Artwork by Shuxin Liang (Australia) – http://sooooound.blogspot.com/

Assignment #1 – Listening Exercise
Choose two locations, one interior and one exterior, listen actively for AT LEAST 5 minutes, and do the following:

• Write down every sound you hear.
• Describe qualities (physical, emotional, descriptive etc.) of the sounds, do they inspire you in any way?  Could they be symbolic of any mood or situation? How does the loudness level affect the sound quality (or does it)? Do the sounds have textures?
• Can you control any of the sounds you hear? Will it sound different on a different day, or different time of day?  Is this a good location for shooting?

INT. 7th AVE. SUBWAY STATION/B-TRAIN
The faint buzz of a piece of machinery (construction?) echoing off darkness in the subway tunnel. Perhaps it is a circle saw. Reminds me of my father when I was growing up: his thick, hard fingers perpetually dried out by sawdust, blackened by grease or dirt. I’m brought back to the smell of freshly-cut wood. Something burning. Fat pencils he would sharpen with a pocket knife.

The wheels of the train slide against old, rusty tracks. They stick, push forward, grind to a stop. The screeching almost becomes unbearable; I go to plug my ears and then, near-silence. (True silence is impossible here.) Subway doors break open all the way down the line. The muffled voice of the conductor speeds through instructions people cannot hear or have long ago shut out. Train-goers shuffle in – women’s heels tapping concrete, men’s dress shoes clicking, sneakers soundless as feathers falling. The doors slam closed, trapping us in. I think of locks and chains. Metal latched to metal sounds cold, distant. I think of a long, wet, New York City winter. The texture of snow and how, when you rub it in between two fingers, you hear its richness. Snowflakes mashed together. Single grains. Beach sand. A summer on the North Carolina coast. Skies that stretch on forever. Blues and greens and stunning azaleas. The smell of a freshly-cut, Saturday morning lawn.

On the train, the breaks release in a hard thump. The sound: the release of artificial air – ssssssss. We launch forward, all of us together. All of us separate. A shy noise starts – the whining, a working up of energy; it grows louder. The power behind the train. At the first stop, the robotic voice of the subway recording reminds us of safety, danger, something about the police, safety again. The double-chime of the doors opening. Next to me, treble overpowers bass out of headphones. I hear a woman singing. It’s R & B.

On the bridge, we float. The inhale and exhale of passing cars. We glide now, softer. The wheels on the tracks bump back and forth. I remember the baby I looked after, a friend’s first. His name is Noah. I got him to stop crying by making up lullabies. I couldn’t tell whether I soothed or frightened him into silence.

A cell phone plays a tune. Someone, far away but in the same car, laughs at something. It’s a real laugh and it happens again, harder this time.

EXT. CITY STREET CORNER
I sit on concrete steps leading up to an office building to eat lunch. The crisp crinkling of the plastic bag. The pop of a Tupperware top. The poke of fork tongs sticking into vegetables, sliding against more plastic. My own mouth chewing. Passersby speak in snippets. Conversations about classes, family. Likes, actuallys, honestlys, literallys. The flick and release of a cigarette lighter. Humming of a song. I imagine the student as a musician composing a piece for his next project. Perhaps it has just come to him, perhaps he’s stolen it off someone he walked passed in the park, perhaps it’s a pop tune DJs play incessantly over the radio. The last time I listened to a radio station was during a road trip from North Carolina to New York. I remember a poorly-conducted NPR interview but I don’t remember what it was about. I remember a lot of conservative radio, sermons, politics, car commercials pushing Cash for Clunkers via Southern accents.

Back on the street, a taxi cab engine winds up as it breezes by, leaving the trace of ocean waves behind it. Horns blare somewhere in the distance. Another horn responds by holding on – a long, deliberate, angry retort. Footsteps right near me. Footsteps far away. A young light-skinned man turns on a hose and waters a tree across the street. The water sounds like drainage off a roof falling and pounding against earth. As the water collects and forms a puddle, it’s music subsides and becomes a stream of bathwater filling a tub. Shhhhhhhhhhhh. I think of the thunderstorms I witnessed in Indiana: the creak of a rocking chair against oak floorboards, a heavy wind ripping across cornfields, lighting slicing through a black sky and moments later, an eruption of everything as if the world stopped.