SONIC DESIGN - PROJECT 1
05.05.2020 - 26.05.2020 (Week 5 - Week 8)
Helen Angelia (0336203)
Sonic Design
Project 1 - Auditory Imaging
Module Information Booklet (MIB)
Week 5
To begin our first project, Mr. Razif told us to come up with a narrative story based on some topics he gave. The lists of the topics are (attached in the MIB):
- Wildlife + Background
- Everyday Home Life + Background
- Cities and Transport + Exterior Atmosphere
- Sports Elements + Background
- Industry and Electronic Sounds + Background
- Weather + Background
- Market and Rural Atmosphere + Background
And of course, for my choice, I chose to do a Wildlife+Background environment! I was not quite sure why I wanted to do this one, but something tells me that I am quite confident in working on this or maybe because it is easier than other themes.
After I made the narrative story, Mr. Razif said I should only make a background and environment sound, don't put too much action in there. Also, to make the audio more variant, unique, and dynamic, I should put more fantasy genre in it. Everything can happen in a story and it's up to me how I wanted to control it.
Mr. Razif told us not to tell anyone the story narrative, including in our e-portfolio blog and only him and the student who knows it. However, to those who are curious if they got their assumptions right or not of my auditory imaging project, I'll put it at the end of the blog. ;)
Here are the sounds I have used for my project 1, although I did not use all of them as it would be too crowded if I did:
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| Fig 1.1 Sounds |
Week 6 - Week 7
Since I have made the first attempt on my project 1, I showed it to Mr. Razif and got his feedback (this might be a spoiler in some ways but bear with it). The lecturer said the first growl of the beast is 'clipped' which made it a low-quality sound and wanted me to change it. He said this is because the rest of my audios are high quality, but only that one growl part which makes it worse.
The river sound should also be made to fade in more as it appears too sudden. Give more of the river sound to the listeners, so they wouldn't be so surprised with the already loud watery sound.
There was also a slight pause in the middle of the soundtrack because it was supposed to be a faint sound of light rain. But Mr. Razif told me that it was okay to leave it be. Overall, the rest of my audio is already okay.
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| Fig 1.2 Auditory Imaging Process |
Week 8
I showed Mr. Razif my final attempt of project 1 before submitting and he said there were some clippings I needed to fix. The beast's second growl is still low-quality ones, so I have to revise it more. Also, since its a flying creature, I should add voice automation to show it was something flying above and not some kind of normal beast.
To make this e-portfolio fun and to those who read it, let me provide some questions for you before you go down to the end of the blog and read the narrative story:
- Where does the location take place?
- How many living things can you hear in there? And what could they possibly be?
- Can you guess what the whole story is about?
Here is my final outcome of the audio: Enjoy~!
! WARNING !
Here is the narrative story of the auditory imaging project:
A man went out of his log cabin and going down the stairs. The sun is shining bright and the blue bright sky was slightly covered with big trees around him. The sound of rustling leaves and branches collides with each other. Birds chirping and insects crickets.
The man walked through the forest and into muddy and damp ground. A faint sound of water can be heard. Some tropical birds gawk loudly, they flew from branch to branch. The sight of the river can now be seen. The water sound grows louder and louder.
He walked on top of white stones now, making crackle sounds as he goes. He stops at the side of the river and saw some fishes swimming in it, some of them jumps happily. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind approached him really quick. A dragon suddenly swoops in from above him and made a deafening noise. The trees cried as if being attacked by the storm.
A beeping sound filled his ear for some time, unable him to hear anything else. When the dragon is quite away from the area, he was back in a calm state of the forest. Not long, water drips from the sky, from slight rain to pouring. The man walks back towards his cabin as the storm grows worse.
Thunder now rumbles and lightning started to pops out viciously. The footsteps are now getting heavier because of the muddy ground. Animals have mostly gone to their home and only a few birds still there alarming the other. The trees swayed back and forth by the strong winds.
A bolt of lightning struck a nearby tree and made it fall to the ground hard. The fire was there but quickly swept away by the rain. The man is now getting closer to his cabin and back to the asphalt-kind-of-like hard ground. He climbs the wooden stairs, opens the door, and closes it behind him.
- The End -
P.S: Please don't tell Mr. Razif I'm telling you readers about attaching the narrative story here or I might get scolded. :p
REFLECTIONS
EXPERIENCES
I was not sure why, but the project 1 I have worked on is not as hard as making the forest and laser laboratory exercises. I felt that maybe I gained new tips and tricks in editing sounds and putting the necessary sounds in my project to make it look like the people is in the place themselves when they hear it.
At least, that's what my family told me when I told them to listen to it and tell me what they heard. They all said they could hear the place is taking in a forest and there's a water sound. Suddenly the weather goes bad and it rains really hard. Even though they are not designers, but I seek normal people's opinions on this.
OBSERVATIONS
By observing the works my classmates had made as well, I learned that I also need to put more details in my audio track. A simple detail could make everything more full and perfect, so I always tried to listen to my work so many times and think if there's anything that I should add more. Listening to my own creation and other people's creation was really helpful to achieve the goal of work I had in mind.
FINDINGS
Honestly, I did not really receive many lectures in working on this project, as we only do repetitive things like we did in exercises. However, the reason why I could manage to work on this better than before is that Mr. Razif had likely made my basics in manipulating sounds quite strong that I could imagine and know what I wanted to do. I found out one thing the most that voice automation can be really helpful for this project.
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