Concept
I loved watching movies with my mom since childhood, one of our favorite movies is “Groundhog Day”, which is a movie about a guy going through a time loop as he relives the same day (Groundhog Day). After watching this movie, my mom and I had a conversation that if one of us were to live in a time loop, what would we do? We both believed that humans live out similar days every day, and it’s dependent on how we view the day to determine whether or not it’s a “good” day. It’s all about how you can turn that frown upside down and overpower the negative emotions. Inspired by this conversation, I decided to create a time loop for my memory soundscape expressing various emotions of a girl experiencing a time loop. The event is simple: a girl is reliving the same moment where she goes to work and experiences a bug in her computer application. Here are the emotions that I hope to present in my project: tired >>> confused >>> moment of realization >>> impatient/angry >>> helpless/scared/acceptance
Process
Sounds that I recorded:
- Elevator announcement: “5th floor… 五楼”/elevator door opens
- Walking/Running
- Humming
- Open door + Lock door + Slam Door
- Typing
- Error Sound
- Snapping
- Heartbeat
- “Hm?” sound
- Gasp
I chose the elevator announcement to be the main repeating component of my project because it is an every day element that people, especially those living in big cities will hear on a daily basis. It’s a slice of daily life with a hint of humor since it will remind the listeners of their life. However, I utilized Reverb, Echo, Chorus, and manipulated the pitch of the elevator announcement each time the time loop restarts.
However, it was hard for me to record gasping and breathing sounds on the TasCam because the microphone is very sensitive, so if I had to hold it from a certain angle and make sure my breathing wasn’t too aggressive. During the editing process, I learned how to stretch an audio to make it go faster/slower, but I eventually chose to not use it.
Conclusion
On presentation day, Professor Ian recommended me to adjust the echo levels of certain elements so that they would match. (specifically the “error message” sound and the “typing” sound)
If I had more time, I would also try to make my project have a 360 sound effect by playing around with the left sound vs the right sound. (I liked how other projects had this effect and I would like to implement that in my own project)
Image of Audition
