Dr Carla Thackrah
doctoral research & thesis
music, sound & video portraits
The Film Edit
The edit was done after the soundtrack was created. I chose to synchronise some footage with words, however most was unsynchronised giving the sense that these were thoughts and feelings, not narration. I chose to fluctuate between silence and sound; image and black. I chose to use hard cuts not dissolves. I focused on Ange's feelings rather than the story 'I feel ... I feel ...'
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The colour will be redone however in the meantime I've made it as grainly and grungy as possible. I shot slightly out of focus.
Portrait of Ange
Filmed not long after the suicide of Mosh, this portrait offers a fragment of Ange's life; that fragment that was in the process of dealing with finding his body.
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It is the first fragment I've filmed of Ange .... there will be more.
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The Sound
I created the soundtrack first based on what Ange told me of the sounds she remembered from the house where she was living and where she found his body.
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Brisbane, hot ...
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There was a swimming pool next door and the children played every afternoon and all weekend in the water.
The swimming pool water splashed; the bath where he first tried to cut his wrists and the laundry where he succeeded in killing himself, all set the context for water.
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The crows constantly called.
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The gate opened and closed regularly as Mosh came and went from the house.
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They danced tango together and Mosh often played Carlos Gardel's 'Por Una Cabeza' The words seemed prophetic - 'only by a head'
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She also mentioned Arvo Part's 'Alina' which Mosh played every morning to do his yoga. I tried to incorporate that however I found it too laden with cultural meaning.
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I incorporated the vocalisations of distress - loud out-breath and groans as well as my own vocalisations as I filmed her talk.
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Breath and heart beat ...
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