scissorcopter from Phil's Fills by Phil Strong

Scissorcopter is Phil’s solo contribution to the soundtrack we prepared over the course of a month or more in the Rocky Mountains, our first time working together. I had brought along Miguel Frasconi as a co-composer and keyboard player. The footage for the ‘film’, subtitled The Trail of the Salmon [currently not found anywhere on the internet] had been shot, selected and given an order by the Flemish director, but had not yet been edited together. The director’s modus operandi for all his projects was to have a complete soundtrack created, including synchronized audio and video elements, and then to edit visuals to match that.
Miguel and i each chose about half the scenes to work on individually, with the goal of completing at least one scene a day. Each of us had a studio and then there was Phil mostly in the main studio; usually tasked with some unusual way to approach creating or manipulating sound. It quickly became apparent that he was an excellent candidate for whatever idea i tossed at him (although i never did receive that the sound of a snowfall). 
Some of the aural scenes we created have had an autonomous life [check out the links on this page]
I don’t remember if Phil created what i’m here calling ‘Scissorcopter’ by his own initiative, but it was entirely his idea to combine pulsed breathing and the snipping of scissors to save us the time, expense and cliché of renting a helicopter and a locomotive to accompany a dizzying array of aerial and rail shots through the surrounding mountains. It was an ideal juxtaposition; my favourite scene in the movie. 
Unfortunately there are considerable dropouts during this scene in my only A/V copy, an old VHS tape, so we are unable to show you this scene here, yet.

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