Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Gettin' Tucked In




Hey guys,

So this draft is still so rough. I don't think I have enough tape for this piece to work without my voice or other voices. I am struggling with only using just what I have now. I really want this piece to be about getting tucked in at night and bedtime rituals. I'm just not sure how it's doing right now though. I started writing some memories from when I was a kid. My mom and my sister and I used to do this thing every night when she was tucking us in and it went a little something like this.

My mom: Night. I love youuuu.
Me: No I love you more.
Mom: No I love you the most.
Me: Yeah well I love you more than the whole wide universe.
My mom: Then guess what? I love you to infinity and beyond.
And then she would turn out the lights.

I was thinking about using that as my intro (it might be a nice connection to the stars as well). And then having a little bit of narration about bedtime rituals. Cue the clips of my nieces and my older sister's voice about what it's like to tuck them in. And then I was thinking about doing one more interview to round it out? What do you all think? Is that too much or do you think there is a way for the above tape to work alone?

Hannah

3 comments:

  1. Hannah,

    The idea of bedtime rituals is a fantastic idea to explore for this piece, and I really like that moment you described between you and your mother. If you could find some way of incorporating that into your intro, I believe it would help give the listener an idea of what your piece is about. I also really enjoy the tape you gathered of you reading the book to the child.. it's always fascinating to listen to children talk.

    As for improving this piece and moving it forward, I do think you need to gather more tape. I like that you've woven in your voice as narration, however I kept expecting to hear noises of you patting the child's back, but instead it cut back to more reading. Maybe if you included sound effects to the moments you talk about in your narration?

    Similar to your neighbor piece, I think it would be interesting if you did another narration-style written piece, and overlaid sound clips of the children/sound effects in between, or during breaks. If you didn't want to go that route, maybe gathering more tape of the child at bedtime, or possibly recording a version of the interaction between you and your mom. (It would be really cool if somehow you had that recorded on an old video or something from when you were a kid!) These are just some ideas. Hopefully they help!

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  2. Hannah,
    You capture voices so well! Everyone sounds beautiful!

    It was nice to open by welcoming us into the intimacy of the bedtime story. It really makes you feel immediately close to the actors. I'd worry that starting with your description of your ritual with your mom would be a bit confusing-- you turn out the lights, and then just into bedtime stories with the lights back on. Could you have it at the end? but maybe as dialogue, rather than a narrated account? ending with the flick of a light switch could be neat too...

    It's like you're at a fork in the road, where you could wrap this up into something very specific about your family in these moments, or, collect more tape and guide us with narration to some thought about bedtime rituals. Either could be lovely.

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  3. Hannah,
    The tape of your nieces making sounds is still so magical. I'm wondering if it would be helpful to think of this short as evoking the intimate feeling of nighttime reading and imagining, rather than explaining it vis a vis you and your sister. That is, make a short that is more atmospheric in which their voices are part of a kind of sound poem. I feel like I want more room to take those small voices in and be transported into their world. If you use your voice, how could you be in conversation with their voices, even somewhat abstractly?
    Let's check in and talk more--
    Stephanie

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