Sound designer, composer and London resident Will Cohen has captured the unique sounds of the isolated city in a 360 degree binaural headphone experience, chronicling the shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
String and Tins, Cohen’s sound design and music production studio roost, has completed a series of binaural recordings of London, documenting the sounds of the capital in these unprecedented times. The silenced city, never seen or heard like this before, tells its own story through the sounds of isolation and emptiness.
But what is binaural recording? Often described as 360 or 3D audio, the method of binaural recording is not complicated. With its first iteration invented during the late 1800s in France, it is a method of capture that matches the way we hear. Two microphones are attached on either a human or dummy head, which allows for an authentic human recording. When listening back on headphones to those recordings, an incredibly realistic sound can be heard, creating the illusion: that the sounds on the recording are really happening around you.
HRTF (head related transfer function) is a phenomenon that describes how each ear receives sound from a source: imagine the tiny difference in time between sound getting to the left and right ear; in addition consider how the shape of the head and ears affect the sound reaching the eardrums. This is how the brain works out how to localize sounds.
Born and bred in London, Cohen, founder of String and Tins, has always felt an affinity towards the city and certain landmarks. During this unprecedented period, Cohen decided to document and share a sound reflection of the capital city he knows and loves, going to some of London’s most familiar and frequented places such as Leicester Square, Westminster, Charing Cross Station, Trafalgar Square, The Bank of England to name a few–all places that now have a starkly different soundscape. The sound was recorded with DPA microphones’ new binaural headset, which facilitated the process immensely.
Will Cohen, founder of String and Tins, said, “In the final days before London was shut down, I made sound recordings of areas that I care about as a Londoner. From documenting spots that I skated at as a teenager, through to areas I have worked in–I wanted to see what familiar sounds still resonated at this unprecedented time. I used the binaural microphone technique–if you put headphones on, close your eyes and imagine you are there, the physics behind this method of sound capture will immerse you in the environment pictured in the stills that I took on my journey.”
Recordings can be accessed here.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More