Synaesthesia

synaesthesia

noun

noun: synaesthesia; noun: synesthesia

1.      the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body.

'...a film that responds to the pleasures of music, and in which that music is made visual, either in new ways or in ways that accentuate existing visual associations'

 - Andrew Goodwin - Dancing in the Distraction Factory (1992)

In order to demonstrate how this process works, we listened to two songs, and had to visually represent what we could see on the piece of paper, before watching the music video.


For Your Love - Josh Record

The first song we listened to was a song called ‘For Your Love’ by an artist called Josh Record. My initial thought when I heard the song was a man with a guitar and a beard, sat on top of a big hill. I definitely felt it was a solo artist, hence the man alone, and I also felt there was a theme of isolation in the song. Due to this theme of isolation, I thought he would be alone somewhere far from civilisation; somewhere he is able to escape to. When I heard the song, I began to think about the opening shot in 'Donnie Darko', where Donnie can be seen sat on the top of a hill in the middle of the road with his bike, reinforcing this idea of isolation. I also imagined a story book, as I felt that the song itself was a story being told to someone. I felt like there was a sense of darkness to the song, however there was also something quite 'glittery' about the song, so I imagined a dark night sky with twinkling stars.

When we watched the music video, it was amazing to see how much of our representations were in the actual music video. The singer was indeed a man with a beard, and although he didn't sit alone on a hill, there was definitely a sense of isolation, as he had lost the girl that he so dearly wanted. Also, a large portion of the music video took place during the night, following the idea of the darkness. Also, although it wasn't a particularly starry night, the headlights of the car and the streetlights create a similar effect to that of stars.

Intro - The XX

The next song we listened to was called 'Intro' by The XX. My initial thought was someone riding along a street on a skateboard in slow motion, as I felt that the beat throughout the entire song would fit well with the motion of a skateboard. The entire song is instrumental, so it focuses on the use of rhythm, rather than relying on the content of the lyrics. Due to this focus on rhythm, something that came to mind was soldiers marching in rows, so I drew twelve stickmen, in a square 3x4. Following this theme of rhythm, I also imagined someone bouncing a basketball in time with the song. So a clear focus through my images was on that of rhythm, and somehow representing that visually so it matched with the pace of the song.

When we watched the music video, I was shocked by how similar some of my classmates' representation were to the real thing. One of my classmates had drawn streetlights and a train, and in the music video, there is a POV shot on a train. Also, I had drawn the twelve stickmen, and in the music video, there was some circles in rows; a rectangle of 3x5.



I found this exercise very interesting, as it shows that when creating a music video. you need to think about what other people see when they listen to a song, and although you don't need to strict follow these representations, you definitely need to take them into consideration. Subconsciously, we will always have things that we link to songs, and we will create these images in our minds. But it is down to us as the creators to choose whether to represent what everyone sees, or subvert the norms, and take a risk.