III is the third film in a grant funded film series titled, The Fifth Day of the Fourth Month of the Twentieth Year. The series was completed in Summer of 2020 in collaboaration with Elia Tzoukerman (Film-maker), Georgiana Johnson (Dancer/Coreographer), Marlena Gonzalez (Composer), and Samuel Narvaez (Composer). Filmed on a 16 mm Bolex, the creative process focused on the socially-distant medium of film in order to enable asynchronous collaboration between artists across the physical barriers of quarantine.

The film takes place in an imagined past-future: an abandoned domestic space reanimated by a single woman and her belongings. In order to convey distinct stages of the COVID-19 crisis linked to the unraveling of the protagonist’s mental health, my musical peers and I were each assigned one silent film to score.

In stage III of the work, I expand upon the “main theme” of the score, which I composed from major-second-harmonics devised on my harp. These major seconds are sampled throughout films I and II in order to heighten themes of domesticated montony portrayed in the day-to-day life of the films protagonist. The main theme is paired with extended techniques performed on my Harp, Fife, Accordion, Metal Cabassa, and Cajon. These woody, antique, and airy timbres meld to complete the emotional and textural world of the protagonist. Each sonic gestural drama aims to heighten the visual qualities of physical and emotional instability, femininty, and living decay within the film. The film is set to premier in January of 2021 at the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival.
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