Category: Sound Design

A film by Laura Phillips (2022).

Soundtrack by Mark Vernon from the LP ‘Time Deferred’ (Gagarin Records, 2022)

Presented is an abstracted 16mm film made with Orwo UN54 16mm film, hand developed and then overlaid with cameraless filmmaking techniques using washi tape & cyanotype. The recurring motifs of the Blue Marble photo and water draining in a sink with the multiple layering of images can be seen as a reflexive statement about the processing of filmmaking and a playful visual pun about water detritus and waste management. The soundtrack was made by Mark Vernon, a sound artist who works with tactility and intimacy of radio, known for his recycling of field recordings and obsolete media. Both the soundscore and visuals use repetitive rhythms to simulate cyclical systems, be it the water cycles, refuge cycles or ways of looking.
 

A film by Steven McInerney.

Original Soundtrack by Mark Vernon now available via bandcamp.

An existential drama exploring the universal themes of death and rebirth. Tape Letters from the Waiting Room is an experiment in film archaeology and magnetic memory as it navigates past life experiences. Shifting in succession from the mundane to the metaphysical, the film is composed of extant 16mm found footage from the past century. The original soundtrack by Mark Vernon encompasses a rich collection of domestic tape recordings; audio letters, dictated notes, found sounds and other lost voices.

Screenings:
IKLECTIK, TROPES007 Album Launch (Extended cut with live Soundtrack) January 2022
Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival (In Competition, Turkey) November 2021
MICE – 16ª Mostra Internacional de Cinema Etnográfico (Official Selection, Spain) April 2021
9th International Video Poetry Festival (Official Selection, Greece) June 2021
ULTRAcinema 20 (Official Selection, Mexico) November 2020
Proceso de Error 2020 (In Competition, Chile) October 2020
Family Film Project #9 (Honorable Mention, Premiere. Portugal) October 2020
The Delaware Road (Pre-release, extended cut with live Soundtrack) August 2019

Atom Town: life after technology – a film by Gair Dunlop (UK, 2011)

“Dounreay Atomic Research Establishment is a sprawling monument to solidity, optimism and analogue engineering. The intangible alchemies and sense of romantic science at its heart are trapped like amber in archive film and in its colossal structures. Over the last two years, unprecedented access to the facility and to the UKAEA Archive at Harwell have allowed Gair Dunlop to explore the dream and the consequences of high science in a remote community”.

Sound design and original music by Mark Vernon.
Sound post production by Zoe Irvine.

Duration: 22min

http://www.atomtown.org.uk/

Serenity Showers – a film by Benedikt Rugar (Germany, 2009)

Soundtrack to a short animated film by Benedikt Rugar. The film was short listed for the German MuVi awards in 2009 and has since been released on the DVD compilation ‘Under Control’.

Track originally released on the Gagarin LP ‘The Tune The Old Cow Died Of’ by Vernon & Burns (GR2012).

 

Produced for a micro-radio broadcast as part of an exhibition at the Fairfield ship yards for the Glasgow international festival of visual art in 2010 this nostalgic documentary features oral history interviews with people who used to work in the shipyards or holidayed on the river Clyde. The recordings were gathered during a series of  memory sharing workshops at the Lighthouse in Glasgow. The final piece is an evocative blend of voices, found tapes, music and sound effects. Part of the programme was originally commissioned as a soundtrack to accompany a film compiled from clips of amateur films from the Scottish Screen Archive edited by Rob Kennedy. It was screened as part of the exhibition, ‘The Clyde – Films of the River 1912-1971’ at the Lighthouse, Glasgow in 2009.

Featuring the voices of:
Hugh McGeorge
Tom Urie
John Alexander
Harry McColl
Claire Harker
Rita Harker

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The radio version was also aired on Resonance FM and Glasgow’s Sunny Govan Radio 103.5fm in 2011.

The Lens Prism – a film by Corin Sworn (UK, 2010)

“A man steps into the spotlight of a theatre, hangs up his jacket, takes a sip of water and begins the narration. A series of vignettes weave together autobiographical anecdote with history, and past events with present day interpretation. Corin Sworn’s video piece deals with the discursive wanderings of the actor’s mind. His voice is confident and convincing throughout, yet the narrative thread tangles and we become witness to the fractals of a subtly short circuiting thought process.”
Talitha Kotzé, The List.

Shown at Tramway, Glasgow and Berwick Upon Tweed Film & Media Arts Festival, 2010.

Sound design by Mark Vernon.

Nobody – a film by Rosie Toner (UK, 2011)

A short experimental film exploring identity and existence. A female cleaner drifts through houses, her unseen thoughts concealed from her employers and the world.

Sound design by Mark Vernon.

Duration: 12:00

Some Distance from the Sun – a film by Dalziel & Scullion (UK, 2007)

“Mark Vernon’s, minimal, muted and sharply alien electronica, which was composed expressly for Some Distance From The Sun, believably conjures land plants’ possible interior sound realms, their root systems as well as their visible trunks and flowers, as well as the more primitive sea borne algae and seaweeds… Vernon’s soundtrack explodes the minutia of things – maybe the soundworld really is in the ear of the beholder.”

From the essay, ‘Some Distance from the Plant World’ by Oliver Lowenstein.

Commissioned soundtrack for a film by Dalziel and Scullion. Exhibited as an installation at Aberdeen Art Gallery, February – April, 2007.

Yellowcake: atomic modern – a film by Gair Dunlop (UK, 2017)

A 66-minute film which traces the rise and fall of the UK nuclear fission research programme, seen through its sites, archives, memories and consequences. It explores the psychic realms of the nuclear- whether as postwar dream of a post-empire future, apocalyptic terror as entertainment, or zone beyond our understandings of time.

The film can be seen as a three screen full-HD installation with quad sound (preferred format) or as a single screen video with stereo sound.
UK Preview of full 3 screen installation took place at VRC, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee on 8th and 9th April.
Single screen version was premiered at Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh from April 1st – May 7th.
Its international premiere was at Rome Media Art Festival on 27th April- 1st May 2017 at MAXXI.

Sound design and original music by Mark Vernon.
Sound post production by Zoe Irvine.