SOUNDkitchen’s Annie Mahtani and Iain Armstrong composed a collaborative soundtrack to a film documenting Supersonic Festival 2011 using field recordings made at the festical. The film was produced by Imperfect Cinema from material filmed by festival attendees.
Imperfect Cinema @ Supersonic 2011 from Imperfect Cinema on Vimeo.
By Dan Paolantonio & Allister Gall. A collaborative short film shot on super8mm film by attendees of the 2011 Supersonic Festival. This film was informed by a workshop held by Imperfect Cinema in which the IC project and the super-8mm medium were explored in terms of potential synergies and dialogues with sonic arts, with a particular emphasis on location and materiality and ‘foraging’ as a production methodology (with the films of Margaret Tait and Marie Menken used as examples). As SOUNDkitchen were holding their ‘Cinema for the Ears’ event the film-makers were asked to consider the visual material they gathered in terms of its potential for becoming ‘Music for the Eyes.’ We were also particularly inspired by Capsule’s ‘Home of Metal’ project and how this presented the aesthetic of Heavy Metal Music as a manifestation of the industry of the West Midlands. Similarly we asked our filmmakers to consider not only the post-industrial landscape of the Custard Factory (the venue for the festival) but also the reflexivity of the analogue materials used to capture the images in the first place (film stock). Following shooting Imperfect Cinema hand processed the film stocks overnight (in a travel lodge bathroom) then converted the film images to digital video files (telecine transfer) and finally edited the visual elements to the soundtrack produced by SoundKitchen for screening on that day. During the edit we aimed to focus upon images which we felt conjured feelings of the elemental, with a particular emphasis on fire and water, as we felt that this fit with the notion of Heavy Metal music being ‘forged’ in the West Midlands. The entire process from the start of the workshop to the screening in the Custard Factory Arts Centre Cinema was a little over 24 hours! We hope you enjoy this alternative document of the 2011 Supersonic Festival and indeed can experience it as Music for the Eyes!