Creative Process- Drowning

https://soundcloud.com/billy-knowles-302568983/tma-112-process-piece

Alex and I decided to attempt to record the process of someone falling through ice and drowning. The person drowning is eventually saved by another person who dives in after them and drags them to the surface where they begin CPR. The piece begins with someone walking on ice, the ice breaking through and them crashing into the water. They fight for a time to stay afloat but eventually their muscles collapse due to the extreme cold and they go under. Then, a second person enters the process and dives in after the subject drowning. This person drags the person out to hard ice and then begins to perform CPR. At the end of the piece you can hear a defibrillator charging. We tried to create a process that was both interesting and unique. The water creates a rhythm that draws the listenere into the piece. Most everyone has been underwater and so at first the piece is dream-like and enjoyable. It begins to become unnerving when we hear the struggle of the subject to gasp for air and suddenly go quiet. The process mode that most closely represents our mindset as creators is probably the observational mode. We decided to become active participants in our piece but allow the camera to become a “fly on the wall” and create an aspect of direct cinema in our piece. The audience can hear what is going on but they are given the liberty to decide for themselves what is happening and eventually whether or not the subject lives. We decided to make the ending of this process ambiguous to heighten the freedom of listeners and the story. Alex and I had hoped to add some conversation to the piece to give the audience a little more information as to what is originally happening but were unable due to technical and audio difficulties.

Billy and I decided that in order to get our desired vision we needed to work with a pool. We went to the heated pool at The Village and shot it there. We used a GoPro underwater to capture the sound and process so we had great underwater sound but the sound above water was rendered somewhat unusable. Our idea was a person that was drowning and he/she broke through ice and was drowning under the cold water. Three takes and observing the village’s hedonistic environment later and we got what we wanted. We decided that I would be the one to edit most of it out. Looking through the footage I noticed that our technique to recreate this vision worked but had some flaws. I tinkered with the audio and saw that the best way to persuade the audience in believing the subject fell underwater through the sounds of splashing. I also added in some sound effects like ice cracking through the floor, a dragging body, a man panting and a defibrillator. Putting these things in a sequence that was coherent made me think how powerful the effects of editing are. I really liked working on this project because Billy and I got to swim in a pool and we got to actually edit something out that’s substantial and means something to us. 10/10 would recommend doing again.