Special Effects

Learn to build a visual image of all the elements that make up a reality so that what you want to highlight is a huge synergy effect.

The collaboration between the two titans also continues during the synchronized recording of the music. Eisenstein passionately watches the painstaking and of maximum exigency of the composer. The recording is being done in a festive atmosphere. Prokofiev’s music amazes and marvels Eisenstein.

Prokofiev works on the recording with an absorbing passion. He starts by inquiring about all the technical problems of the recording. He listens to all the noise-producing instruments the studio has available, including some of them in the score.

For example, for the fragment "The square", along five percussion instruments, there exists denoted in the orchestration also… the bathtub from Mosfilm. He notices the deformations the microphones produce. He solves the problem by using the defects of the apparatus to obtain original effects. Thus, he records the Teutonic trumpets very close to the microphone, amplifying the appearing deformities and this way obtaining a "gigantic dramatic effect". He seeks special effects also through the unusual distribution of instruments, through a "reversed" orchestration, inconceivable in the field of regular symphonic works.

He attempts solutions – since then universally applied – by placing the orchestra in one studio and the choir in a different one, dosing them afterwards during recording, from the cabin, depending on the dramatic needs of the action.*

Can you give your creation a content of authenticity so as to amaze the world through the “essence of thinking through contrasts” expressed in a form of accentuation of a detached and receptive state of mind to novelty?

The process of making a composition, whose outlines burst from the random "noises" produced by various cues (instruments, voices, the vibration of bodies in motion, etc.) is much more complicated, nuanced through a series of numerous associations, and refers to the entire scientific, emotion, visionary and creative reserve the director has at his disposal. This process reveals to us the essence of the phenomenon of "thinking through contrasts" – aiming at a carefully selection of auditory inputs, later assembled into a fanciful combination.

Each sound or mix of sounds, everything entering the perimeter of the map of am inventing mind, can be considered a type of "translator" that issues high level instructions in a code which, in order for it to be deciphered, requires an effort of unitary thinking. A good director anticipates the form that the essence of such a special effect order takes before promoting his version of reality through a microcosm of feelings, thoughts, and ideas.

Then, during materialization in different patterns of frequency, with the introduction of certain suggestions, the entire code transforms into a visual image: content and message.

A director whose mood is detached and receptive to novelty knows how to stage as eloquently as possible a scenario that highlights his relationship with a world much wider than the scene of an experiment in which viewers have to relate everything they see on screen with the environment, with other people, rules and meanings. The script should emphasize the very nature of being the director, not only to move the hearts of the audience but to represent the reality of his own existence, his own mind, his own consciousness.

The essence of thinking through contrasts can be found in relation to the things, actions, conditions, events and attitudes that can always be changed according to the causes and effects that lead to changing the framework of representing knowledge that seeking to explain the world.

Only directors gifted with a very good ear for music can capture "extraordinary outputs" from random noises. They are the best at managing to optimize the flux of special effects corresponding to the conditions of perceiving deep and meaningful sounds from the totality of "noises", to validate the various elements of film screenplays.

What makes leadership a kind of cup with an increasingly more comprehensive volume, giving the impression that its own is endowed with supernatural powers, is related to the skill with which are localized and used the "defects of the apparatus to obtain original effects". Thanks to the defects, representing hidden treasures behind noises, echoes, interferences, confusion and distortions, under which is reunited the art of capturing subtle essences, anything and everything takes on a new identity, namely language and unity.

To be able to turn defects of apparatus into the leverage that can move the universe, this is what it means to be a director. To seek special effects through the unusual distribution of instruments, through a "reverse" orchestration, inconceivable in the field of regular symphonic works, this is what it means to be a composer. To be able to translate any defects through purity, serenity or brilliance, activating in people a certain state of mind, this is the quality of a leader.

To give your creation a content of authenticity means to assimilate the idea of ​​“deformation” of the most appropriate medium through which communication is made, with a huge effect of complete realism – capable of putting on a good show.

Special Effects are the most important contribution a director can bring to the world through the apparatus, serving to enrich and add value to his vision.

* Note - Ion Barna - Eisenstein, Youth Publishing House, 1966.