrucksformen widerspiegeln.
EN: „watertongues - a female music performance“ is the result of a 10-day residency in August 2023 with a transdisciplinary team of women. Inspired by Judith Butler‘s writing „Vulnerability and Resistance“ and following the desire to explore diversity and space for vocality, the team, led by Kara Leva, created their own texts, vocal and instrumental soundscapes, which now form the body of the performance and reflect the complexity of female voices and forms of musical expression.