32 Sounds: Exploring the Most Mysterious and Profound of the Senses

It’s March 2020 and the pandemic has just begun. All of a sudden, director Sam Green has a lot of time on his hands. He uses it to read a book, which mentions Annea Lockwood, a composer, who has spent fifty years recording the sound of rivers. Intrigued, he contacts her. 

Their conversation leads Sam to contemplate sound. The result is 32 Sounds, a documentary that he describes as a ‘meditation’ upon a subject that is both ‘mysterious’ and ‘ephemeral’ but yet can still make a powerful impact on us.

In his conversation with Matthew Sherwood, Sam discusses the challenge of using a visual medium to explore sound. He affirms that watching a film at home with headphones can be just as intense as watching it in the cinema, and he opens up on his relationship with the film’s composer, JD Samson: before their meeting of minds, there was a tension between them born of different ideas about the role of music in the film.

32 Sounds is not your typical documentary. Be warned. By the end of this podcast, you may, like Matthew, start hearing all the sounds around you in a new and intense way!

“... opening your ears can be incredibly pleasurable and can bring you back to the present and root you in your body.” – Sam Green

Time Stamps

02:12 – Matthew Sherwood introduces this episode’s guest, Sam Green, and his film, 32 Sounds
03:50 – Sam explains what 32 Sounds is about
04:20 – Why Sam decided to make a film about sound
06:52 – Sam on his ‘dive in and see what happens’ methodology for filmmaking
09:13 – The mysterious nature of sound
12:59 – Discussing noise in our cities
13:57 – Silence in 32 Sounds
14:56 – The challenge of using a visual medium to discuss sound
16:27 – Why using headphones or a phone to watch a film is a good thing
19:05 – How listening to sound can be both pleasurable and grounding
19:41 – Exploring how John Cage and Miles Davis experienced and used sound
20:27 – Sam discusses 32 Sounds’ foley artist
22:15 – Sam reflects on his differences of opinion with 32 Sounds’ composer, J. D. Samson and how they were resolved

Resources:

32 Sounds
MovieMaker Magazine
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures

Connect with Sam Green:

IMDb
Website

More from Factual America:

Jason Isbell: Portrait of the Musician as a Young Man
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Moonage Daydream: David Bowie’s Impressionistic Life
Air Jordan: A Cultural Phenomenon

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Transcript for Factual America Episode 133: 32 Sounds: Exploring the Most Mysterious and Profound of the Senses

Matthew Sherwood 00:00 (02:12)
This is Factual America. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood. Each week, I watch a hit documentary and then talk with the filmmakers and their subjects. 32 Sounds is an immersive documentary and sensory experience from Oscar nominated and award winning director, Sam Green. The film explores the phenomenon of sound and its power to bend time, cross borders, and shape our perception of the world around us. Join us as we talk with Sam about his groundbreaking visual essay dedicated to sound, with music by JD Samson. Stay tuned. Sam Green, welcome to Factual America. How are things with you?

Sam Green 00:42
Good. Very good. How about yourself?

Matthew Sherwood 00:44
Yeah, I'm doing well, and just wanted to remind our listeners and watchers that Sam's just, well, just released, or going to have a theatrical release, of his film 32 Sounds, with music by JD Samson, nationwide theatrical release in the US on April 28. Any global plans, are you aware of yet?

Sam Green 01:09
Yeah. We're working on it. We have a company who is doing international distribution, and we'll see where that goes.

Matthew Sherwood 01:16
Okay, well, keep an eye out on this. And for our listeners, based in, viewers based in the US, do check this out. Maybe get us started, what is - maybe you can give us a synopsis. What is 32 Sounds all about?

Sam Green 01:34 (3:50)
32 Sounds is a kind of essay film documentary about sound, which is a huge and ungainly topic. And it uses the device of just 32 different sounds as a kind of way to structure a meditation about sound. And by thinking and talking about sound and exploring sound, the film touches on all sorts of other issues like time and time passing and the oddness of our experience as people.

Matthew Sherwood 02:03 (04:20)
Okay. And how did you decide to make a film about sound? I mean, did you just wake up one day and say, you know, this ungainly subject is one that deserves a documentary treatment?

Sam Green 02:15
I wish, I wish. That's the movie version of it, you know. It's so much harder to remember, but I made a film - the previous film I made was about the Kronos Quartet...

Matthew Sherwood 02:25
Right.

Sam Green 02:25
And they're a great classical ensemble, and it got me thinking a lot about sound, and also sound in the context of cinema, and how sound works in the context of cinema. And so, all that was in my head, and then the pandemic started, it was...

Matthew Sherwood 02:43
Right.

Sam Green 02:44
... March of 2020...? Yeah. And all my screenings were cancelled. I had a lot of time on my hands. And I read a book, and there was a reference in the book, a line that said, Annea Lockwood, a composer...

Matthew Sherwood 02:58
Right.

Sam Green 02:58
... has recorded the sound of rivers for more than 50 years. And that sentence just intrigued me. I had never heard of this person, Annea Lockwood. But I love the sound of rivers. And I thought, Wow, that's interesting. And so, I just started looking into who this Annea Lockwood person was. And I was knocked out by her music and her art. She has been making work for about 60 years. And it was the early pandemic, so, I found her website and I just emailed her, and I said, Hi, I'm interested in sound. Could we talk sometime? And she said, How about this afternoon? And, you know, nobody was doing anything in those days. And so, we struck up a Skype-email conversation that lasted several months, and in some ways still lasts to this day, but she was a great muse. And she's so smart. She's a sort of central person in the movie and...

Matthew Sherwood 03:53
Yeah.

Sam Green 03:54
... wonderful spirit. Smart as heck about sound, thoughtful, makes great work, you know, just a real - a real muse for me. And so, that was the spark of the movie in a way.

Matthew Sherwood 04:08
And you've made a short about her, haven't you. But that - was that separate - I mean, not separate, but was that the initial intent or it just has kind of fallen out of doing this?

Sam Green 04:18
It sort of fell out of doing this. There was a Scottish music festival that asked me if I would make a little video about her. And I said, Sure. I thought I would do it in a weekend, and it ended up being 30 minutes long, you know...

Matthew Sherwood 04:30
Yeah.

Sam Green 04:31
... it's - so, that was sort of a side, little spin off thing.

Matthew Sherwood 04:36 (06:52)
Okay. And so, what were your thoughts going into this project? I mean, you start talking with Annea Lockwood but do you have a - generally and maybe specifically this project - do you have a story arc in mind or do you just kind of dive in and see where things take you?

Sam Green 04:51
It's a bit more of the latter. The way I tend to work is I am sort of magnetised by something. An image or a line in a book or a story, you know, something, and somehow - you know, I'll sort of poke around this - I'm a curious person, so, I'm often looking into things. But mostly it just is a one time affair, and that's it. But sometimes something will kind of just get under my skin and percolate, and I kind of keep coming back to it and you get more and more interested and that leads to other things, and it just starts to snowball. And that's what this did, and at first, in my own process, at least, it's hard to know what it's about. Why am I so interested in sound? You know, and over time, you begin to understand your motivations. And it's almost, as you make a film - you make a film to understand why you're compelled by that subject. So, with this, it was certainly that. I mean, I love sound, and there's a tonne of interesting sounds and stories about sounds. But in a way, this project is more and comes out of deeper feelings than that.

Matthew Sherwood 06:08
I mean, you were saying, I think it's even a - you mention it in the film towards the end, not to give anything away, but you know, I think a friend says, you know, where this is - do you know where this is leading you, and you say, I have no idea, and...

Sam Green 06:23
... and she said - told me [...] she was, like, pretty - that's a verbatim quote, you know, that conversation, that dialogue is just verbatim the way it happened. And sometimes the people in your life see things more clearly than you can see it, and that certainly was the case here.

Matthew Sherwood 06:43
And so, what are we - I mean - so, let's talk about sound. You know, I guess there's - well, as you say, it's this very ungainly subject, or could be, but maybe, what do we get wrong about sound, do you think?

Sam Green 06:57 (09:13)
Well, sound; I think it's funny, because each of the senses is unique and has its own qualities and - but I think with visual we're seeing in visual things. They're all very familiar, and we talk about them, the image; we understand the way our relationship to the image, and it's pretty out there, and there's a language for it, and long conversation about visual matters. People have written many books, but sound is odd. And you are a person who traffics in sound, I'm sure you've thought of this. Sound is mysterious, and it's hard to put your finger on it. And it's - I mean, just by its very nature, it's ephemeral. If you have a painting, it's on the wall...

Matthew Sherwood 07:42
Right.

Sam Green 07:42
... you go to sleep, you come back and it's the same painting on the same wall. And a lot of the visual world is that. Sound is time and air and it's gone. And until very recently, when we could record things, it truly was ephemeral. And so, it's mysterious in that sense, and it works on us in odd ways. And there's not a lot of language for it, either. I mean, there's some clunk - in my own experience, there's some clunky language, you know, like, sound is universal, it brings us all together; just some sort of cliches like that. But real insight about sound is rare, I think. So, I liked it for that reason, and just the kind of mysterious nature of it. And the powerful - the way it works in a powerful way; I say this in a film, but you can see a photo of somebody you've loved who's gone. And you remember them in some way, what they look like; but if you hear that person's voice, they're right in front of you, you can feel them, you can smell them, you could feel how they would feel if you gave them a hug, you know, so sound really is a different kind of [...], I think.

Matthew Sherwood 07:46
Yeah, no, and I hadn't even thought of this, but, I think - but at the same time, with memory, at least for me, speaking personally, visual memory sticks with me more than oral or audio in some ways. I mean, I will remember someone's face better than I would remember maybe their voice.

Sam Green 09:10
For sure. Well, it's hard to - yeah. It must be the way the brain works or something that you can keep an image in your head and a voice is slippy or slippery-er; you know, it just kind of dissipates .

Matthew Sherwood 09:24
We'll talk more about sound but we're gonna give our listeners and viewers a quick break. We'll be right back with Sam Green, the director and editor of 32 Sounds, with music by JD Samson.

Factual America Midroll 09:37
You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter @alamopictures to keep up-to-date with new releases or upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the programme, our guests, and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.

Matthew Sherwood 09:57 (12:59)
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with Sam Green, director and editor of 32 Sounds. Includes music by JD Samson, and it's having a nationwide - in the US - theatrical release on April 28. We were talking about sound. And, you know, so we're talking about - oh, well, I asked you what do we get wrong, or what we do not understand. What is it - I think one thing that also - where you come to with it - it's in the film as well - is sort of how it shapes us, but also, you know, this idea of - and you've said, it's already very, you know, it's ephemeral - lost sounds. I think we're just - it strikes me that we're in a world where we're getting more and more noise, but we're hearing less and less.

Sam Green 10:50
Yeah.

Matthew Sherwood 10:51
Is that a fair, you think, assumption?

Sam Green 10:54
I would say it's true. I mean, in a way, those are two sides of the same coin, because the more we're bombarded by noise, the more we need to close our ears, just out of self-protection. But it is true. I mean, I think at least - like, I live in New York City, I think New York City was much louder, you know, 100 years ago than it is now, actually. In some ways, I think cities have gotten quieter. But, you know, there's - the interesting thing now is you go into any store, restaurant, the elevator, there's music; you know, it's very hard to find silence these days, or relative silence, I think. There's a lot of clutter, sonic clutter.

Matthew Sherwood 11:39 (13:57)
And you're - probably when you're trying to pitch this to broadcasters, or whatever, they may not want to hear this, but your film has a lot of silence in it.

Sam Green 11:48
Yeah, I think it's unairable on television, really, because even - there's a lot of black, you know, nothing on the screen, and I think it's a rule in TV, like, you can't have more than twenty frames of black, you know, or something like that.

Matthew Sherwood 12:02
Right. Right. And you've had the, you know, reference to not just reference but the thing about John Cage and others. I mean, I think isn't there even people who even said silence is another - that's not the right phrase for it, but it is another sound, isn't it? I mean...

Sam Green 12:20
Oh, yeah. I mean, there's, it's trite, but there's no such thing as silence. I mean, you...

Matthew Sherwood 12:27
Right.

Sam Green 12:27
... you could go into an anechoic chamber. But, you know, if you're sitting on right now, there's a tonne of - a universe of sound, even in our conversation here.

Matthew Sherwood 12:40 (14:56)
So, how does someone like yourself, who makes your living in a visual medium, go about making a film about sound?

Sam Green 12:46
A lot of head scratching. A lot of head scratching! No, to me, it was a great creative challenge; you know, because film is so predominantly visual. And I do think it's true, you can only really focus on one sense at a time. If you're looking intently, you're not listening intently, and vice versa. So, most of the time with film, you're looking intently. It's a medium for the eye, really. So, how to scramble that. How to turn that on its head was one of the great creative challenges. And I do like - I mean, I for myself, really like films that surprise you, or you don't know where they're going. That's a great pleasure and a rare pleasure for me in cinema. So, to try to scramble the normal engagement with the movie was fun. I, like, I would like to be an audience member being scrambled myself.

Matthew Sherwood 13:47
Right. Right. And so, that was going, you know, it's not - just for our listeners - so, it's not just a film about sound. It's an immersive experience, isn't it? Or ideally.

Sam Green 14:01
Yeah!

Matthew Sherwood 14:02
And so, I didn't have the fortune of seeing it in a theatre or cinema, but I did listen on...

Sam Green 14:08
... but if you wore headphones.

Matthew Sherwood 14:10
Yeah, I did. So...

Sam Green 14:11 (16:27)
I think that's actually a great way to see - these days - you know, there's some thought of like, oh, no, if you're watching it at home, that's a second rate experience to sitting in a theatre, but watching at home with headphones is a very intimate and powerful way to watch something. And there is that thing - I mean, I'm not gonna say this in a judgemental way. I've watched movies and checked my email and stuff like that. And, you know, that's not the kind of engagement I'm looking for here, but the idea that one is at home with headphones, I think that can be a striking way to watch a movie and somebody I know who I respect, a lot of filmmakers, said to me recently, I watch all movies now on my phone. And I said, Oh, no, that's like, what? That's terrible. And he said, No, look. He picked up his phone. He said, I lie on my bed with headphones, and put the phone right there. So, it's like I'm in an IMAX theatre! That's actually pretty great. You know, the image is really big. You got the headphones on. You are in an IMAX theatre. So, there's a lot of great ways to watch things, I think.

Matthew Sherwood 15:21
Well, I will say, it makes me feel better. I'm often watching them on a laptop because we've got one good TV in the house, and it's usually occupied. But I will say there is something, you know, I have it pretty close, and also I find, I need to have those earphones on to really hear what is being said. One thing I did with your film is I watched it, and then the second time, I won't say it was 100%, undivided attention, but I just listened to it. I didn't have the - I was doing other things, but I just had the audio on. And that was really interesting. I mean, even, you know, even the, whatever, long periods of silence. I mean, you interview someone who's deaf. So, there's not much, you know; you know, there's silence there as well. But no, it's very interesting. And I think, what I found, too - I don't know what you hope people take away, you probably want people to take whatever away whatever they want to take away from the experience. But I've just found myself in the last 24 hours being very cognizant of every little noise and sound around me. In a way that I don't think I had been, for a long time at least.

Sam Green 16:38
Well, that's music to my ears to use a terrible phrase in this context...

Matthew Sherwood 16:43
No pun intended, or whatever it is, yeah.

Sam Green 16:46 (19:05)
... that actually is - I'm not one of those filmmakers who wants to change people or change the world, necessarily. But I do feel like opening your ears can be incredibly pleasurable and can bring you back to the present and root you in your body. Both of which are good and rare pleasures these days where we're all on devices. So, hearing that makes me happy because I do think a movie about sound can encourage people to listen in a good way. Not in a way where we're like, you got to do the work and listen, it's like...

Matthew Sherwood 17:22
No, no, no, not at all.

Sam Green 17:23 (19:41)
... and have a lot of pleasure. John Cage always said that his favourite sound in the world was the sound of traffic outside his apartment on Sixth Avenue. And traffic can be an amazing sound if you pay attention.

Matthew Sherwood 17:38
But - no, Miles Davis. Miles Davis said, you know, just the sound of sneakers on a basketball court.

Sam Green 17:45
Ah, that's a great sound.

Matthew Sherwood 17:47
And he got music from - some of his music came - was inspired by that.

Sam Green 17:52
Wow, that's an awesome sound. And it's funny because you could play that sound for anybody and people would probably immediately recognise it; you know, it's a very recognisable sound.

Matthew Sherwood 18:03
I mean, I love the stuff with the foley artist.

Sam Green 18:07
She's great. But it made me want to be a foley artist.

Matthew Sherwood 18:10
Me too!

Sam Green 18:10 (20:27)
I think being a foley artist is sort of being like a typewriter repair person or, you know, it's not a growth industry at this point, but she was so wonderful, and so smart about sound in her own way.

Matthew Sherwood 18:23
Yeah. I mean, things you would have never - I mean, not to give too much away but just scraping a car door across the across the floor, you know...

Sam Green 18:32
It's funny too, because I realised in filming her in her studio that I think part of being a good foley artist is being a hoarder. Because it's an excuse to keep anything, you know, like, anything: this bag of dirt, you know, will probably come in handy sometime, you know; so, she's got, like, 100 pairs of shoes and, you know, it's great.

Matthew Sherwood 18:56
Well, I think - I mean, there is that you start off with a quote by, what's her name, Aggie Murch, is it...?

Sam Green 19:05
Yeah, the quote is actually by Walter Murch.

Matthew Sherwood 19:07
It's by Walter Murch, but because Walter...

Sam Green 19:09
... the recording is by Aggie Murch.

Matthew Sherwood 19:11
Right. Right, because he, you know, there was that other - there's that documentary about sound in cinema that he looms large in, and so it's very, you know, loads of, you know, these people going around just recording all these sounds in nature, just so you have this, I guess, before there was like, digital libraries of things, you know.

Sam Green 19:30
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matthew Sherwood 19:30
... but one thing that, you know, we don't have that much time left with you, but one thing that comes out also was you say something there about the difficulty of music in a film that's about sound...

Sam Green 19:45
Yeah.

Matthew Sherwood 19:45
... and Annea Lockwood also sort of, you know, avoided music there for a little while for probably different reasons. But yet, you've got music by JD Samson, so how do you get that to work?

Sam Green 20:00 (22:15)
That was hard. And I think, I mean, it's always a little bit of a tension with the composer because, of course, they want the music to fill the movie, you know, and this, the hard thing was to really let the sounds have enough space to be prominent. You know, this can't be - couldn't be a movie where there was a lot of music under the sounds. You know, you sort of need, like - you can't have the sound of the womb with music under it. So, the sounds sort of have to be centre stage in a way, and the music has to float around the sounds, and infuse them with feeling and also transport us. So, it was a little bit of a challenge. JD's very good spirited about it. And I think in the end realises, wow, this is the right balance, and that's what makes the movie work. But even if it's less music than JD probably would want in the movie, it's the music that makes it work. If you had this movie without the music it would be a pale, you know, version of itself. It didn't - it wouldn't have the emotional valence, and it wouldn't take you places in the way that it does, even if the music is subtle.

Matthew Sherwood 21:18
Okay. Well, I think that's a good place to leave this, you know, and definitely to tell our audience that do check this out. It's 32 Sounds. It's going for a nationwide release in the US. Theatrical release on April 28. Sam Green, who we've been talking with, is the director and editor, and it includes music by JD Samson. Sam, thanks so much for joining Factual America. It was a joy having you on.

Sam Green 21:47
Thank you, Matthew. I really appreciate it. A pleasure talking to you.

Matthew Sherwood 21:50
A pleasure talking with you, and good luck with you - I know you got a big press day ahead of you, so good luck with that. All right, take care.

Sam Green 21:56
Bye.

Matthew Sherwood 21:57
Bye. I also would like to thank those who help make this podcast possible. A big shout out to Sam and Joe at Innersound Audio in York, England. Big thanks to Amy Ord, our podcast manager at Alamo Pictures, who ensures we continue getting great guests onto the show, and that everything otherwise runs smoothly. Finally, a big thanks to our listeners. Many of you have been with us for four incredible seasons. Please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas, whether it is on YouTube, social media, or directly by email. Please also remember to like us and share us with your friends and family, wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America, signing off.

Factual America Outro 22:41
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