Category Archives: F20-P4 Audio

P4 Audio

BY KAHU EKALANI

For this project I was trying to create a fun spin on one of the example options given in the instructions. I was trying to convey someone getting to their car, turning the key and starting the engine, then flipping through radio stations. I wanted to emanate the feel of absurd dated 20th century product ads by making an even more blasphemous ad then those that exist. I also wanted to poke fun at some of the obscure celebrity musical artist names people come up with nowadays. I felt like I needed to add a modern and/or hip element to the project so that’s the context of the ending. I think it works well comedically. I wrote a loose script and then let the talent improvise some of the dialogue. For the sound effects I mentally went through the scenario of starting a car and clicking through radio stations, then made a list of all the sounds I would need to provide a smoother workflow and more effective workflow later on.  I’m thankful to have had cooperative talent for this project because my voice most likely wouldn’t have suited my creative choices as well. I feel the talent’s voice sounded realistic in terms of how a real radio host might sound.

I Was Created Today

This project was a lot of fun! Coming up with the premise was fairly easy for me, I don’t know why but I thought it would be funny to have a little scribble/doodle come into consciousness, be forced to sing, and if they don’t they’ll be destroyed. While being confused along the way. The song “I Was Created Today,” ended up writing itself. 

Just sing about how confused the scribble/doodle is about the world!

I wish I knew how to play instruments or create instrumentals but I don’t know how to, yet, and the song had to be sung a cappella. Despite this, I still think the song came out fairly decent. In the future, I would love to take this audio, fix it up a bit, make it crisper, and animate it. Since that’s what I wanted to do originally. (Completely forgot this was an “audio” only project.) I’d also like to create a better “scribble” when it does become animated. 

After the first scribble gets shredded it was supposed to end there, but in a cruel twist, the “drawer,” created another “scribble” and instead of singing, it played an instrument. Which the “drawer” likes and the new scribble gets to live. Hurray?

By Kay

The Lion and The Mouse

For this assignment, I wanted to create a narration of a short Aesop’s Fable called “The Lion and the Mouse”. I had never heard of this Aesop’s Fable, so I decided to create an audio to learn about the story. I listened to the story with audio, researched what kind of mood the story should have, and chose the music I used for the background. For this assignment, I recorded it straight to my laptop.

I enjoyed this project. The stories were fun to read. I recorded it many times, trying to figure out how to make it easier to listen to. Finding sound effects was not too difficult for me. The sound effect I created is called “sleep. I chose this song because I think the image of fairy tales is often read when putting children to bed.

I found the song from a place called Ccmixter listed on Free Media Resources. The song was full and over 3 minutes long and also had a woman’s whispering voice in it. I wanted to keep the song alone so I cut out the whispers in places and narrowed it down to about a minute to fit my story. I think I found the perfect balance between narration and music. The hardest part for me was the narration. I am a learner of English, so I still have trouble with pronunciation and intonation, and the breaks between sentences were also difficult. The story I searched on the internet had an audio recording, so I listened to it and imitated it. I still need more practice, but I used the one that worked best out of the many recordings I made.

by Madoka Shimmyo

The Fox and the Crow – P4

For this assignment I wanted to create a narration of a short Aesop fable called “The Fox and the Crow”. I wanted to create a naturalistic ambient background to match the setting that this story would take place. To challenge myself, I decided to use my voice for the whole story. I want to feel more confident using my voice in projects going forward. In terms of equipment, I chose to use my phone for the sake of convenience for this assignment. I also worked with Audition because I am very comfortable using the software.

I had a fun time creating this project. The story was enjoyable to read and easy to create an “environment” for. Finding sound effects wasn’t too difficult for my audio. The one sound effect that I did create were the “footsteps”. I used a crumpled sheet of lined paper and moved my fists against it. In general, I am always picky when searching for a music track. I think that I need to start using other websites to search for royalty free music. Most of what I find on Incompetech makes make laugh because of where I have heard some of the music from (Super cheesy and old Youtube videos).My biggest struggle was finding the perfect balance between the narration and the music. I had to listen to my audio mix with and without headphones to ensure that everything I wanted in the audio was coming through. Most of the exports I created had the music barely audible without headphones. It was mildly annoying, but it had to be done.

By: Liah Craven

The lion and the mouse

Link to story: https://read.gov/aesop/007.html

Audio: used by Anura

I choose to do this story because my initial plan ended up getting ruined to unfortunate events. My plan was to make not necessarily a story but like a guided mediation. I listen to sleepcasts when I go to bed and when I found out about this project I was planning on making my own. I was going to take the listener on a peaceful journey of walking through a garden, describing the flowers, their own symbolism, and to create a peaceful garden that one could close their eyes and be transported there. I would have added relaxing music like what you would here in a spa and record the birds outside my window so it would be peaceful and include nature. But then I got sick. And trust me I tried to make a satisfying audio and it was terrible. The whole video concept revolved around being soothing and peaceful and my voice was just not cutting it. So I went with my backup plan which is the fable story that was one of my favorites as a kid which was the Lion and the mouse. I’m pretty sure that the reason this story is one of my favorites is the fact that none of the animals died within the story, that the Lion and the Mouse lived happily ever after and benefited from each other while having a lesson to be learned. It was fun fiddling around with the audio and sound effects. There are two sound effects the lions roar and a ripping of cloth which is actually magazines rolled up. This audio is the best out of all of them, no coughing or hoarseness in my voice is present from what I can tell. This project was interesting and it was a little overwhelming to figure out how to use the editing but I got the basics down.

Quinn Final Project

Ridic was the first to come up with the idea to make a skit about newscasters, and we wrote the entire script over the phone. Most of the production work naturally fell on ridic because he had better access to filming equipment and the relative complexity of his scenes. Because of this I did the majority of post production. During filming I created a news intro in blender and made Ridic’s background photo using the same file. Then I shot my scenes with help and equipment from ridic. After Ridic cleaned up the raw audio I put all of the clips together and added the music and effects to make the final product.

In the end, working with a partner taught me a lot about the actual process of filmmaking, how to work with a team, and how to complete a project you don’t have full control over.

Credits:
Police voice: Joshua Van Horn.
Please standby effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG770qn8A9Q
Music: https://freesound.org/s/468213/

P5 Quinn

Most of my favorite movies have plots that sound completely stupid on paper, but have a nearly perfect execution that makes them profound. I figured I would take a shot at something like this when I’m young and no one cares. So I decided to make a surreal (and thankfully exaggerated) video about my experience doing VFX in blender. I started with recording most of the live action stuff first, then doing some screen capture with shadowplay. About a third of the way through I had to re-format my hard drive to avoid a major computer catastrophe. Nearly giving me a heart attack and wasting almost a full day of my time. I spent more time than I expected to on editing because I wanted to emulate the heavily edited montage like style of directors like Guy Ritchie.

Audio p4 Quinn

H.P Lovecraft’s The Festival

In typical Quinn Brown fashion I got in WAY too over my head for this project. At the beginning I knew I wanted to read a passage from an HP Lovecraft story so I chose to read from “The Festival” because of it’s descriptiveness and the fact that it’s one of his more underrated short stories. The story is about a young drifter who returns to the town of his ancient ancestors, but when curiosity gets the better of him he’s ensnared in a dark ritual known only as the festival. The first major problem that I encountered was the fact that the scene described in the paragraph I chose is meant to be almost completely silent. This meant that I had to try my best with simulating the ambiance of the scene by making it sound like a large group of people quietly walking past the listener. I’m not completely happy with the result but I should have known from the start that it would be hard for someone with as little experience as me to mix a scene like this.

The Man and The Gem

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1144715401%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-6BE9JljaG9l&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true Logan Habib · P4 Audio Story

I very much enjoyed creating this project and learning the process’s behind audio editing. Getting the hang of Audacity took some time, but after I was able to get down the basic editing tricks, I had a blast. There are still some mistakes in this project that I wish I knew how to fix but, even though there are things I wish I could change, I still take victory in the small learning experiences. Trying to master editing my voice was the hardest challenge. The videos provided this week were a big help though and I was able to learn about noise reduction and noise profiles and apply that knowledge to my project.

I also really enjoyed freesounds.org. There were so many cool sounds that I could pick upload to my project. It took me hours to pick what sounds I wanted to use to set the scene. I tried to understand the characters emotions in each part of my story so I could try to pick the best fitting music for each part of the story. Its got more of a dark or eerie tone in terms of music.

Overall, I truly enjoyed the experience with audio editing and maybe I will try to practice it more on the side because I liked it a lot. Once again, I hope the audio comes through ok for everyone listening!! It was a challenge to eliminate all background noise.