Voice for Life

My finished response to the project of 'Machines for Living' took the form of a short film exploring how the voice is in effect, a machine for life. It can be argued that machines themselves cannot affect change, but humans can, and thus I fused the idea of the machine and the voice into a single concept. The film explores how we are defined by the way we communicate, and is compiled of various clips of footage both shot by myself and extracted from other sources. The juxtaposition of the clips of footage played a fundamental role in this film, for I aimed to contrast and underline the different ways the voice is used as a machine for life so that I could achieve a powerful dramatic impact. In addition, I wanted to juxtapose the voice of the iconic with the voice of an individual for whom vocal communication does not come easy, and thus each would reinforce each other in illustrating the importance of the voice.Using different forms of editing software such as iMovie and Magic X Pro, I managed to edit down the footage and help the film to flow. I did find the editing of the film challenging, for this form of media is very new to me as well as working with the unfamiliar editing software. Aside from organising the structure of the visual footage, I additionally wanted to express the importance of the sound of a voice, and thus I opened and closed the film with raw audio footage, leaving the visuals black. I did this to both draw the attention of the audience to the voice only, thus highlighting the importance of a voice, and to also reinforce the visual footage. Overall, I am please with the outcome of the project, and feel as though as I have greatly improved my technical skill of editing and working with digital media.