Finally, this is the last post for Project 3. First thing first, this needs to look legit so, here’s a promotional poster (photo by me) for my first film ever – Sounds of Silence.
“Sounds of Silence”
Silence is not the absence of something, but the presence of everything. Throughout the chaos that we go through everyday, we are slowly losing the natural silence of our universe, and through this, ourselves.
Music by: Ludovico Einaudi, Experience
Sounds of Silence is a film showing how urbanisation is causing us to lose the natural silence of our universe. The film transits from day to night, which begins with the silence of our nature, followed by rapid scenes of urbanisation that is a never ending cycle.
Long before the noises of mankind, there were only the sounds of the natural world. Though our human technological accomplishments is benefitting us, it comes with a loss of our natural silence. Even our most remote national parks are not free from human intrusions.
Today, silence has become an endangered species. If we cannot make a stand here, and turn a deaf ear on the issue of the vanishing natural quiet, how can we expect to fare better with more complex environmental crisis? We need to start preserving our natural silence.
Here are some film stills with a further explanation:
The film starts of with nature and its’ silence that we seldom hear. Silence is a sound, many, many sounds. Silence is the birds singing with the passing breeze. The sound of winged insects vibrating soft tunes and crickets chirping in the trees, or even the rhythmic percussion of waves, splashing against the golden sand.
The scene slowly transits to the inhabitants of nature, followed by the first scene of urbanisation – the shipyard. The shipyard is something that benefits us humans, yet it’s a industrial / noise / environmental pollution which is affecting the nature.
We’re enjoying and having fun, leaving human imprints all over the environment, yet we do not see the harmful effects of it. Nor did anyone stop to appreciate the nature that has been surrounding us as we are so engrossed in our own lives.
The advances in technology man help us solve our problems, but it comes with a price. As the film progresses, more urbanisation scenes are shown.
There’s our endless sky, which shows how vast our universe is, yet there’s always a part of urbanisation that lives among it. We do see the nature, but do we really see what’s happening to it?
The scene moves back to urbanisation. Be it grooming trees so we can live among them, drilling to build more and more buildings. All of this contributes to us losing the natural silence we once had.
The music comes to an abrupt stop when the birds appeared (left frame). This brings back to nature, yet the paradox is the birds were caged – which is to represent how we are defying nature and keeping all this animals for our own entertainment. The next scene transits to the evening / night. I added this frame as to show the gradual change from day to night. It also shows that urbanisation is still on-going.
As the music gets even more dramatic, it shows more and more urbanisation scene. From a starry night, to street lamps, light pollution is affecting the silence of the night. Due to the light that litters around our city, it’s really rare to see the stars, and enjoy the beauty of the night.
The second last frame of the film, which captures both the trees and the endless sky is trying to define our nature. The silence of the night, is supposed to be a presence of time, undisturbed and reminds us of how vast our universe is. Today, the starry night became street lights, as we search for darkness in the age of artificial light. A search for natural silence in a noisy world.
The film ends with – “DO YOU HEAR ME”, with birds singing in the background. This is to bring back and remind you that, because of us, and how we are treating our world, be it light, noise or environmental pollution. We are slowly losing the natural silence of our universe.
And that begins, the search for a natural silence in a noisy world.
Foundation 4D has come to an end, it has been such an enriching and fun journey as this is my first time doing some “serious” photography and filming. The entire project has really taught me to be more courageous and thick skinned (haha) while lugging a huge camera around and shooting random places and people. I’ve received weird stares, got scolded to stop shooting and well, that was an experience. Some were really nice though, as they joked and posed for my camera.
To be honest, I’ve never really enjoyed doing a school project as much, because I get so stressed that it totally killed my passion and drive for it. But for this module, it’s my first time that I’ve enjoyed the process thoroughly as it sort of ignite the passion for photography in me which I never thought was there. Even though the first two projects were shot in the night, it was quite tiring as I can only start shooting after 12 midnight. However, the night shooting has really given me an eye opener as I had really seen a lot of things that I don’t normally notice or things that were able to see during the day. For example, for my “Before Dawn” series, the trip to Jurong Fishery Port was something that I NEVER thought I would ever go to. The things they do there were really amazing.
I couldn’t decide if I liked photography or filming more. I really enjoyed the editing process for the film hahaha. But honestly, I feel that I could have done better for Project 3 as I feel that I didn’t manage to show what I really felt in the film itself – which is the vanishing silence of the universe. I guess I sort of lost the essence that I wanted to show and I could have done better. But well… this is my first time doing a film and I guess it’s a learning experience for me. I should have captured the essence that I wanted to show more, and should have brainstormed and figure out the best way to present my thoughts.
All in all, I believed that I became braver and more adventurous because of all of the projects as I needed to travel and source for different places to shoot for my series. I needed to thank my family who has been really supportive of me through the late night shootings as they are the ones who drove me there to shoot for my series.
I’ll see you again next sem, Foundation 4D.
