Speaking in Tongues

I emailed Steve on the 12th, but still haven't had a reply...maybe I had the wrong email? Does anyone know what his current email is?

In the meantime, I came up with more ideas and was hoping maybe I could do something like this:

I am exploring the film score as a universal language in cinema and American culture/because I want to show how it has developed from ignored background music high art to a postmodern artform with the ability to create time and space/ in order to explain the aesthetic impacts between film scores and popular culture.

(here is a blurb with more background info to clarify the above statement)
I am studying the "neglected" art of film scores in cinema. Film music is so embedded in American culture that even the lowest lay-person can understand the musical language. It was not always this way, however. When underscoring began with the silent films, it was thought of as simply "background music" and followed a more high-art style like that of classical music. As films evolved, so did scores, integrating other forms of music, creating themes, integrating motifs, etc. across three eras: golden, rock fo 60s/70s, postmodern. Film scores slowly moved toward music that is viewed among scholars as a more low-art, however, it is more connected with American culture than ever.

Title: Your Second Language: The Film Score

Abstract: This project charts the evolution of film scores from silent films to the postmodern era in order to show key developments and eras that lead to the creation of musical color and how reliant American culture and the film industry are on it. This project is targeted for any American film viewer. It is pedagogical, multi-layered, comparative, and interactive game.

Methodology: The user will be carrying out interactive missions. The user will begin with a film score language dictionary that has audio definitions they can hear. They will have the option of venturing into three different worlds - the eras of film score evolution: golden, rock 60s/70s, postmodern. The user will receive a quest - for example "go to Scotland" - but there will be no visuals, only scores. Each new layer they click into has a new score. When they find the appropriate place via sound, they will select that layer and click ok. Then they will have their next quest. In the golden age world, the tasks may seem almost impossible - because scores had not developed themes/motifs the way they did in the postmodern era. So on that token, the postmodern tasks will be as clear as English - just listen for the bagpipes! This game proves to users their own knowledge of musical color and also educates about the evolution of the film score in cinema. I also plan to integrate a function to integrate the relationship between popular media and scores in the postmodern era...am still thinking about this.


Media Presentation & Justification: This thesis will include a flash website with film clips, sound clips, visual images, and game devices to allow decision making in order to allow the user to declare their own connotations when they hear score motifs. This project should be in multimedia because film scores are a language that is heard, not written. Also, this project requires the allowance of users to make decisions in a way that cannot be done in an essay.