Webspinna Battle

Old-Fashioned Telephone

Voice Clip: "Your mission, should you choose to accept it"

Mission Impossible Theme

Ain't That a Kick in the Head

Car Noises

Mission Impossible Quotes

Indian Music

Mission Impossible Dialogue

Running Sounds

Explosions

I was insanely pleased with Peter Jackson et al. when I watched the trailer for the first Hobbit movie—almost solely because of the music. The “Misty Mountains” theme exemplified everything Hobbit to me.

            And why? When I was a kid my dad had a 5-disc audiobook of The Hobbit. It was read by some old, staunchly English actor with a deep voice that he could distort into dozens of other voices—one for each dwarf, at least. And the best part? The narrator sang every song. I listened to those CDs dozens of times while lying on my little flower-decorated bed. And so, when I sat down with my laptop and listened to “Misty Mountains” as I watched the trailer, a whole swoosh of memories came back to me. The sound of that music told a story—drawing from the traditions of Middle Earth, the previous portrayals, its own merit… and my own memories.

            Try to draw from this and other experiences, I decided to frame the sounds of my Webspinna in a way that would tell a story—kind of like how Jonathan Lethem framed his plagiarism in such a way that it made an amazingly cohesive essay, or how in that same essay he mentions how some of the best stories come from re-using (like West Side Story, for instance). Consequently, I made my theme “Mission Impossible/Ethan Hunt.” I feel like most people, especially those in our program, have an experience with Mission Impossible—so that brings in the memory element. As I formed my Webspinna with Sarah, I tried to order the sounds in such a way that they would create a story like a Mission Impossible film: I opened with the mission itself, the classic theme, went to cars screeching to the song “Ain’t that a kick in the head”—used as a signal in one of the films, to the music from India—possibly one of the exotic places visited in the films. And, of course, it ends in an explosion. And that pretty much tells the story of a Mission Impossible film.

            In a similar vein, I felt like the whole Webspinna Battle was a story in and of itself. Meeting in a “secret” location and performing beneath personas created an atmosphere that was happily a step or two away from reality. Getting to be so interactive and immediate with the creativity of everyone. It made it almost palpable. The challenge of doing something so completely out of my comfort zone was rewarded by having a truly unique experience.