In CLOUDBOY 12-year-old Niilas has a special passion: with his audio device he tracks and captures sounds in his surroundings, that he can manipulate, distort, mix and compile into a soundtrack that perfectly fits with his state of mind. The wonderful world of sound offers him peace and a sense of control.
Jacques van de Veerdonk (Watch that Sound): Only few films use sound as a substantial story element. This made CLOUDBOY by Meikeminne Clinckspoor stand out. Like Niilas, we at Watch That Sound have a passion for sound. For years we’ve been searching ways to make the creation of film sound and music accessible to a broad group, even in a school environment.
For a long while it was utterly complicated to capture your own movie soundtrack. You needed a well-equipped studio, specialised technicians, musicians, composers, conductors… But these days you have almost everything you need at home: a laptop and, eventually, a simple microphone. The only thing missing might be a little bit of courage to experiment.
A few phone calls later we had the approval from distributors Jef (Belgium) and In the Air (the Netherlands). This created an exceptional situation: for the first time we had access to a full movie, with the permission to select appropriate scenes. This collegial collaboration allowed more than 300 children to make their own interpretation and add a new soundtrack to scenes from CLOUDBOY during festival workshops in Ghent, The Hague and Krakow. Pupils showed themselves highly motivated to play and experiment, consulting with each other and dividing tasks. Teachers had little explanation to do. Education for the 21st century!
A successful cooperation grew between pupils in Krakow and Rotterdam. The Polish group created and recorded different sounds. In Rotterdam, students added their self-composed music. The joint soundtrack was uploaded on Vimeo. For a number of years, the Watch That Sound team has been concentrating on software and content development, freely available for educational purposes. Do you want to make a soundtrack for a CLOUDBOY scene? Get your laptop, connect a microphone, browse Google Chrome and find us.
Contact: Jacques van de Veerdonk, admin@watchthatsound.nl, www.watchthatsound.nl.
