Assignment 4 - Inspirations/Research

Hello.

Before starting the audio assignment, I wasn't really sure what me and my partner was going to come up with. I think for both of us, the whole project was a new experience and it was more about experimenting with the technology and working with the technology rather than coming up with a specific concept for our project.

Specifically for our project we decided to create a composition that represented our week. We did this through collecting songs that represented each day of the week. We recorded these songs and started experimenting with the sound effects and the tools in Soundstudio. We created delays and added effects to each section of the week. We also experimented with the recording our own voices and distorting our vocals and mixing it to the week long loop. Our own vocal tracks were distorted to represent feelings or emotions that we feel during that day. It sort of turned out into the soundtrack of our week, but we put our own spin on it and tried adding our thoughts and emotions that represented each day of the week through our vocal tracks and mixing.

I was really interested in the sound walk project that Duncan McDonald talked about in class. It was very interesting and it sort of reminded me of an audiobook, but with more sounds incorporated into it. I find it interesting how the narrative worked so well with the descriptive sounds. It gave a lot of details, but not in terms of visual details, but in terms of evoking visual details. It's interesting how different senses can evoke different images in your head.
This is what personally gave me inspiration for our project. To try and evoke emotion through emphasizing different sounds, and through creating distortion through our own vocal recordings.
Audio Clip
Rainy Days and Mondays By The Carpenters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPmbT5XC-q0

As well, I drew inspiration from what I really love as well, and that is music. I worked at a music label for 8 months prior to coming back to school. So everyday I went into the office, it was like I had a personal music soundtrack constantly playing. So in order to reinforce what we were focusing on, which was our week. We found songs that mention each day of the week.

Assignment 4: Storyboard

Hello...

It seems like it's been awhile. But here's my storyboard...

The Process:

Well, as you can probably tell, I did most of this on paper and scanned it in, and then used photoshop to add images and elements to the storyboard. In the first six frames, I tried adding different layers of images, and using the actual drawing tools to create each frame. I found it hard to actually draw using the pen/pencil tools with photoshop. Maybe because my mouse is a little wonky. As well, it took me awhile to get used to dealing with all the layers that accumulated while I was trying to add more "outside" images to my storyboard.

In the last three frames, I played around more with the colour and the saturation tools. I really like the aesthtic look of the colours in the last three frames because the colouring is more subtle, and certain colours convey certain meanings better than others. I really liked using the photo altering tools, because you can preview the effects you choose to add to your images.

The idea:

The weather has just been so unpredictable lately, so I definately had some similar experiences. One day it's boiling hot and sunny, the next day it's cloudy an freezing cold. So I thought this would be a timely idea to use for my assignment.

Well, that's about it!

-gina

Sidenote: I hate Web CT with a passion.

The end.