Red Rocks

‘Red Rocks’ is a short film that follows a day in the life of Tammy, a third year UOW rebel as she travels to Canberra to lead climb the Red Rocks crag on the Murrumbidgee river. In terms of being a rebel, climbing is historically a rebellious and alternative sport, it’s modern origins spouting in the early 1950s

“The activity tended to attract rebels — people who marched to a different drummer.”

Through the modern scope, its a male heavy sport, it being much easier for males to pick up the sport through a naturally much higher strength to weight ratio; hence Tammy being a rebel through breaking this gender disparity.

---

The research I did for this task, was not so much over the course of this semester, but over the past year of climbing outdoors and watching climbing films. Two recent films that inspired me were ‘The Dawn Wall’, directed by Peter Mortimer and Josh Lowell, and ‘Free Solo’, directed by world-renowned climbing cinematographer  Jimmy Chin.

One scene in particular that I was inspired by was the Pitch 15 scene in the Dawn Wall. After a long build up of ambient music and narrative, the post-filming sounds fades to silence to silence so that all you can hear is the realtime sounds of Kevin Jorgensen climbing the crux of the pitch and yelling out a scream of relief and accomplishment after he finally completes the pitch.

---

To an extent, I attempted to recreate this scene through Tammy attempting to send the ‘Winnie the Pooh’ climb at Red Rocks. For the sound I’ve used an interview I conducted with Tammy edited over a royalty free track. The interview and track foreshadows what is about to happen, creating tension and building up to the climax of the film where Tammy attempts the crux of the climb. As this happens, the interview and music fade so that all you can hear is the realtime sounds of Tammy climbing  along with yells of support. Eventually Tammy yells, falling back down to her last clipped carabiner.

Sound-wise, I decided to edit the film like this to provide the character of the film with a personality, instead of solely the sounds of climbing. Whilst I do incorporate certain climbing sounds (both real and foley), I learnt in the previous audio task that the majority of climbing sounds are indistinguishable from each other, hence blending interview, track, and climbing sound.

---

Overall, the film portrays the notion of ‘The Rebel’ through both the history of climbing, and its context in the modern landscape of climbing as a sport.