Sound is as profoundly important to our experience of the world as are visual elements. Yes as indie animators we are often not as sensitive to the sound track elements as we are to the visuals.
Soundwalkers is a short, visually very satisfying, documentary film on sound awareness by Raquel Castro, the Portuguese filmmaker and sound researcher. If you don't know it, check it out. Even if you've already watched it, such a profound auditory experience is well worth revisiting.
"Sound is everything I hear, and noise is also everything I hear but a bit more disorganized; silence is everything I want to hear but I can't." - Mikhail Karikis, sound artist, composer, and performer.
To say that this fascinating film sensitives us to the soundscape of our modern world is to minimize its achievement.
The informative voice-overs are interviews with prominent sonic researchers and artists. The sophisticated soundtrack in turn highlights and diminishes elements of ambient sound thereby drawing sound into powerful relief.
"Musicians take their sounds for granted.... Sound artists think, "What is this vast world of sound that we hear. How can we think about it, how can we shape it, how can we consider it." - Christoph Cox, professor
Watch the 30 minute film below, or follow http://www.vimeo.com/1737899
Soundwalkers [1] from raquel castro [2] on Vimeo [3].
There are some fundamental principles regarding the construction of an acoustically healthy society, one where we can exist within the sounds of life. Respect towards voice and words, sonic awareness, the awakening of the sense of hearing. To preserve the sounds that tend to fade out, while remaining open to the sounds that spring out of each technological stride. To build an aural idiom that interprets its own symbolism. To accept the silence, enforcing it in the due moments. And, above all else, to listen. - Raquel Castro
Links:
[1] http://vimeo.com/1737899
[2] http://vimeo.com/raquelcastro
[3] http://vimeo.com