Process Piece

Process. Everything is a process. And a process is everything. Whether it’s a extremely complex yet unrehearsed jam session in a music store like Falling Slowly from “Once,” or a simple everyday fishing trip. Our everyday lives are full of them. Our everyday lives are made of them. Unearthing and analyzing these processes as well as discovering how present they are has opened my eyes to the beauty of completely natural documentary storytelling.

My partner, Neal, and I decided to record the process of fishing which is a process that is pretty common. We were looking for something full of sounds that could keep a listener engaged, that would also tell a story. So we found a quiet river, recorded some sweet sounds by throwing a GoPro down the river and into the water just like you would a lure, and reeled the GoPro in. We flopped it around on the surface and ultimately treated it exactly as it were an imaginary microphone on a real bite. We were very pleased with the natural sounds we got from the GoPro and were excited to put it all together.

We decided to add some fiction narration by playing with personification and comedy. The piece ends up being pretty funny, I think. After I compared our process piece to some of the others posted on our classmate’s blogs, I was surprised to find that there was powerful beauty in the simple recording of clean, real life sounds. There was a stark difference between those that were obviously created fictitiously and those that were really documented. Going back to our piece, I wonder if those clueless fish talking to each other underwater were comedic enough to be distracting in a way that takes away from the awesome experience that is fishing. Is the beauty of process diminished by comedy or simulation? Watch this.
 
Kinfolk Story: Honey Harvest from Kinfolk (kinfolk.com) on Vimeo.

Can you imagine hearing the honey bees screaming “I hope the humans like the honey!” or “Where are they taking us!?” in silly voices? It would undoubtedly compromise the beauty of the natural process. Our challenge was trying to make it clear that fish were present in this process, and that they were caught. Recording natural conversations of fisherman aside the river, sounds of a reel, water, and splashes, I’m sure a clear understanding of the process could be accomplished without superficial and artificial dialogue.

These thoughts are a great example of how this cycle can be so useful in learning about creativity.