Concept
Becoming a sophomore in college, the feeling I have is that there are so many tasks to fulfill and everything is rushing. I missed the days when I got back home from school and had a relaxed afternoon snack time. The vibe of that memory was slow, fuzzy, and a disappearing existence of time. To compose it into a complete work, I wanted to create a contrast in the audio that could emphasize on the simple, quiet and relaxing sound experience. Therefore I created different stages for it, where the beginning and the end had more complex and less-pleasing sound in terms of speed, rhythm and mixing of different sound elements. And the major part of the audition in the middle was significantly peaceful and simple.
Process
In the beginning of the audio, which I wanted to be noisier, I recorded the sound on the street including traffic, people’s voice and background noise of the open space. Different from I planned to mix different clips together for a messy and noisy feeling, one piece of recording worked well enough to create a bustling space and the loss of focus in the audio experience. And I only layered the ringing of a bicycle panning from one side to the other and a deep footstep that got louder and louder. Then following the door open and slam closed was the silence with the ticking of the clock, signaling the space changing from outside to inside. Then the audio was a sequence of actions with putting keys and bags down, walking, opening and closing cabinets, opening the package of snacks, sitting down on the couch, eating and drinking. Every sound was recorded and appeared one by one to keep the audition simple and smooth, and was recognizable that the audience could easily understand the story presented. And as it approached the end, with the ringing of a bell, the movements started to turn faster and the clock ticking became louder.
Since my memory was a feeling of peace and slow-pace, I wanted to make it more interesting to avoid boredom for my audience. The transition from the noisy traffic to the quiet indoor space using the door slammed created a sudden conflict. The sound experience also shifts from distraction and messiness to a stage where one can focus on one sound at a time, and can follow the movement of a character. Panning effect and noise reduction were used to provide the sound a clear spatial change. I originally wanted to add a TV machine noise in the background to give richness to the sound, but I found that keeping the sound clean was better for conveying the simple and relaxing feeling. I also spent a lot of time adjusting the volume of the clock. I wanted it to be there all the time but not that conscious to the audience until the end. Therefore the clock ticking appeared in the silence following the door slamming, and then seemed to fade out as the audience started to focus on the sound of other motions (walking and snacking etc.). At the end, to make the piece even more interesting, I sped up and volumed up the audio with the cue of the dingling bell, and distorted the sound of snacking and clock ticking with a chorus effect. And as every element started to be loud, messy and wild, the clip stopped.
Conclusion
There were a few sounds I wanted to experiment with but hadn’t got time to do. If I had more time, I would like to try adding the sound of a cartoon to the background and the slurping sound to the end (the messy and distorted part). I also got feedback of me doing a good job with the panning effect. The thing I was advised to try was to add the bell sound earlier to introduce the fun element to the audience. I think I can explore more ways to design the timing of elements entering the clip, and how they layer to complement each other to create various experiences to convey the story.
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