Alexis' Midterm Proposal

alindquistMT346.doc

The Language We Don't Talk About:

Hearing Time and Place in Film Scores

“I am exploring the film score as a universal language, because even the lowest lay-man can understand the musical color that creates a sense of time and place, in order to elicit the cinematic and cultural importance of this “ignored” art.”

Abstract: This project delves into the world of musical color specifically in relation to the creation of the sensation of a time and place in cinema. It is targeted for any film listener (even the blind). A pedagogical website will launch a multi-layered, interactive game.

Methodology: The project will be accessed via the internet through a flash site. The flash site will explain the purpose of the project, give directions for the game both through literature and audibly, and will have teaching tools in regards to musical color in film scores. The game will be accessible via the flash site and will also be created in Flash. The game is completely audio based. The user will be assigned missions, for example “Go to Scotland.” The user will hear a score; if it does not implicate Scotland, then the user may left click and a new score will play. It is as though the user is digging forward in search of Scotland. When the user finds the assigned time or destination, then they may right click and sounds will notify them of their correct or incorrect answer. There are no points and the game loops; it literally could go on forever. It is just a simple exercise to allow the user to become aware of their personal interpretation of musical color.

Why in General? As a whole, this project will effectively argue that musical color has become a language across cinema and American culture. The user’s experience will leave them with a greater awareness of the power of the film score in their film experiences and even life.

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 let 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.

::The changes I made between my initial proposal and this one are that I immensely simplified the flash game and educational material covered in general. There is only one 'world' in the game instead of three and the idea of exploring the evolution of film scores was discarded completely. Even though the project is much simpler now, there is always the possibility that next year I will be able to expand it again.::