Sound Lab 1 - OSLO, AUGUST 31ST

sound lab

A film by Joachim Trier

Oslo, august 31st

Director: Joachim Trier Sound Designer: Gisle Tveito Year of release: 2011 Synopsis: One day in the life of Anders, a young recovering drug addict, who takes a brief leave from his treatment center to interview for a job and catch up with old friends in Oslo

Oslo, 31 August

Section

through use of SFX and

which is sometimes:

but flips into:

• Realistic - at times brutally real

• First person persepctive - puts you in the head of the character
• Subjective/ halucinogenic - at times dreamy

• Use of music: DIAGETIC and NON-DIAGETIC (and switches between the two)

Sound Design

i.e. IN CHARGE OF THE OVERALL SOUND

i.e IN EDITING

i.e. ON SET

Gisle Tveito - re-recording mixer / sound designer / sound editor Production sound: Fanny Wadman - boom operator Andrew Windtwood - sound recordist Post production: Ingar Asdahl - sound recordist Hugo Ekornes - foley recordist Roy Fenstad - foley artist Camilla Gjødal - sfx recordist Gunn Tove Grønsberg - sound editor

Audio Team

Oslo, August 31st is loosely based on the novel Le feu follet (1931) by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, which was filmed in 1963 by Louis Malle. In his film, Trier (a distant cousin of Lars Von Trier) refers openly to the French nouvelle vague with a deceptive light-footedness, an underlying melancholy but with the penetrating clarity of Norwegian light and a thoroughly contemporary approach.

Trailer

The main character

• first has an awkward conversation in a bar
• then goes to a club to meet his acquaintances
• has a romantic/ possibly drug-influenced encounter
• leaves the club with friends
• visitsan outdoor place that has special acoustic properties
• goes to a swimming pool

IN THIS CLIP

background chatting

in the bar

We're in the character's HEAD

The atmos fades In and OUT depending on what the PERSPECTIVE is

We're in the SCENE with the character

ATMOS IN

ATMOS OUT

in the club

How does the sound design CHANGE?

loud music EQ'd to be bassy and distorted atmos/ ambience (background sound): crowd noise

Sound Design

in the club scene

DIAGETIC

The viewer is being made to FEEL the EMOTIONS of the character

It switches between being IN the scene to being SCORE (for the viewers)

It fades out entirely, leaving a LOW-FREQUENCY RUMBLE (the blood in his veins?

PLUS

WHAT IS HAPPENING?

NON-DIAGETIC

How does the music CHANGE?

when he moves into the back room of the club

Music

SOUND LAB

• ATMOS is AUDIBLE when we're in the scene
• ATMOS fades out when we're in his head
• LOW-FREQUENCY RUMBLE puts us IN HIS VEINS

• The place with special acoustic properties has an ECHO
• The sound design is both REALISTIC (mundane) and UNREALISTIC (PSYCHOLOGICAL)

Summary

Diegetic sound is heard by both the audience and the characters, unlike non-diegetic sound which is used purely for the audience's benefit

BBC Maestro article about this

A stylised and romantic form of sadness

Melancholy

The New Wave (French: Nouvelle Vague), also called the French New Wave, is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconoclasm. New Wave filmmakers explored new approaches to editing, visual style, and narrative, as well as engagement with the social and political upheavals of the era, often making use of irony or exploring existential themes. The New Wave is often considered one of the most influential movements in the history of cinema.

Nouvelle Vague