sound and vision

Every now and then I’ll post something that influences my work. There are films, artworks, music and words that stir my imagination and resonate with what I’m doing or seeking to achieve. Other art-forms are brilliant for influencing us because we take what resonates and mold it into something new. I regularly turn to film noir when I am doing dark works or grand adventures. I love Hitchcock’s shadows and perspectives. I will listen to the score of The Piano when writing adventure, the soundtrack to Amelie when tapping into a childlike sense of hope and possibility. Melancholy music will thread itself into works that need to be still and thoughtful. Swing will infect my colour and brushstrokes. I love music videos for the matching of sound and vision to create something quite unique in my head. I love the saturated colour schemes of movies like Amelie, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the City of Lost Children and the extraordinary balanced compositions of Wes Anderson’s films.
They make the world more real, like we’re experiencing things after the sensory overload of a hot summer rain, and less real because the studied perfection reminds us that this is a story. They make it rich.

When we look at the world we see what we want to see and remember what was most riveting to us. It will not be what the person beside us saw. It will never be quite what someone thought they created for us. Creators match and merge and mix all of the things around them until they flow out in a new form. Hopefully striking a note that feels perfect.

It isn’t surprising that people can talk about art just like it’s music. They are really very similar. Rhythms of brushstrokes – harmonising, sweeping, jarring. Colour like punctuation. A book that begins with a phrase and returns to it, subtly changed at the end. A full page of restful sky amidst clutter like staccato notes.

That’s about all I wanted to say!
And on that note …
here’s one of my favourite music videos…