OVERWHELMING MAJORITY - an audiovisual work

Hammerstone

Hammerstone

Out of style
I guess it doesn't let me just post a link, I have to embed a video! I posted this under analog recordings but I'm brave enough to give it its own post here too. This is a film I made which has been screening in festivals for the last year and a half, now I give it to the Internet. I don't post here much these days, too busy making projects like this!



All music that is pitched sound was created using the Arturia Minibrute analog synthesizer, recorded on my Tascam 244 Portastudio. I consider this work to be Music, not just in what we hear, but what we see, how we look. Rather than a film, this is a composition using images and editing as much as it uses spoken and pitched sound. In keeping with the analogness, I shot it on film as well. In light of recent events like Las Vegas, I thought it was time that Overwhelming Majority was seen by the world. I hope that it can create discourse for topics like alienation, loneliness, social anxiety, and mental illness. Reach out to someone.

Overwhelming Majority on Vimeo
 
Huh!

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing it here. The subject matter makes me think. And I love the vibe of film vs digital video...has a completely different feel...even all the edits...the way those rapid fire scenes transition has a softer feel to it...kinda draws you in. That must have taken a lot of work! And the music sounds awesome! My brother has a MicroMoog and there is *nothing* like a good analog synth and I would *never* have guessed it was tracked to 4-track cassette. Complemented the imagery nicely. Well done!
 
Thanks for sharing this Joseph. I agree with Cory that it looked as though it was labor-intensive for sure.

I can't say that I understood everything you were trying to convey with the edits and imagery, but it was all interesting. And the interview certainly made you think about reaching out to people. I think what she said about people not probing past "I'm fine" when you know someone isn't fine was poignant.

It did strike me as ironic that she was talking about not letting people in and trying to hide away, all the while in front of a camera for a movie that would likely be seen by thousands of people.

Anyway, thanks again for sharing and making us think this morning. Cool synth stuff, a Tascam 244, and a cute bunny to boot! :) Seriously, though, I liked the film, and congratulations on the awards.
 
Thanks guys! It's been killing me, holding it back since last spring, but it needed to run its course at festivals, and everything else I've been working on is just as long-term. I was beginning research and groundwork more than 2 years ago, Shot the super 8 footage between January and March 2016, and was conducting interviews through that time as well. I don't know if Ethyrvalve still posts here regularly, but for his benefit, it was shot on Tri-X 7266 and Plus-X 7265 in super 8, and the stills are all 35mm Eastman Double-X 5222. Long live film :) (and tape, of course)

I've been able to use the Minibrute/244 combo a few times to score films, don't know if I ever posted this pic or not, but the setup seems to work pretty well, and my musical assistant seems to think so too!

02670013a.jpg

I've had to go to the dark side occasionally for a few of my projects, I'd really like to get a Tascam 238, only 4 tracks can at times be a bit limiting. But I suppose that will have to wait!
 
famous beagle said:
I think what she said about people not probing past "I'm fine" when you know someone isn't fine was poignant.

It did strike me as ironic that she was talking about not letting people in and trying to hide away, all the while in front of a camera for a movie that would likely be seen by thousands of people.
Click to expand...

Also, to go a bit deeper here, I think that at some point the pressure buildup of keeping everything to yourself will eventually cause you to explode, and that can manifest itself in many different ways, sometimes with extremely tragic results (as part of my research, I found this article to be very insightful). With Norma, she just really needed to let things out. I had several different interviews but after listening to her vent for over an hour I knew this is what the film would be. And while these words might be Norma's, I'm really the one speaking here. I find it extremely frustrating sometimes that as an introvert, the burden of communication is placed so much on my shoulders when I'm the least-equipped person in the world to talk about how I feel. This is my way of communicating without really having to stand up and talk about it...except for right now. Ironic and contradictory? Yes indeed.
 
Very cool short film on such a sad situation our world faces today....

Teen Suicide is an insidious epidemic that in girls has doubled....That you were able to find Norma and convince her to share her perspective was fortuitous indeed. Sadly hers is just one of million stories, reasons and thought process's that take these kids to the edge and for some reason get them to jump off.

From the outside most of the people that love and care about those people are blindsided by the fact that they "didn't see it coming". People tend to assume and judge easily on this topic but the fact is this is not an action or decision that fits in a single box and only the tortured soul that chooses this path knows what it really was that got them to the edge.

I almost made this mistake the morning after my senior all night party....I was sleep deprived to the max, couldn't sleep because I'd taken some "whites" and was laying in bed burning holes in the ceiling, my mind started projecting the future and how fucked up and dismal that future was going to be. Then suddenly a brilliant idea came to me..I didn't need to go through this...I could get in my beautiful 65 GTO go down to the big Toy's R Us parking lot get as far back into it as I could ...and then...go through the gears burning out all the way straight into that big beautiful concrete tilt up building.........@ 120 MPH at impact for sure, without a doubt, no mistakes, be done with this nonsense. I got up out of bed, got dressed, picked up the keys and made it all the way to the front in some kind of hypnotic trance and as I started to open the door...something snapped me out of it....God? A spiritual intervention, oxygen to the brain......I don't know.......WTF was I thinking? No note, nothing.... had I not snapped out of it the heartache and questions I would have left behind makes me sick. The amazing life journey I have been on, My kids and grandkids never to be. 46 years later in retrospect I shudder to think I might have missed it all. I had friends, family that loved me it was just the self induced chemical imbalance that took me to that edge and why I got the governor's reprieve I can't tell you.

Each soul that finds their self standing at the edge has their own story, their own causes and reasons. The prog rock band I was in use to perform a pretty bad ass song called "The word it rhymes with do you hide". The lead singer was inspired to write it over the suicide of a friend.

They say
It's a coward that takes
The cheap way out

It's a sin
Says the book of God
How can ink and paper feel what I'm feeling

Where are the dreams
Where are the colors
Where are the things I once had
I'm outside
Satan's window
I'll break through with this brick I have
 
I wonder if there has been any research done over the spiritual decline of not just young people, but older ones too and the slashing of arts budgets in education and the community? I think the arts helps keep people saner....it definitely does with myself, where I think simply the vibrations of sound itself is for me, a drug and a very therapeutic one at that.

Excellent score to accompany an excellent, if difficult film to stomach.

Good luck with your projects.
Al
 
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