#Vanessa Theme Ament
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New Post has been published on Cinephiled
New Post has been published on http://www.cinephiled.com/interview-enroll-tcms-exciting-fun-free-online-mad-musicals-course-june/
Interview: Enroll in TCM's Exciting and Fun Free Online ‘Mad About Musicals’ Course This June
Throughout June, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will pay homage to the glorious world of the Hollywood musicals with Mad About Musicals!, a special month of programming celebrating timeless musical classics such as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Wizard of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain, On the Town, My Fair Lady, and Cabaret. TCM is once again partnering with Ball State University and Canvas to offer a free online multimedia course tied to this programming about the history of the musical genre and its evolution. Classes start June 3, but it’s a self-paced program and enrollment is open until June 17. You can sign up for the course at musicals.tcm.com. Check out the amazing schedule of films that will be shown all day and night on TCM every Tuesday and Thursday throughout the month of June. You’ll want to catch as many as you possibly can.
I had the pleasure of talking to Dr. Vanessa Theme Ament, Hollywood Foley artist and professor and film scholar at Ball State University who will be guiding students through the course with help from Academy Award-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom, film scholar Richard Edwards, and Distinguished Ball State Professor Wes Gehring. She will also be introducing some of the prime time musicals on TCM with host Ben Mankiewicz.
Danny Miller: Vanessa, I saw your great introduction of Silk Stockings (1957) at last month’s TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood.
Vanessa Theme Ament: Wasn’t that a fun movie?
It’s one of my absolute favorites even though by all rights, I should hate it: it’s a remake of Ernst Lubitsch’s Ninotchka (1939), Cyd Charisse replaces Greta Garbo with an accent that would hardly pass muster in Moscow, and it’s dripping with 1950s Cold War anti-Soviet propaganda. In short: how dare they! And yet I love every second!
(Laughs.) I know! I love it, too. And frankly, I can’t even think of it as a remake of Ninotchka, I’d prefer to call it more of an “adaptation.”
As a film scholar, I don’t know if you try to avoid every naming favorites, but for my money, no one in the history of Hollywood can touch Cyd Charisse for that style of dancing.
Oh, I’m with you, Danny! You can talk about all of the immensely talented dancers that were in musicals, and they all have their strengths and appeal, but when it comes down to pure technique and the ability to dance with any partner with that level of style and grace, there really was no one like Cyd Charisse. I really believe that technically, she was the most perfect.
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Agreed. At the festival, you talked about that amazing dance number where she’s making her transition out of her bleak Soviet view of the world into the romance of being in Paris and with Fred Astaire. It’s incredible how much she’s able to convey nonverbally in that dance.
Yes, and we see through that scene that she didn’t have to shut herself off as a woman just because she was rejecting a political and economic theory. That’s such a beautiful number, and what more perfect place to explore that type of transformation than in Paris?
By way of MGM’s Culver City backlot.
Right! No backlot could look more like France than MGM. They sure did it well in An American in Paris (1951), too.
I’m so glad both of those films are on TCM’s Mad About Musicals schedule in June. I was just looking at the whole list and salivating — I want to watch all 84 films! Did you have a hand in choosing them?
Turner Classic Movies selected the movies but they did allow me to have some input. There are a few films, like Cabaret and Funny Girl, for example, that I felt really needed to be there. Of course, there are some they can’t get the rights to so they can’t show. But I have to say that they have an incredibly beautiful variety of films that covers a wide swath of the entire imagination of musicals — everything from the early musicals that were repurposing popular songs to the first story musicals where the songs are being written exclusively for the screen, to Broadway musicals that were transformed into more cinematic stories, to more realistic films that have songs in them, these films have everything going on — even the Beatles!
Can you describe in a nutshell how the online course works?
There are lots of pieces to it but the beauty of it is that you can do as much or as little as you want. We have online filmed discussions with experts — there are 16 of these lecture/discussions with me taking to people about various aspects of making musicals. We also have lecture notes that include images and clips from the films that follow a certain structure for the decade that we’re covering that week. On Mondays, I do an historic overview of the decade. On Tuesday, I focus on the various stars who were really highlighted during that period. On Wednesday, I cover the behind-the-scenes people who really made a difference in that decade. On Thursday, we focus on specific musical numbers and the style of dance, choreography, and songs from those years. And then Friday is a wrap-up of everything we’ve learned during the week and it includes podcasts I’m doing with Richard Edwards and several other film scholars. We also have a bunch of daily doses of film clips for each of those days. We want to provide lots of ways to get into how these musicals were made and what they meant to the overall culture.
That sounds great. Are there other components?
Yes! On top of all that, we have various games that we’re providing that help with the learning. There’s a game where you look at an image and try to tell whether it’s from a musical, there’s a kind of hangman game where you’re figuring out different people’s names, and lots of other fun experiences so that by the time the week is over you feel substantially smarter about what was going on with musicals in the 30s, 40s, 50s, or 60s, and beyond.
I love the multi-pronged approach. I really think you can learn so many different things about a culture by looking at its musicals in each decade.
Exactly. And in this course you look at them through a theoretical and historical approach, from a technical perspective, examining how different aspects of society are represented, and also by looking at the changing aesthetics. So the awareness comes not only from enjoying the musicals themselves but also from understanding why they came out when they did, how the different studios did them differently, and how the star system impacted everything and why it started to change later on.
I love it. And can people doing the course interact with each other and with you in some way?
Oh, yes! We also have discussion boards where everybody gets a chance to share their knowledge with each other, so anyone involved with the class can talk back to us and say, “Well, I noticed this,” or “What about that?” We have a group discussion with everyone involved. It’s all very interactive and we’ll have some kind of live event later on in the course. On top of that, we have a lot of little extra components. For example, I do a demonstration of how you replace the tap foley in a dance number so people can see how dancing sounds were put in for the dances — those were always put in later by someone like me.
I always wondered about those. Are you saying that when we see Ann Miller’s tap numbers, we’re not actually hearing the sounds she makes while dancing?
No, it’s not really her, those sounds are too hard to capture. And not only that, but the person who created the tapping sounds would actually add in more taps than Ann Miller actually did.
Wow, those always look amazing, the foley artist really had to know what they were doing. This class looks like it will be a blast.
Oh, it’s been so fun to put together and it’s been an enormous amount of work, we’re still adding things. We’ve got all sorts of extras even beyond what I’ve mentioned. I want the class to be intellectually stimulating and to offer lots of different things for people so they can do whatever bits and pieces they’re interested in. There will also be quizzes so they can get badges for accomplishing things they do well, but nobody has to do the parts they don’t want to. It’s really up to the person how much time they put into it.
I assume you’re suggesting that students watch as many of the films they can that are on TCM’s Mad About Musicals schedule?
Absolutely. The prime time ones are really critical but we’ll be discussing many of them. We’ll also get into discussions of how race impacted musicals, the changing roles of women, and a lot of other important issues. There’s such a rich variety of films that TCM is showing that we can talk about so much.
Is there any limit to the number of people who can take the class?
No, we can take as many people as are interested. The class starts on June 3, but you can sign up through June 17. Everyone can do it at their own pace. And everything is free, including two free weeks of the great online site FilmStruck
I honestly can’t think of any reason not to enroll, I’m sold!
And because I like to have a lot of fun, we end up laughing a lot in our lectures, there’s just a lot of fun involved. And during the first week of the prime time showings on TCM, I was fortunate enough to be able to do the intro and outro discussions about the films with Ben Mankiewicz so that was a lot of fun, too. It’s just going to be one big party.
Yay! Would you say that we’re in a kind of resurgence right now of the American musical?
Oh, absolutely. I have a theory as to why musicals dropped off for so many years. I think that our culture lost sight of what the purpose of musicals really was. And when we became more cynical, we started thinking that the only purpose of them was to escape from reality, and we became a society that wasn’t escaping that much through film. But then Disney started having music in animation, and it started to come back, until finally people realized that music can help us deal with the realities of our world, too. I think they’re making a huge resurgence now for that reason. Songs today are being written to capture the essence of the real emotion of what we are living through. I think movies like La La Land really captured that zeitgeist. The truth is that musicals have served a different purpose in every decade. I can’t wait for us to all get into discussions about these things!
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Click here to learn more about TCM’s Mad About Musicals screenings and here to enroll in the free online course that begins on June 3, 2018.
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Foley & Voice-over work
After organising my found samples I then considered what sounds on my spotting list could be record and designed from scratch, such as sword “swooshes” and gold related noises. A Foley studio session was then booked an a bag full of object I deemed would be useful was brought.
When recording I employed Foley recording techniques I obtained when attending Martin’s “First Steps In Foley” lecture during continuing development week at Futureworks, as well as some useful tips from Vanessa Theme Ament’s book “The Foley Grail”.
This technique, often referred to as “low, mid high”, involved using 3 condenser microphones; the first placed low down or in very close proximity to the sound source. The second microphone being placed in mid range proximity to the sound source and the third being place higher up or in far range proximity to the sound source.
Additionally a voice over recording session was booked to capture any vox sounds I wished to obtain, such as in-game minion grunts etc. My colleague Robert Garner provide numerous voice acting performances whist I recorded in the controll room, using the SSL 400 console. A Neumann U 87 condenser microphone was used to capture the high fidelity audio samples and a pop shield was used reduce 'plosive' sounds and other unwanted noises on each capture.
Once my sound sources had been successfully recorded I then took them to my chosen D.A.W to be further deigned, manipulated, removed any unwanted noise (using iZotope’s RX6 plugin) and bounced to the appropriate audio specifications needed for use within Unreal Engine 4.
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‘The Foley Grail’
Project 2
Finally I was able to find a book that properly describes the art of Foley. It encloses all the techniques, roles, history and people who work within this area of film.
These are some of the terms learnt within the book, referring to foley:
Cheat: Refers to foley technique that masks an imperfect match in edit or performance i.e, change rhythm in footsteps imperceptibly, or disguise mismatched prop performance.
Dead Room: Foley stage or recording room that is designed to add little or no life or bounce to sounds, usually contains many soft walls and surfaces to absorb sound.
Foley dance: Foley artist who does dance foley
Foley speak: Slang language used by foley artists,mixers,etc using terms of art that are shortcuts to describe practices and techniques.
Foleyed: Term of art that refers to performed sound effects by Foley artists in sync to picture, as opposed to edited sound effects.
Full Coat: Type of magnetic tape used for recording foley, which had four tracks available for recording at one time.
Grit cling: Dirt or other substance that sticks to shoes when used for gritty surface.
Grit Factor: Aesthetic choice of how much substance is used to cause a walking surface to sound gritty, i.e, dirty city street.
Gun life: The general light rattle of gun/s to indicate its/their presence in the scene, for dramatic affect.
Gush,gunk,gore: Refers to onomatopoeic slang used to describe tsounds used for horror or suspense scenes.
Laundry list: Term of art for casual list of requested footsteps and prop cues for Foley artist that has no time code,details, or specifics.
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Vanessa Theme- Ament speaks about her documentary on Women in Film Sound at #cilect (at Dodge College of Film & Media Arts)
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The Foley Grail
Vanessa Theme Ament"The sounds tell the story. The sounds support the visual compositions. The sounds support the characters" "The story dictates everything. When the artist is recreating the prop that is in the scene already, then the goal is for the Foley to be as indistinguishable from production as possible”
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Film books I’ve been reading
Here’s a brief update. Right now I’m doing a lot of research into film technique, especially those areas I don’t know as much about - film sound, film editing, acting. I would recommend all of these books.
EDITING
The Eye Is Quicker - Making A Good Film Better by Richard D. Pepperman
A practical, software-agnostic guide to film editing. It contains some very useful advice about editing for coherence and clarity.
The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Film Editing by Michael Ondaatje
A sort of contemporary Hitchcock / Truffaut - a book-length interview with the pioneering editor and sound designer Walter Murch, best known for editing Apocalypse Now and The Conversation, and his sound work on The Godfather and American Graffiti. He has the highly unusual distinction of being both a picture editor and a sound editor, and has a number of fascinating theories about film.
SOUND
The Foley Grail by Vanessa Theme Ament
An honest and insightful look at the Foley process. It doesn’t say much about how specific sounds are made, but it tells you a lot about why those sound choices are made in the first place. There’s also a lot of stories about unhelpful directors and other annoyances that come with the job.
Sound Design by David Sonnenschein
A practical but non-technical introduction to the art of film sound.
Film: A Sound Art by Michael Chion
This one is far more theoretical, but it’s one of the best theoretical film books I’ve ever read. It’s impossible to summarise, because there’s no single overarching idea here. It’s more a collection of ideas. Some of the topics discussed: Marlon Brando’s mumbling vocal performance as The Godfather, the sync-sound gimmicks of early Disney cartoons, the tacked-on quality of Fellini’s dubbing, and why silent cinema is really ‘deaf cinema’.
ACTING
Notes on the Cinematographer by Robert Bresson
A short book by the great French minimalist director Robert Bresson. It’s basically a collection of aphorisms, some insightful, some inscrutable. Bresson has a lot to say about “acting” - mostly that he doesn’t approve of it, and wants his performers to simply ‘be’. It’s a bit didactic and overwrought - you sometimes get the sense that Bresson only approves of his own films - but undeniably provocative.
Directing Actors by Judith Weston
A perceptive, precise and straightforward guide to working with actors. What’s a useful direction to give to an actor, and what’s a direction that sounds good, but is basically unactable? This book is really about practical psychology - what should an actor be thinking about when they step in front of the camera? And what is it that causes a performance to feel false?
FILM HISTORY
The Way Hollywood Tells It by David Bordwell
An attentive and thoroughly researched study of contemporary Hollywood storytelling. It’s mostly about what Bordwell calls the “intensified continuity” style of modern films, which is a recent outgrowth of the original “continuity editing” system established early in the 20th century. Essentially it means much faster cutting, more extreme focal lengths (long lenses and wide lenses, not many ‘normal’ lenses), an excess of camera movement, and an increased reliance on close-ups, as opposed to sustained two-shots or group shots.
On The History of Film Style by David Bordwell
This one is more about early film technique - silent era and early sound era. Essentially Bordwell is arguing that early filmmaking was more sophisticated than most people recognise. It’s often said that editing is the essence of filmmaking, and that early cinema was really just filmed theatre. On the contrary, Bordwell argues that silent filmmakers learned to stage actors for the camera (a single, fixed viewpoint) rather than the many viewpoints of the theatre. This lead to staging actors in depth, rather than on a flat plane, as is typical of the theatre.
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Response to Reading: The Foley Grail by Vanessa Theme Ament
Title: The Foley Grail; The Art of Performing Sound for Film, Games and Animation - Second Edition by Vanessa Theme Ament
This book discusses the many aspects of Foley sound making, from the history and the theoretical aspect to the potential future of Foley sound. The origin of Foley starts with the man himself, Jack Foley. He was born in Long Island, New York and developed the art of Foley through the necessity for it and then eventually turned it into a craft. It’s interesting to think that prior to creating Foley sound effects, film only had the recorded sound or was a silent film. It didn’t occur to a lot of people to create sound after the film was made to ensure a higher quality of sound. “[Jack] was not locked into any conventions. Since no one had done this before, there was no debates regarding the art or the process. Jack “did his thing” and it was accepted.” through the absence of this particular art form, Jack Foley was free to think and do as he pleased and do what he thought felt right for making sound. He wasn’t bound to any rules or constricted by anything, he knew that this was a new form of sound making and he was going to open it up to all the possibilities that is available. With my sound piece, this was a heavy inspiration and goal, to create an installation that wasn’t bound to anything and was free for interpretation and differ from person to person who used it. my sound installation could have the most mechanical sound or have the silliest sound, there was no right or wrong seeing as the people using the objects were unfamiliar to what was shown on screen. They were free to interpret what they thought it would sound like and therefore created the sound that best fit that.
What is also discussed is how other countries also did their form of Foley. It’s interesting to see that although different languages are spoken, Foley seems to push through that boundary since it’s the art of sound making. This book clearly describes and goes through the beginning, middle and future of Foley sound. It is often thought that sound is just “”added on” after the movie is finished. Ask any sound professional worth the paycheck, and you will be told, “Sound is half the movie.” which I personally believe to be true. Sound adds another human sense to trigger and stimulate and often it is overlooked because we always think that it’s just going to be there, but sound adds that extra mile and extra effects when it comes to films. There’s something extremely satisfying about listening to a perfectly curated soundscape for a film, and the same goes with choosing a soundtrack for a film. I personally think it’s a big and important job purely because we’ve never looked back on creating a lot more silent films. Silent films have since died out purely because people prefer having sound accompany their film. Although silent films are great, it can’t be denied that sound to a film adds an extra limb to the art form. Hence why I think that Foley and soundtracks for films are vital. It can also be extremely difficult but it pays off in the end.
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