On Wednesday, October 29, 2014, I visited the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. This museum was something I didn't expect. Our tour guide showed us things I haven't seen before  and knew many things about the things they showed.

Though I enjoyed many things within in the museum something I found extremely interesting and fascinating was when our tour guide showed us a scene from Titanic (1997). In this scene he showed us what it took to make a while scene come together with the different elements of sound.

At the time, I didn't have a vast knowledge of how hard it was to to put a scene together and how many different elements a scene had. Most of this scene, he told us, was recorded  with  ADR. Alot of the sounds were recorded within an soundbooth and then later replaced in the final take. 

There were about five different tracks within the scene. Two for music, one for the Foley Artists, one for music and one more for sound effects. If any of these tracks were missing, the scene would be different and incomplete.

After playing the scene we had to figure out where each of these sounds were coming from, when we finally learn, it amazed me. Most of the sounds that we heard, I would have never thought to put in the scene.  When Kate Winslet's character falls, it sound like an actual person falling, but take away all the other sounds and it sound fake. We soon learned that the sound was made by a sack of potatoes tied to a chair and then that chair being tipped over.

When the pipe was falling down, it made a sound that was very hard to detect. Many people had different thoughts of what it could be. We were then told that it was a slowed down track of an elephants blowing it's horn. I would have never thought of that, it sounds so real and unlike an elephant.

A sound most of us had guessed was when the wires snapped. This sound was one of a trains horn. Though in the full scene with all of the sounds it was hard to tell. But when the sound was isolated it was easy to identify it was a train's horn.

On any normal day, I would either be at home or at school. After my only class on Monday had been cancelled, I decided to walk over to a family member's house and at the same time, I did my soundwalk.

This neighborhood, Howard Beach, is both new and familiar to me. Though I have been coming here for years, visiting, I have only been living here for three months.  Before my sound walk, I expected to hear a few sounds, but during the actual walk, I heard many more sounds than I thought I would.

The major sound I heard was the one of the airplanes flying over head. Howard Beach was  only minutes away from JFK airport. There was the constant sounds of airplanes planes above, some departing the airport, others would arriving to the airport. This was a sound that I was familiar with, usually ignoring the sounds, I now realized how little time there actually is between airplanes.

Another I heard often was the sound of the buses. These buses would rush, creating a very loud sound that was irritating and calming at the same time. The sound of the engine was loud and obnoxious but this same sound had a rhythm to it that made calming and bearable to walk with. This sound I soon after figured out was similar to a sound that is found among many on a baby's cradle.

Since it was around noon, there were not many people out on the streets, it was easy to find one person to focus on. This person had been on the same path as me for a little over ten blocks. To a person that was not paying attention, this person wouldn't have been making alot of sound, but to a person who was paying attention to every sound around her, I noticed a few things.

This man was walking at a normal pace but he was also walking very loudly. I could hear every step that he made  I heard how his steps started from his heavy heel and push on the lightness of his toes. Also, I heard his music. I realized it had to be loud. The noise around me, all the cars and buses were loud, if I were able to hear his music, able to hear definite words and knew what was sang, I knew that his music was loud, but to him it was probably a normal volume to drown out the noises around him.

First and foremost, I want to make an art that is successful. For my art to be successful, that art needs to be someone’s favorite. It doesn’t matter how much money it makes or how people view it. As long as there is one person who enjoyed it, it is successful for me.

I want my audience to feel the same happiness I feel when I view my favorite film. I want to bring out that joy that comes along when a character appear on screen for the first time. In that exact moment, I want them to also feel extreme sadness, because they remember that by the end of the movie, they won’t be alive.

I want this art to move people and make them feel something. I want emotions to be brought out, whether they are happiness, sadness, anger or confusion. With each work, I want to be inspired by real life and create a movement from the audience. After viewing my work, I want people to be inspired.

I want to make an art that can mimic real life. I want bring out the real life tragedies and comedies. I want the raw emotions of a death and a birth to be felt when my art is viewed. I want the films I make to feel real and be real. When someone views my film, I want them to forget it’s a film and be sucked inside the story of the film.