Drama Brief Response

After the Documentary project I was extremely excited to get back to sound production; so I nearly exploded with demiurgic nectar after I read the section that stated that a strong element of sound design was needed.

The aspect of the 'Journey/Trip' immdeiately triggered a response within me in the form of a headache with pictures, a memory of a story a friend had told me. My friend (who shall remain un-named) had told me about a 'trip' he went on nearly 1 year ago; specifically the 19th of April last year. It was this day in particular he spoke to me about; Bicycle day. Bicycle Day marks the invention of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (commonly known as LSD) by Albert Hofmann in April of 1943. My friend told me the story of how it came to pass.

On November 16 1938, the strain LSD-25 was first synthesised but remained unused for 5 years, when on April 16th the psychedelic properties were discovered when after getting home after a hard days synthesizing unknown chemicals he began to feel more relaxed than usual and found his thoughts were racing around and he found the world around him seemingly different as well; but not anything definitive, nothing he could measure.

Three days later on the 19th, Hofmann comes back to his lab and creates what he thought was a Threshold dose, which is the lowest does wherein the effects of a drug become apparent; a Threshold dose of a standard hit of LSD is around 20 micrograms. Albert Hofmann synthesized and ate 250 Micrograms of LSD. So, you can begin to understand how he felt after about half an hour. After about an hour his condition hadn't got any better so his co-workers decided to take him home; although due to some form of curfew they weren't allowed to ride vehicles after a certain time and so Hofmann hitched a lift on the back of his friends bicycle; the world changed forever that day. Without whom we certainly wouldn't recognise the world that we currently live in, what he did defined and entire decade, a generation of people all over the world suddenly became aware of something that hasn't and won't disappear.

When the two eventually got back to Hofmann's home, a doctor was waiting but after nearly 24 hours, when Hofmann was relatively lucid again, all the doctor could find wrong with him was a pair of severely dilated pupils.

This is the basis for our project, an incredible story, and certainly a 'trip' worth making a film around the theme of.