Upon deciding that I wanted to create a piece of sound design for my final project – I chose to dedicate myself to this and research further into new films and their process within filmmaking. I was lucky to attend a screening and Q+A with the cast, director, and post-production crew of Netflix’s latest film ‘Society of Snow’.
As a fan of the director J. A. Bayona’s previous work, I was intrigued to hear how recreated a portrayal of a real-life disaster. I realise creating a biopic based on such harrowing events means it is important to justify your creative decisions making them as credible as possible.
From a sound designer’s perspective, I found it fascinating hearing the parallels between creating something sonically beautiful but also keeping this plausible and true to it’s self. A paper by the Language and Communication Centre at the Nanyang Technological University talks about redefining art and the controversy of the photographer Steve McCurry.
However, is the onus of immorality really on the artwork itself? It seems somewhat unfair to put down the entirety of an aesthetically well-executed artwork just because of the message it is conveying to the viewer, whether intended or not.
I find the controversy that loiters around Steve McCurry’s name interesting and relate it strongly to the Q+A with Society Of Snow. Mccurry famously shot a picture of an Afghanistan girl which was later sold to National Geographic – making him enormous profit and glamorising the injustice and poverty the girl faced. Alongside this, the child received no benefits herself as the world made money from her face. Some say McCurry profited from someone else’s tragedy and pain – creating an aesthetic out of the truth.
When hearing how Oriol Tarragó (the sound designer) approached this film I saw a similarity behind the probability of creating art based on tragedy. Their approach was interesting and they proclaimed how when it came to big scenes such as “avalanches” it was more important to fill the space rather than creating something that is not true. They expressed the importance of foley within this film – bringing an enormous sense of realism instead of replacing this with more designed fx and sound design. Finally, they explained how when shooting in the Apalade mountains they took as many soundscape recordings as possible to capture the true sonic ambience rather than falsely recreating this later on in post-production.
I found their approach inspiring and it made me reflect upon my approach to sound designing for ‘Where the sea does not follow’. Although this is not nearly a biopic the film itself is based around Victoria’s real-life events. Inspired by her childhood trauma – I understood the importance of following the same approach the sound designer from ‘Society of Snow’ used. Although I can not state I will be working under the same budget as the Netflix feature film – their sense of truth and veracity in their artistry I knew I could copy. I hope to recreate Victoria’s world on screen as sonically accurately as possible. I intend to work alongside her when creating ambiences and fx to ensure these sound as factual as possible.
