This is going to be a narrative film that experiments with sound and {possibly} with image size. All the emotional access we have to the character is going to be provided solely by performance and by mostly nonsynch soundtrack. This is an experiment in trying to convey emotional states without dialogue or context beyond the sound and performance. At points where her internal soundtrack is more dominant than her physical reality, I would look at making the image size smaller.

The story is pretty simple. A woman on an errand walks through a park. She is trying to push a melody out of her mind. She collides with another pedestrian. The guy yells at her. She Ômis-seesÕ the guy as her ex-boyfriend.

She goes home agitated. She tries to block out the melody running through her mind with daily shit: answering machine, TV, microwave. All the while we hear the song being played on violin. She fails.

She shows up at the ex-boyfriendÕs house and seduces him. The seduction goes poorly; they have sex but heÕs completely using her even though sheÕs really working hard to win him back. Still for her this moment is the least fragmented and most emotionally alive. The images are fullscreen and the sound is the song weÕve been hearing all along, at full volume, kicking. (Might also be interesting to contrast her internal Òromantic video musicÓ with just the live nat sounds of whatÕs actually happening.) Their sexual encounter will be Òa music video of miseryÓ.

Finally we see her at home in bed. She is alone. The last refrain of the music is fading.

Maybe there is synched silence, sound of a record putting in last groove. She gets up.

The film starts over again.

If you want a more detailed breakdown of each segment, it is below.

HereÕs what I need advice on:

1) Using our recording studio over at prentis

2) Finding ways to reshape or modulate the sounds I record to make them more textured and interesting

3) Advice on spatializing the sound

Seems like Graham, Paul Hogan, Tristan, Douglas Repetto or Terry could help.

4) Conceptual advice on what to do when the piece repeats,. IÕm open to anyone' ideas, but techwise, I think this is a Luke or Paul Kaiser thing. It would be cool if there were a max patch that could play the piece in a loop and add or delete elements to create some variation. Basically the problem with it restarting is that you get the ÔjokeÕ once it restarts Ð Ôoh, this happens to her all the time, she canÕt get over it.Õ It would be cool if the max patch would make a bunch of different variations of the same events since thatÕs what the characterÕs experience is. It would also be cool if the max patch would eliminate elements and see how much of the narrative/mood would still be legible.

Further breakdown of each segment of piece (sorry, this is a bit brainstormy)

part one. (regaining her footing until - collision)
We see a woman walking in a park at the base of a tall urban housing project, a cluster of buildings which all look the same. We see her wide, the environment that surrounds her and then closer.

When we first see her, we are hearing quiet fragments of a song {at this point, ÒYou Really Got a Hold on MeÕ, which is I hope played as a refrain on violin by Maja.}

(While the song is on, the image would be a smaller size.)

What is she doing? Her activity is that sheÕs getting groceries and a video, I guess. Something mundane, (but I think thatÕs fine. I really donÕt want to know anything about her life.) ThatÕs her activity. Her action is that sheÕs attempting to pull her thoughts away from the relationship. We see her face as she listens very intently to her own footsteps. Sound accentuated. We hear her breathing, accentuated. The sound of the natural world returns to her. The violin fades away. She walks, looking around. There is a feeling that she has just overcome some internal obstacle.

She walks. Sound is synch here, just the sounds of the environment, perhaps accentuated. Bird-in-tree and spring. A pause of just this, like three shots, full screen, synch sound.

She walks further into the city and sees SOMEBODY up ahead. It is a man. She attempts to avert her eyes, avoid him.

He bumps into her.

The sound track goes arrhythmic and out of synch (what does this mean? Get specific Ð is it silence? Should there be a record scratch? Should no lack of synchrony happen until the collision? ) She keeps walking. We see him turn and yell at her over his shoulder, we donÕt hear his audio. She turns and glances back at him fearfully. He turns back and flips her off.

When the guy turns back to her, we see clearly that it isnÕt the same man she thought he was (use two different actors)- she missaw him because the bad ex was on her mind.

This bump should be a big audio event: we would hear, instead of his yelling, an audio cut to the subway train screaming to a halt, rumbling.

Scene 2. On the train. The camera comes in slowly onto her face as she rides the train. The audio of the train is fading back as we zoom in to her psychic space. (ThatÕs da convention)

Scene three. (blocking out)
Snap of her pressing the answering machine messages, turning the tv on. The microwave. All these sounds that fill a house but make you feel empty. A long stare sitting at the kitchen table with all these sounds looping.

Her standing at the window. A moment of silence, completely no sound. Maybe the ÒsilenceÓ gets louder and louder. She starts to hum and we hear the humming looping like a record scratch.
(ruminating/obsession)
Record playing scene. This part is vague, but it is generally the idea that as she is playing these different records sheÕs having flashbacks of that bump with the guy on the street and coming up with different scenarios. In one she screams at him and he screams back at her. She flips on another record. In another, she walks right past him. Flip on another record. In one, her ex runs after her looking apologetic. I think thatÕs good. I think itÕs good too if the sound is the humming of the song weÕve been hearing all along, and you never hear the record like Doug said. And her playing the records is all about the replay of these moments in her head and . . . the humming of the song can get louder. We could see the guy yelling, and cut up his audio, so that we can not really tell what heÕs saying or sheÕs saying> IÕm a bit scared of this because 1) I donÕt know what theyÕre saying yet 2) I donÕt like getting verbal explanations into it, itÕs a bit against the point. 3) I could do this in the apartment just as easily.

What I would like if you could hear the emotional pitch of their voices and if they were cut up and run both in or out of synch with the images of their bump and confrontation which are full screen and then blown up in size. Then as we cut back to her on the subway, that image is getting smaller and smaller. The sound for the confrontation grows louder, as well as the violin sound. (It occurs to me that this could be a place for multscreen,

The transitional image is the record needle swinging back upwards for the next record:

Scene 4 (surrender)
She arrives at the house The hot fucking scene with her and the guy to the ÒYou really got a hold on meÓ . What would be great would be if I could do a bunch of different scenarios with the actors that you could program in Ð in one they just have bad sex, in another a girlfriend of his shows up, I think itÕs a bit ambitious.

Sc. 5 (aftermath)
Her alone after the sex, the song ends and silence comes in. She gets up in the silence. She walks.

The sound synchrony needs to represent certain things.

When we hear the sound of her environment, she is with herself. I just donÕt think the sound of her environment sounds that great, her real world is depressing. So the sounds can be kind of shitty and thin, even though naturalistic and in synch. Silence is hostile, and the song is hostile.