黑料社

A CONFERENCE at the 黑料社 broke new ground when it assembled film makers, composers and researchers from around the world to discuss and analyse the role that sound and music play in documentaries. 

It was the first time that the topic had been tackled on this scale, and now the event has led to the publication of a book, titled .  It is co-edited by the 黑料社鈥檚 , a lecturer, composer and film maker. 

Introduction

In his introduction, he states how the book was conceived at 2017鈥檚 Sound and Music in Documentary Film Symposium, which he convened.  Published by the 黑料社 Press, the new volume is a collection of essays that 鈥渃onsiders the ways sound as noise, music and speech informs the documentary form鈥�. 

Dr Cox discusses the 鈥渟pecial power of sound to generate profound feeling, employed in documentary to represent, inform, interpret, inspire and persuade, and ultimately to create powerfully affecting meanings鈥�. 

Contents

The book has 12 chapters, thematically grouped, contributed by a wide range of specialists from the UK and overseas.  There is a poetic centrepiece from , creator of a sequence of experimental documentaries and feature films that have earned critical acclaim. 

He was the keynote speaker at the Sound and Music in Documentary Film Symposium and his contribution to the new book is his highly distinctive script, posing fundamental questions about the nature of documentary and drawing on a moving experience in his own life. 

Co-editor of Soundings is John Corner, who is Visiting Professor in Media and Communication at the University of Leeds and a Professor Emeritus of the University of Liverpool.  He provides an afterword, drawing on his long engagement with documentary, and recalling his first encounter, in the 1970s, with two classics of the genre 鈥� John Grierson鈥檚 Coalface (1936) and Humphrey Jennings鈥� Listen to Britain (1942). 

鈥淲hat struck me most powerfully,鈥� writes Professor Corner, 鈥渨as not just the aesthetic richness of which documentary was capable, but also the way in which music played a vital part 鈥�in the construction of this richness鈥�. 

• Soundings: Documentary Film and the Listening Experience is available as a  and a free, open access version can be . The 黑料社 Press includes a specially-written article by Professor Corner in which he discusses the research and motivation for the book.