Concept
What will you do on the way of the journey? What do you think about your commute? What will you encounter on the way? Is it the sound of the leaves, the bustle of footsteps, or the heartbeat of anxiously rushing? Will you meet someone that is your crush? Do you have short conversations with friends via WeChat? In this project, I try to mimic my journey on my way to the gym via subway.
Sound exercises
Part1.Sound collection
In this part, I went to the subway station and collect some environmental sounds. I got the sound of the narrator, the door, and the bell. Also, I went to a convenience store and collect the bell sound, the vending machine, and some people talking. For some other sounds, I collected the sound of the wind, some plates, typing, walking, washing hands, running on the stairs with high-heel shoes, and some others.
Part2.1 minute practice
This is a practice for my final project, I tried to use the copy and paste tools. The repeated sound of the bells, typing, and plates create an anxious mood. In this part, I try to use different sounds to depict the story that a girl on her way to the gym. She may first go to the convenience store and buy a bottle of water. When she goes to the station, she may find she’s gonna miss the subway so she may rush to the subway. During their time on the subway, she may encounter a crush. Thus, she may be very excited and type to her friend. Also, she may imagine the scene when she arrives at the gym and plays basketball with her friends. And she arrives at the station, the door closed. There is another story…
Part3.Effect practice
This is a very hard and abstract process because I have to use the same track adding different effects to mimic different moods.
I chose the mood of sad, happy, and excited because they are the most common feelings in our daily life. For the sad mood, I let the volume go down and add an effect that makes the sound like under the water. In a happy mood, I try to repeat some sounds at the same time. And for the excited mood, I let the volume go up and use the delay sound. Also, I tried different reverberation effects to mimic different moods. This practice helps me get familiar with different special effects.
Soundscape process
When I finished the one-minute practice, I talked with my professor. At the very beginning, I added more environmental sounds to make it more natural. I repeated the sound of the bell 1 time per 10 seconds, allowing artificial sounds to be distinguished from ambient sounds. Also, to mimic an anxious mood, I let the sound of the typing crescendo. I also added a lot of people’s voices, so that the entire ambient sound becomes more harmonious and not monotonous. When editing the project file, I can see the frequency of the sound, so I also adjusted the overly harsh parts to make the overall sound more comfortable. In addition, Professor Ian thought that the sound of the subway station at the end could be added with special effects to differentiate it from the beginning part so that the whole sound could be more layered. So, to prevent it from being too repetitive, I added an effect at the very last part.
Conclusion
This is my final project:
I think my project is very successful in telling a story, and it’s not a running gag.
How to improve if I have more time?
I got a lot of suggestions during the presentation because my conception also had the feeling of letting go alone on the subway, so I wanted to distinguish reality from my fantasy by using a bell. But its frequency is particularly high so sometimes it can be confusing, and if I had more time, I would like to use the sound of a successful headphone connection instead.