UCLA alum Jonathan Luis sees himself as leading a rebellion. A rebellion against what?
“Oh, mostly convention,” he said.
Luis, who studied English at UCLA from 1995-1997, is aiming to disrupt the conventions of the way film is perceived, or more specifically, the way film is heard.
Under the stage name Bonjon, Luis will use computers to mix his own soundtrack to the 1927 silent German film “Metropolis” tonight at the Nuart Theater on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Luis explained that the traditional way to compose music for a film is to come up with a series of cues, or points in the film that a composer would like to stand out, and then create music to highlight those moments in the film. His act uses electronic music samples, bits of dialogue and even animal noises to enhance or sometimes subvert these emotional moments in the film.
“I’ll throw in some wild sound, sound that has nothing to do with the film and in fact is contrary to the film. So you’ll hear certain sounds, you’ll hear background noises, voices … that will have nothing to do with the diegetic story,” Luis said. “At some sense you expect a certain sound in film, and I’m trying to alter that ““ I’m trying to break up an audience’s expectations.”
Like a traditional silent film pianist, Luis makes the music for the film live inside the theater. But ditching traditional musical instruments, he uses computers that he specifically enhanced for the type of music he wanted to electronically mix.
And because of the live nature and his constant goal to shock the audience, he assures that no two performances are the same.
“There are some tracks that I’ve composed specifically for certain scenes. … However, there are sections that I sort of play along with, just to give mood, to give it a weird, eerie quirky feel,” Luis said. “I’m trying to keep everything in the moment, so I try to keep it fresh. I try not to have it too staged, so to speak.”
But it is not just the sounds themselves that are unconventional; Luis plans to subvert the regular method for distributing sounds among the various speakers located throughout the theater. Luis explained that, in a traditional movie theater, the dialogue generally comes out of speakers in the front, so it appears to come directly out from the screen while other major sounds can come from side or surround speakers.
“The traditions are to mix certain sounds in certain speakers,” Luis said. “(But) I have the ability to pan individual sounds using specific computer (functions), like, I can rotate sounds around the room and I can also make them come forward or more back.”
He hopes that by using sound in an unconventional manner, he will force the audience to be conscious of how the movie is affecting them.
“When you (watch a film,) you’re not really paying attention to the music. … It is not something that your brain (focuses on) as you’re watching the film,” Luis said. “As a traditional viewer of the movie, you’ve learned over the years to perceive film in a certain way, however, it is my attempt to kind of alter that. … I have sound coming at you from all different points.”
Luis learned about the mechanics of a movie theater partially from his experience working on and off as a manager at the Nuart Theater for eight years since graduating from UCLA.
His connections with the theater also has its benefits now that he is branching off as a film artist.
“Basically because of my affiliation there, I got some discounts (renting the theater),” he said.
The film he selected to display his art, “Metropolis,” is also about a rebellion. The film centers around Maria, a poor, pretty woman who tries to unite workers together in a form of strike against the rich and powerful, and Freder, the son of one of the city’s most rich and powerful men, who joins the working-class struggle.
“Freder, he represents your quintessential savior type; you think “˜Matrix,’ you think Neo,” Luis said.
Luis had seen the film prior to attending UCLA, but it wasn’t until he studied “Metropolis” in one of his film classes that the movie resonated with him.
“What attracted me primarily to this movie is that it is still relevant today, that in many respects things haven’t changed; there still is the stratification between the really rich and the really poor, the working class.”
Though he was inspired by the film, one of the things that really motivated him to work on his art was the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.
“I remember I was still kind of on campus, living nearby, and it was just a real shock to have these two big buildings that were once standing, to just fall like that. In many ways, it seemed like things that were once stable are now gone,” Luis said. “That inspired me as an artist to create something that is really new, and not try to reinvent the wheel but to look at art in a particular different vein, in a different light.”
He added, “I’m trying to get people to look outside convention to see that sometimes things that we feel are most stable are really not stable. “
Armed with 2,000 postcard-size fliers, Luis is doing all his own publicity. After tonight’s performance, he will take his rebellion on the road, next playing three shows in Pasadena at the Rialto Theater beginning Oct. 5, and after that he plans to perform in Seattle. This self-led revolution is far from over.
“Film music has a hundred-year tradition. You had these pianists and organists that had this music that they would play for a chase scene, or a robbery, and this music still kind of exists today; you have these themes that are already established. So when you watch a film, you have the same kind of music,” he said. “I’ll try to break that up.”