Hearing is Believing

G N I R A E H IS BELIEVING An interview with the creators of EarFilms, premiering in August.

BY LINTON WRIGHT // PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY of STEVEN HAYWOOD PHOTOGRAPHY

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deprived atmosphere that gives their minds the freedom to create their own visual accompaniment.

One might expect to find this sort of groundbreaking, genredefying artistic project only in New York or London, but thanks to the Alys Stephens Center, Birmingham will host the U.S. premiere of To Sleep To Dream – the very first feature length EarFilm – as part of the EarFilms residency, August 19-22. The ASC will not only feature performances of To Sleep To Dream but also an original sound installation created for the Jemison Concert Hall stage by UAB’s own Dr. Scott Phillips and Dr. William Price, as well as film screenings in the Reynolds-Kirschbaum Recital Hall in partnership with

ave you ever been transported by your imagination while listening to your favorite music? Have you ever pictured characters from a piece of literature long after you have put the book aside? Many of us have had these experiences and, as a result, have deeply personal relationships with music, literature, and storytelling. The reason for these strong relationships is that we are able to engage with those arts creatively in a way that we cannot with more visual mediums. In reading our favorite books or listening to our favorite music, we ourselves can become artists. We can transport ourselves far from reality and, with art as our guide, create a new world entirely in our own imagination.

Now imagine a new type of work that combines music, storytelling, and cinematic sound to create a film-like experience containing no visual content. What you have imagined is not fantasy – EarFilms are a new, real phenomenon that could change the artistic landscape as we know it today. An EarFilm is an exclusively audio “film,” a cutting-edge form of aural art and storytelling. EarFilms combine music, sound design, and live dramatic storytelling to create a hyper-realistic experience that is shaped by the audience’s own creativity. Listeners are seated in a surround-sound environment and given blindfolds to eliminate all visual stimuli, creating a sight-

EarFilms are the brainchild of awardwining composer and storyteller Daniel Marcus Clark, musician and director Chris Timpson, and producer Dannii Evans, all natives of the United Kingdom.

Creators Daniel Marcus Clark and Chris Timpson )

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Birmingham’s Sidewalk Film Festival.

EarFilms are the brainchild of award-wining composer and storyteller Daniel Marcus Clark, musician and director Chris Timpson, and producer Dannii Evans, all natives of the United Kingdom. Clark first met Timpson and Evans at the UK music festival Secret Gardens, where Clark and Timpson were performing as musicians. The group got to talking backstage and quickly realized they all shared the desire to work on a new form of art that hones in on the precise point where music, sound, and storytelling mix perfectly to create an immersive and imaginative experience.

The EarFilms project was born that day, and the group soon started working on prototype and short versions of the concept.

The closest analog to an EarFilm is probably the longstanding tradition of radio storytelling, a phenomenon that became popular in the early days of radio and is continued today by programs such as “This American Life” and “Radiolab.” What separates EarFilms from these sorts of programs is that EarFilms are entirely fictional works that feature live narration as an integral part of the experience. “The narrator serves as a guide for the audience, experiencing and reacting to things at the same time that they are,” says Clark. In this sense, EarFilms are influenced by traditional forms of storytelling and dramatic monologue as much as they are by cinema. Furthermore, Clark is quick to point out that the music is as vital to the storytelling process as the narrations. An advanced ambisonic surround-sound system allows the audience to experience the score – unique to each EarFilm – in three dimensions, creating a rich, textured atmosphere that weaves intricately around the narration. In To Sleep To Dream, Clark and Timpson employ a classic cinematic arrangement and orchestration, giving the piece a familiar and timeless musical palette.

While Clark is responsible for the storytelling, Timpson’s role focuses mostly on creating a perfect sound environment for the complex array of music and sound. There are over 6,000 audio tracks in To Sleep To Dream that run out of 23 speakers, with each listening room differing from the next. Timpson works tirelessly to ensure each showing goes smoothly, installing and calibrating the sound system for each unique space. “I had previously done quite a lot of music production in stereo, but the jump from two speakers to 23 speakers entailed a very steep learning curve,” says Timpson. “We continue to experiment and discover new ways to manipulate sound within the system.” Audiences in Birmingham will have the chance to experience this work firsthand in the magnificent Odess Theatre, a black-box theatre perfect for customized sets and sound production.

Clark and Timpson’s goal in an EarFilm is for the imagery to ))) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) )

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An EarFilm is an exclusively audio “film,” a cutting-edge form of aural art and storytelling. EarFilms combine music, sound design, and live dramatic storytelling to create a hyper-realistic experience that is shaped by the audience's own creativity. conjure itself spontaneously and without effort, as if audiences are dreaming. “Imagination is extremely important to our growth as humans, but there seems to be little space for it in our world,” says Clark. Indeed, much of our lives are dominated by visual interfaces that leave us passive consumers instead of active creators of artistic experience. Clark’s description below will likely ring all too true for many people in today’s world: “We look at screens on our way to work, we look at them at work, we look at them on our way home, and we look at them when we get home … then we go out for a special evening and watch a big screen.

And even when we go to bed at night and read our books, our books are screens. With EarFilms, I’m trying to create an antithesis for this, a kind of playground for the imagination.”

Indeed, the completely dark yet intensely stimulating experience is one that takes many by surprise. Timpson has observed the profound effect the lack of visuals can have on people who come )

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The EarFilms team has actively collaborated with the Royal National Institute of Blind People, a UK organization that provides services to over 2.5 million people with sight loss every year. length piece, it seemed like the natural fit.” The story, which borrows its title from lines of Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquy, is set in a not-too-distant dystopian future where the earth has been devastated by flooding. Only one city remains, and a single corporation wields absolute power over the population, controlling almost every aspect of their lives. Most basic freedoms are outlawed in this world, even dreaming. The story follows Jack Richards, an ordinary citizen who stumbles upon a message left between the waking and sleeping worlds. Audiences follow Jack as he discovers previously unknown realities and joins a movement to bring dreaming back to the world.

While the official U.S. premiere of To Sleep To Dream is the featured attraction, it is not the only innovative exhibit that will be showcased August 19-22. The ASC has commissioned Dr. Phillips and Dr. Price to create an original sound installation for the Jemison Concert Hall stage that features both music and sound design. The

to a performance. “Experiencing the show is a deeply personal experience, as everything really is in your own imagination,” says Timpson. “It takes people a little while to re-adjust to reality when they come out of the show. Some people have likened it to meditation or lucid dreaming.”

Clark, Timpson, and Evans are the artistic leaders of the EarFilms project, but their dreams are brought to life by a talented group of collaborators and technicians, many of whom are highly accomplished in their fields. In particular, Clark has employed the talents of legendary BBC voice director Graham Frost and members of Ardmore Sound, many of whom were involved with award-winning sound work on HBO’s Game of Thrones (Season 1). Perhaps most interestingly of all, the EarFilms team has actively collaborated with the Royal National Institute of Blind People, a UK organization that provides services to over 2.5 million people with sight loss every year. Since EarFilms have no visual element, members of the institute have been instrumental in making EarFilm experiences compelling, providing feedback during a small series of workshops and focus groups. Members of the institute were amazed by what they experienced.“[To Sleep To Dream] is absolutely brilliant. I’m itching to hear the full version,” says one member of the institute. In response to their collaboration, the RNIBP issued a statement regarding EarFilms proclaiming, “We have never come across a project that is so wholly inclusive to people regardless of their level of vision.”

While Clark has made a number of shorter EarFilms, no project compares in scope and detail to his first feature-length EarFilm, To Sleep To Dream. The idea for the project began about eight years ago when Clark had an extremely vivid dream while he was ill. “The story just sort of hung around, waiting to be told,” says Timpson.

“When we realized that we were going to make our first feature)

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project, titled I/O: An Immersive Aural Experience, will transform the Jemison stage into a three-dimensional sound atmosphere using carefully placed and highly directional speakers. Audiences will hear the content and mix of the music changing as participants move around different areas of the stage. The installation will demonstrate the importance of perspective and environment in our everyday experiences of music and sound. “In our lives today, we are constantly surrounded by sounds and music, but we pay little attention to most of it,” says Phillips. “Hopefully people will consider the sounds around them differently after they have experienced I/O: An Immersive Aural Experience.”

Dr. Phillips and Dr. Price are both highly talented individuals within their fields, drawing from a combined 37 years of experience in sound design, music technology, and acoustic and electric musical composition. Dr. Price’s compositions have been performed throughout the world, receiving international awards and recognition. Dr. Phillips is regarded as one of the world’s leading experts in music technology, and his most recent book, Beyond Sound: The College and Career Guide in Music Technology, has quickly become a definitive work on music technology in universities throughout the country.

During the EarFilms residency, the ASC has also partnered with Birmingham’s Sidewalk Film Festival. Sidewalk has designated the Reynolds-Kirschbaum Recital Hall as an official screening room for the 2014 festival, where they will showcase a variety of short and feature-length films. Additionally, filmmakers participating in this year’s festival will have the opportunity to hear a private performance of To Sleep To Dream. These partnerships are examples of the ways in which the ASC supports the arts community in Birmingham and continues to be a trendsetter within the performing arts community worldwide.

The ASC seeks to push the boundaries of what is artistically possible.

The EarFilms residency is another instance of multi-disciplinary, genre-defying curation that places the ASC miles beyond any other performing arts center in the region. Birmingham is quickly becoming a fertile environment for artistic growth, and the ASC is at the forefront of this movement, planting the seeds of creativity and imagination in every way that it can.

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THE ASC PRESENTS

EARFILMS

U.S. PREMIERE

AUGUST 19-22 ODESS THEATRE

» $21.00

August 19 -22 » 7:30pm Only 90 tickets are available for each performance.

Please reserve your tickets in advance.

“Imagination is extremely important to our growth as humans, but there seems to be little space for it in our world,” says Clark.

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In conjunction with EarFilms premiere, the ASC also presents these FREE sonic experiences ...

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I/O - AN IMMERSIVE AURAL EXPERIENCE

SIDEWALK FILM // SOUND & SENSES

Jemison Concert Hall

Reynolds-Kirschbaum Recital Hall

Nightly @ 6pm » FREE

Nightly @ 6pm » FREE

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