“When I look back at those days I have no doubt that Providence guided us, not only across those snow fields, but across the storm-white sea that separated Elephant Island from our landing place on South Georgia. I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it seemed to me often that we were four, not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterwards Worsley said to me, “Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.” Crean confessed to the same idea. One feels “the dearth of human words, the roughness of mortal speech” in trying to describe things intangible, but a record of our journeys would be incomplete without a reference to a subject very near to our hearts.”
Ernest Shackleton, South
“Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together. But when I look ahead up the white road, there is always another one walking beside you”
TS Eliot’s poem, The Wasteland:
I am very intrigued by Shackletons writing, it is part of his larger writings about his experiences in Antarctica which are a pretty standard account, with very little supposition and paranormal events. This passage is at the end of chapter 10 and feels almost tacked on, as if Shackleton was reluctant to admit it, but was driven to mention it due to it’s importance.
I don’t want people to think of me creating this, I want this piece to exist as if fully formed, with no human touch, in the same way I hope for immersion into my audio drama, I want the world created by the fourth man to absorb the listener. I think there are a few approaches to this, I could go the realism route and attempt to create a sense of space and realistic sound, perhaps going into the world of binaural sound, doing what foley and recording I can using the binaural mic at University, this would be a difficult task, if just one thing is slightly off the entire sense of immersion is ruined, but if done well I would have the listener in my hand, with total freedom to guide their emotions. It would also aid my podcast sound design, giving me practice in creating totally immersive soundscapes. Another approach would be a slightly more abstract method. I definitely want to create a sense of real space, but to have non-diegetic soundscapes to aid the listener in feeling this sense of a “fourth man”.
I think I’ll give both a go, but ultimately I’ll take the middle route, designing a sense of space with what can be called a ‘score’ to emphasise certain elements. Whilst ‘shadow in the purple’ was entirely score and sound scapes, with nothing that can be fully identified. I will go the way of my audio drama and allow this element to take a lesser role.
List of things I would like to incorporate/experiment with:
- Voice
- Creative use of sidechain compression
- Binaural recordings
- Binaural recordings
- Creation of space with minimal ambience
- Sound sources with significant provenance
In reading about this ‘Third Man factor’ I found that lots of the interpretations of this extra presence were as a benevolent spirit or guardian angel of some kind. Very few seemed to identify it as something neutral or indeed malicious, perhaps influenced by my experiences with the shadow or the leviathan in ‘the shadow in the purple’ I find this ‘fourth man’ to be something not so kind, my initial impressions was that it was a rather unsettling if not outright scary, this unwelcomed unexpected visitor is undeniably creepy, paired with the setting of a vast wilderness from which there is no escape.