There's
been a few comments and discussions about the lack of dialogue, the
sound effects and music in 'Godiva'. I thought I'd respond to those
comments:
Music: Even though the movie was going to be full of sound and
voices when I started the project, things changed dramatically early on
in the production when I came across some free music supplied by
YouTube. I'd filmed the first few minutes of the movie (the initial
flight sequence through the asteroids) and when I heard the music
(Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata) I instantly wanted to see what it would
be like in the movie. Well, I loved it. So much so that I toyed with it
being the only audio element in the film. But the piece wasn't long
enough to cover the entire film, and I couldn't find another piece that
had the same feel to it that I could continue on with. But I did find a
weird, almost discordant piece (well, 4 pieces - a string quartet
performing pieces by Gustavo Becerra-Schmidt) that worked well in the
film, but in a different way. And I also knew that this new piece
wouldn't work on its own (not as well as Beethoven's piece did, anyway).
Now that I was all keyed up for music, I wanted to finish the movie
with a strong, heart wrenching kind of number. Something I've noticed in
'real' movies is that oftentimes they use a chorus of choir for those
kind of scenes. So I went looking for something like that and ended up
with this rather ancient number (Unus ex discipulis meis, by Tomás Luis
de Victoria from the 16th century!) I think it worked really well and I
actually chose the shots and timing of those shots based on the music.
Once I had all the music, I knew I wanted it to lead the film, rather
than just augment it, so I opted to sacrifice other elements of the
overall sound design to achieve this...
Dialogue (or the lack of it): Some have said that the film
needed dialogue, while others have said it didn't need any. Obviously I
agree with the latter, but I can understand the former. Originally the
film was going to have dialogue, and I actually wrote the lines for the
first three scenes before I realised it didn't need them. In fact, I
would argue that it not only didn't need them, but it would have been a
very different (and inferior) film had I included them. In my mind, the
film would have been very pedestrian; just another sci-fi flick with a
monster. But by removing the dialogue and letting the music do its
thing, and thus allowing the audience to interpret events on their own,
rather than me spoon feeding them the facts with dialogue, I feel the
film was lifted above the norm. Just a little, anyway. I admit that the
entire story was not revealed in the film; there are several unanswered
questions (How did Donaldson survive the monster? What was Sister Nova's
link to it? etc) But isn't it more fun to ponder these things, rather
than have them laid out in front of you? It's often said that us
filmmakers should "Show, Not Tell" and I think this is a perfect example
of just that. In the end, about the only way dialogue would have made
it into the film would have been in the form of "chatter" as part of the
overall sound design. But when it came to doing the sound effects, I
opted to avoid that as well. More on that in the next section...
Sound Effects: This was probably the toughest aspect of the
overall sound design for 'Godiva'. At one point I seriously considered
having no sound effects at all throughout the entire film, figuring the
visuals and music could carry it without them. And although I feel this
is true of the opening and ending sequences, the middle section fell
flat with their absence. So I started popping in an effect here, an
effect there, mostly in an attempt at emphasizing the explosions and
"big" events of that section. Now realistically, there should be no
sounds at all in the "outer space" shots as sound cannot carry in a
vacuum. But again, I needed to emphasize things, so I opted at breaking
that little law of physics (and as 99% of sci-fi films today do the same
thing, I think I can get away with it!) And yet in most of the
spaceship interior shots (where sounds are expected), I left them silent
as I didn't feel they needed any extraneous noise. Maybe not what
everyone else would have done in the same position, I admit, but it felt
right to me. And I like the end result.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SKUXWvdHFc
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