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 ...'
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.
It is the first fragment I've filmed of Ange .... there will be more.
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.
Brisbane, hot ...
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.
The crows constantly called.
The gate opened and closed regularly as Mosh came and went from the house.
They danced tango together and Mosh often played Carlos Gardel's 'Por Una Cabeza' The words seemed prophetic - 'only by a head'
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.
I incorporated the vocalisations of distress - loud out-breath and groans as well as my own vocalisations as I filmed her talk.
Breath and heart beat ...