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Looking outward, this is a segment from a series revolving around the relationship between my son (10 yrs old) and daughter (4 yrs old). Their relationship is too complicated and too dynamic to understand. That I know. This piece doesn't try to explain anything other than the fact of an overlapping acoustic environment and proximate activities.

2000
United States
8:00
Original language
No dialogue

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Credits

Direction
Leighton Pierce
Production
Leighton Pierce

Technical information

Color
Color
Sound
Stereo
Shooting format
MiniDV

Documentation

Further information

"Wood is a film of utter simplicity and brevity, a poem of a kind of childhood domestic bliss. Through the distortions of the heat of a fire we glimpse very briefly a young boy, looking out a window. A black out. Along the way we hear the crackle of fire, and later various other sounds – the sawing of wood, a creaking noise, the gurgle of water coming from a hose, wind-chimes, the snapping of a dried branch. Interspersed with blackouts and some fades, we are shown a kind of family-snapshot sequence of a boy sawing wood, water dripping off a table, a chair rocking, glimpses of someone walking, a swing describing an arc. Described, it is almost nothing and I suppose most would be hard-pressed to see such a scene and imagine anything could be there beyond the most mundane of things. But Leighton is a fine-tuned poet of this world, and what he sees, and how he sees it, and then orchestrates it in time, and composes the sounds for his images makes this ordinary backyard scene anything but ordinary. He does not use the actual sound, but records sound as its own process and very carefully composes it so that every sound is distinct and chosen, in such a way that it amplifies the imagery in a sense by counter-point. And his use of sound is such that when he makes a blackout, we find our ears in a state of heightened awareness hearing the most discreet of sounds when no image is on screen. A visual/audio counterpoint that enhances both senses."

"Crossing Paths: Leighton Pierce (1)", Jon Jost's Weblog, 12 April 2011 [http://jonjost.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/crossing-paths-leighton-pierce-1/] (Consulted on September 10th 2011)

Images
Keywords
Children, childhood, siblings, family

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