Category Archives: Fall 2020

Final Project

With my project, my goal was to capture how life was before and during COVID-19. In a somewhat creative style of a “documentary”. Being stuck at home for months had made me reflect on my life more. It made me realize how much freedom we had to do whatever we desired. Hanging out with friends, going to concerts, doing anything really. We did not have to bat any eye before leaving our homes. This pandemic made everyone realize how quickly everything can be taken away from us. After most enjoyable things were taken away from us, we’re left with being stuck at home. Living the same day over and over.

In the beginning part of my video, pre-COVID-19, I included various clips from my life. I made sure to keep the beginning all fun and saturated because that’s how life felt. It slowly fades to black and white to showcase the drastic change the world has taken. The world feels empty even though life is still going on. The COVID-19 lock down was very gradual, which was why I had a slow fade from bright colors to darkness. Then in March was when it went downhill, so I included some COVID-19 statistics to paint the picture more clearly. I mentioned in my video that we are essentially living the same day over and over. Which is why you see many of similar clips in the end repeating, to show that as of right now we are stuck in an endless loop of living.

My experience with this project was very pleasant. I enjoyed looking for the perfect clips to include in the beginning part of my project. Not only that, I had also enjoyed going out and recording real life footage. It was nice to get out of my house and see how everyone is doing during this pandemic. I went out on a Saturday so I got the chance to see everyone at the Saturday market. It was really interesting to see so many people bunched together wearing masks and what not. I put together the whole project in premiere pro and did voiceovers in it as well. I edited the colors of the videos in premiere as well. I thought that lining up the videos with the audio turned out really nice in the end. Overall, my experience with this project was wonderful and I am very pleased with the outcome! It will also be nice to look back at this in a moments time.

The Light

Everything I do in life, I try to do in some meaningful way. But what to consider meaningful is different for everybody. To me, for example, it is seeing beauty in simple things. They can become magical looking if you add a ray of light. I tried to share my vision in this short movie to inspire you in these dark, rainy and cold days. I caught and saved a little bit of light for you!

Now about the technical side. The last time I saw Adobe Premiere, was about 15 years ago. Of course, it has changed a lot. But it was so familiar and nice like a meeting with an old best friend you haven’t seen for many years. I didn’t have much experience with this software before, I still don’t know many tools and functions, I constantly struggle with specific English vocabulary there (you probably remember, it is not my native language, and I am still learning it), but this space rocket dashboard really feels like home to me! I only wish my computer was a bit faster to process the preview window.

For the audio part, I used a recorder Zoom H1n to record my voice. Then I applied my new skills learned this term, in Audacity, to edit the audio files. For the musical part, I used samples from a free library: https://samplefocus.com/

What I really missed during this project was a team. I dream to work with creative and enthusiastic people who can see the world like me or kind of similarly. Besides that, I have felt the lack of knowledge about camera work. My ideas were beyond my skills (of course!), and I felt sad that I don’t have a videographer friend who could teach or explain many different little things to me. But even without having the necessary knowledge, I tried to be creative. For example, I broke the rule of stability and shot all the videos without a tripod. I did it on purpose. I wanted to create a lively, breathing video. After all, we are talking about beauty (in the film), and this is what excites the heart. So there are no stable pictures. Life is generally unstable, and we should greedily enjoy every moment of beauty in it. Yes, “the roses”!

By: Lyu Gramley

(Oh, yes, last week, I got citizenship and changed the spelling of my last name!)

The Living Sunstone – Final

I decided that I was going to do my final project about a story that I wrote in 3rd grade called The Living Sunstone. I wanted to make an overview of the what the book entails to make it seem like it was a cool new book that had just been released. I was planning on using one of my mics to record my audio so I could get it crisp with no background noise but I somehow managed to lose both of them when I moved months ago. So since I didn’t have my mics, I had to use my phone mic. I hope that it doesn’t produce too terrible of audio and that listening to this is somewhat bearable.

I decided that I was going to use old pictures that I had drawn for the book back when I wrote it as well as some new drawings that I made for this video. They’re supposed to look childish and funny since that’s the type of art style I used when making the book back in the day. I wanted to make sure that during the overview, I displayed the correct images so you could get an idea of what the characters were supposed to look like.

Overall, I think that I did a decent job given my circumstances. I think it turned out okay. I would’ve really liked to have my mic to have better audio. I think I did an okay job of explaining the book to possibly entice readers to want to read the book, even though it’s not a published book nor professional in any way. I left out the main plot twist so that if anyone does “read” it, they won’t know the twist in the end!

Final Project(Rednecks and Cereal: Episode I: The Nuclear Problem)

My project was very fun and exciting to make. Despite there being countless distractions for the actors considering the actors either had children or were children. Most of my time was spent setting the scenes and getting the best lighting possible. The place that I was filming had terrible lighting for shooting, which is expected most houses aren’t built for videography. The process was difficult and I wish that the actors and actresses were more flexible and less busy with their lives. I noticed many mistakes that could’ve been fixed if I had more resources and more freedom with the actors and actresses. 

My biggest obstacle was most definitely time, time got in the way of good lighting, actors and actresses responsibilities, and my time with editing considering how many projects I have to do. When I was doing scenes it was hard because it is hard to explain what I want in some scenes, so I ended up acting out the scene in front of my cast multiple times to almost each scene right. I had to record my actors with a separate audio device to get quality audio. Overall it was a challenging experience and that is what made it fun. I had a fun time making jokes, and messing around in between scenes to counteract me ordering them around each scene. 

If I was to do this kind of project again, I would most definitely worry way more about lighting and try to get something less complicated to fit into three minutes of recording.  I would also find actors or actresses that were way freer and I would try multiple angles for each scene, maybe even have multiple cameras in each scene if possible. I did enjoy this project, even though it was a little bit stressful.

Sources: The music from the table scene I got from Adobe Stock and I am allowed to use it. I got the emergency broadcast noise from: https://freesound.org/home/ .

Plushy Kaiju

So my final project was supposed to be an epic kaiju battle I enacted with plush animals I kept from my childhood. As the project went on I realized I would have to lean into the cheapness and read the cheesy bad names and over the top narration completely seriously and treat it more like a video story book than the battle I initially imagined.

I found the entire process frustrating as I had to learn how to manage elements in Premiere and Audition with no real instruction and the top rated tutorials online being five or six years old. I have learned that I do not like video editing as it was presented to me in this project and I hope my short video is entertaining to some of you.

I think I could have done a lot more with even a single assistant and a budget for armature wire. As one person doing this and my lack of familiarity with the programs I’m happy with what I turned out even if it is not objectively good.

Aesop’s Fables

I was looking forward to this assignment for a few reasons. For one, I am in Audio Production currently, so I have access to recording equipment. I’ve been looking for opportunities to use the recording equipment for extra practice, so this assignment was perfect. Additionally, I am a fan of audio books, so I was interested in getting a chance to peak behind the curtain and imagine the workflow of a professional audio narrator.

Originally, I was thinking of picking an excerpt from a book, but I wasn’t able to find anything that was quite short enough. Instead, I chose to browse Aesop’s Fables until I found a suitable story. I chose The House Dog and the Wolf largely because I thought it would be fun to make use of the sound of a howling wolf. I also thought I might try a crack at

While putting together the various files, I was hoping to create a natural nighttime forest ambience. For the most part I was pretty happy with the outcome. One disappointment, was that I was unable to find a good recording of the classic “ribbit” of a frog. It turns out that frogs have a large variety of calls, and many of them are not very recognizable. I was looking for something a little more gentle than the frog calls I found. I did end up finding a fun recording of an owl hoot. I was happy with that one, since it is so recognizable, and indicative of a nighttime forest.

Overall, a fun project!

by Gabriel Olsen-Martinez

F20-P4-Two Travelers and the Bear

I had set out to do his big elaborate audio. I wanted to use all of the things I thought I had learned through the videos and websites.  I tried a few different versions of this fable, but some were too long and I was being over-ambitious. Once I started to clean it up I realized that I did not nearly give myself enough time to do this the way I visioned in my head.  I was a bit confused at times with all of the different options and steps that I had to take in making it sound good. I know that the more I do it the better I will get at it. 

Once I did finally find a version I like I thought that I would record my voice in a way so that the listener heard the story. I tried several different ways to use the pitch of my voice to try to convey the story. I wanted to engage the listener in what I was saying. I searched for the right music track that would deliver a “children’s” type theme. While I didn’t think that audio is something I would like to do, I have changed my mind after listening to where I started to the end result. Though it could have been better I will be experimenting more with audio recordings. 

By: Darlene Waters

Sound Design – “Rubble”

by Jeff Pagano

This is my second version of Rubble.

The assignment was to use sound to create an emotional response, so that’s what I was going for. I don’t want to say too much because I want to let the listener be drawn in and draw their own conclusions. Please tell me in the comments what you think has just happened.

I did the first version for my Timeline Based Tools class, but I wasn’t satisfied with it. One minute was too short and I wanted to tell the story more clearly, so I started with the sounds I liked and started from scratch in Audition.

The idea first started with the song “Help, I’m Alive” by the Canadian band Metric. It’s about anxiety and the line “my heart keeps beating like a hammer” stuck in my head for days.

I started by recording loops of that line and the title on an iPad app called Loopy. I exported them to Audition and added delay. The heartbeat was a recording of a cloth being snapped and the water dripping was from my bathtub.

I put this all together in a multi-track sequence that starts with a gramophone needle clicking and popping. I wanted to convey that this was an old story, one that’s been experienced too many times. I guess my artistic motivation was to tell a story from a perspective we never hear. This is intense perspective and my point is it needs to stop.

The action begins with the character returning to consciousness and listening to what’s happening around him. The repeating thoughts and monotone voice are meant to convey his subscious mind. He’s dazed and deep in shock.

I spent a lot of time tweaking volume levels and used the panning feature extensively. If you listen closely you’ll hear it in the heartbeat and be able to sense the direction of travel of the tank, plane and marching feet. (It’s best to listen to this with headphones.)

After completing this project I have to admit it’s eerie and weird, but it is Halloween today, so I guess this was my way of expressing myself.

Below is the first version of Rubble, which now that I listen to it is a suitable prequel to the Revisited version.

An Unspoken Miracle

This short audio essay is about the power of words that can change the world or, at least, someone’s life. I believe in this power, and believe everyone has it inside. It just needs to be found and spoken.

Working on this project, I spent most time on just feeling life and hearing sounds around me. I had to go into the audio world from my familiar visual world. While walking with a recorder, I really missed my camera. However, it was an amazing experience. I tried to think how I can use the tools I usually use with my photography. How to highlight, tint, dodge, gradient, or dehaze sounds, how to use layers and masks in audio language. I experimented, played, and eventually, learned a lot. I know I have areas I need to learn more about. For example, it is how to clean the voice to perfection. I really struggled with this problem. I also struggled with English translation of my poems and my Russian accent. Nevertheless, it is my first audio project and experience with Audacity, so I am pretty satisfied with what I accomplished today. But tomorrow, I know, I will hate it, so I will continue to improve and develop the better multimedia designer inside of me. I think this is the key to growth, so it’s a good thing.

I used music and sounds from free libraries: https://samplefocus.com/ and https://www.soundjay.com/ I also recorded sounds of birds from the street. Plus, I used my own voice, texts, and a picture.

By: Lyu Gremli

The Lion and The Mouse

For this audio project I was trying to achieve the second option out of the three. Which was to read an Aesop fable and to record it. I tried to accomplish of achieving the realistic feel whilst reading this story aloud by using sound effects. Having the sound effects lead you through the story as I read them out loud. Finding the perfect sound for each part of the story. My experience with this project was positive. Nothing went wrong and I’m already familiar with using audio in my projects. As well as editing audio and adding sound effects. Putting this project was fairly easy, recorded my audio and imported it into premiere pro. After importing, I searched for sound effects that would fit this fable. Looking for lion and mice sound effects. Then some few other effects like a trap and rope getting tied. I really enjoyed looking for sound effects. Listening to many options making sure it was the perfect fit. I only struggled with finding a decent lion sound effect because all of them sounded extremely aggressive. Other than that specific sound, all the other ones were super easy to find. Overall this project was fun to do and I had enjoyed it.