Severed Heads: Animating the family doctor
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 by evilchris
Throughout their twenty-plus years of existence, Australian electronic outfit Severed Heads have constantly pushed forwards the limits of video technology alongside their audio incarnation, introducing computer visuals into their live shows at a point where the technology was still in its fledgling stages, and lugging vintage equipment and video projector up a flight of stairs to a venue was still a seriously frightening proposition. While these days, we virtually take for granted to fact that a VJ will invariably make an appearance at a larger scale electronic event, Severed Heads (like contemporary peers Cabaret Voltaire, with their Double Vision label) were introducing computer animations to their shows and producing their own highly-stylised and frequently surrealistic long-form video releases, at a point where Zoo TV was little more than a glimmer in Bono’s wrap-around shades. Indeed, the pioneering video-synthesiser Severed Heads used in their mid-eighties live shows that was built by former member Stephen M. Jones and current Severed Head Tom Ellard now sits in Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, its hulking girth alone an indictment of just how rapid the turnover of technology has been over the duration of Severed Heads’ existence.
With Tom Ellard continuing to produce and release video work alongside albums throughout the last decade (Witness 1994’s Vidipus VHS compilation that accompanied that year’s Gigapus album), as well as the more recent Robot Peepshow and Palaeolithic DVD releases through Sevcom, at first it seems surprising that Severed Heads haven’t been approached to produce a film soundtrack before now, such is their strong synthesis between music and visuals. In reality through, you’ve probably heard Ellard ‘s music on television without ever noticing it, and that in itself might be part of the trick.
When Australian film director Kriv Stenders first discussed the film he was making, The Illustrated Family Doctor with Ellard, both noted the thematic parallels between the film itself and Ellard’s Music Server series of releases, which centred around ambient / environmental music ‘designed to represent an oppressive, corporate zeitgeist.’ With the two works ‘seeming to click like long lost sisters’, Ellard set about adapting several Music Server tracks to work with the movie’s visuals as well as composing a number of new tracks specifically for the soundtrack. Of course, given Ellard’s ongoing interest in visuals, it didn’t take long for the accompanying soundtrack to soon expand into the DVD / CD release that has now hit the shelves, the first audio CD representing the Illustrated Family Doctor’s Soundtrack component, while the DVD, titled The Animated Family Doctor contains a number of videos for tracks from the soundtrack, the 4 Music Servers in full as a DVD slide show, teaser trailers for the film, and one of the year’s darkest /funniest singles.
ITM’s evilchris chatted with Severed Heads’ Tom Ellard to find out more about the process that
went into sound tracking Kriv Stenders’ Illustrated Family Doctor, how the concept of the Animated Family Doctor first came about, and what he was particularly keen to do differently with this DVD release.
ITM: I understand that you’ve composed and produced incognito music for television / advertisements over the years – when you were working on the IFD soundtrack, did you perceive any parallels between this sort of ‘short, compressed’ visual message and the writing of a much longer film score’ (i.e. was any of this useful background for this much larger task?)
TE: I actually started working on some of Kriv’s commercial shorts after the film soundtrack. The ‘family’ that made IFD had some use for a musician, and I’ve always given my best to a family when there’s mutual respect. Let’s turn the question 180 degrees in fact. All commercial music is incognito in nature; I have nothing but pride in solving these 30-second puzzles. They’re bloody hard, intricate, filled with allusions and rules. When a client uses a key word and you have to turn that word into a soundtrack it’s the ultimate proof that composition is a skill and art form. Commercial work also helps me write better music in general as it varies my diet.
ITM: I noticed that at least a couple of the tracks on the IFD soundtrack have made appearances before, on your series of Music Server releases, which dealt with ambient / environment music designed to work in places such as offices.In a sense, is the IFD soundtrack a continuation on from these sorts of explorations into workspace?
TE: The Music Server series and IFD sprang from the same zeitgeist – an oppressive society that has taken hold – constantly measuring worth in sales and Megabytes. Music Server is a piss take made up of 70’s muzak slogans and metallic mood music. The soothing sounds of slavery. It’s a mean joke, and it just so happened that the book, the script and the film were blossoming at the same time. They’re like long lost sisters that found a lot in common. IFD and Music Server were able to click together because they both have the same fear and hope.
ITM: Were there any particular past soundtracks / scores that you drew upon for ideas / inspiration whilst working on the IFD soundtrack, or did you draw inspiration from different places entirely?
TE: At various times we talked about A Clockwork Orange, Come And See, A Zed And Two Noughts and many other films, mainly horror. But mainly we wanted that ‘sound of plastic seating’. Music Server already existed before the images, so it was valid outside of synchronisation – but it needed to be made to play against images. The Audio Loc crew helped with that.
ITM: What sort of process did you follow when writing /producing the IFD soundtrack; did you specifically compose tracks to match visual scenes, or was it a case of writing tracks separately and then bringing them back to see if they’d work in certain scenes? Were there any particular facets of the plot / visuals that you wanted to accentuate with the music you wrote for the film?
TE: The first meeting, Kriv explained what he was on about. And we talked about Illness and Health and how music could track that change. And he was adamant that he wanted a film where the music was always there, even if concealed under the environment. So I suggested an ‘illness orchestra’ and had some vague idea about gamelan (which only survives in a few patches here and there). We built islands, which were Music Server tracks, then built bridges that joined these. Some of the music was five years old and some was written on a laptop in the mix. I spent a lot of time rolling through certain scenes over and over again trying to make some notes hit the exact frame, while other parts just fell into place. We agreed that the best soundtrack is the one you don’t always notice. But a few places we just had to throw in fun shit like a mobile phone that plays Dead Eyes Opened in the morgue just as the corpse is having its eyes shut.
ITM: When did the concept of the accompanying DVD The Animated Family Doctor first come into being? I understand that the DVD content is related to the plot and characters of the film, but also intended to stand on its own as a separate entity?
TE: Well, soundtracks aren’t so popular these days, when you can buy the whole film on DVD. But hell, the movie is almost a musical. We had to have a soundtrack. Seeing as we both make clips – a clip DVD was obvious. We wanted to provide some more glimpses of “Garry World” – the universe where the film takes place. To laugh at our own obsessiveness. And then there’s the Music Servers, which needed a home as well.
ITM: What sorts of content / features are included on the DVD itself?
TE: The DVD is like a postcard from Garry World – it even looks a bit like a postcard. It takes tiny moments from the movie and extrapolates them into music clips. Something that might last 10 seconds in the movie can be fleshed out to 6 minutes. For example having me parade around the decaying film set to evoke a few seconds of the movie. And the 4 Music Servers are there as a slide show. It is the opposite of the process that distilled the material into the soundtrack.
ITM: You’ve mentioned that you’ve intended the Animated Family Doctor DVD to be “something that can be as easily watched as ignored”; I was curious to find out more about what you meant by this. Were there any things that you particularly wanted to do differently with the expected / standard DVD format for this project?
TE: Well, the big problem with music video is that you can only watch it a few times. It’s very exciting the first time but dead dull after about three goes. Kriv’s made many rock clips and it was a pet hate. We thought about this and decided that it’s better to seem strangely dull the first time. But then one day you notice more. And, like wallpaper, it becomes familiar and pleasing.
ITM: After several years of independence, Severed Heads are once again affiliated with a label / distributor (Inertia) for the IFD/AFD CD/DVD release – is this an ongoing relationship, or something specific to this film project?
TE: Severed Heads are, for the moment, holding hands with the music industry. Rumours of a marriage are overstated.
ITM: You’ve also said that “there will be no new Severed Heads albums, only DVDs.” What are some of the main reasons for you wanting to ditch the CD format and move completely towards DVDs? Are there specific things that you’ve learnt from the process of writing the AFD / IFD audio and visual elements that you could see yourself incorporating into future Sevs DVD releases?
TE: There is far, far too much music in the world. It groans under its own bulk. Severed Heads try to keep just a little ahead of the pack and releasing more albums just seems a bit retro. You can mash or remix it, but that’s just treading water. Really it’s time to leave the building. DVDs, web radio, pod casting – whatever it takes to move on. I personally want to start a cable TV station. I love the idea of some thing that’s on at 3pm and if you miss it – it’s gone!
The Illustrated Family Doctor OST is out now through Manasoundtracks/Inertia. The film is in cinemas this March.