I wanted to use this video assignment as an excuse to work with different types of light-end visual effects and transitions that I had picked up from another class that I’m currently taking. There were a few rough moments, but when dealing with most of the issues that came into play, I was able to discover a work-around. In addition, I was often finding myself getting lost in options and possibilities. While this is not a bad problem to have, it is one that could have drowned me if I had let it. I needed to learn how to relax on the controlling aspect and let myself see the video in its entirety and not obsessively focus on its little pieces. So this was also a good exercise in learning how to make fast decisions and manage production time.
I enjoyed the fact that this made me want to go further in different areas of editing and video production. It was something that I did a bit of in high school, and I had forgotten how much passion I held for it. It’s been a beautiful thing to come back to, and I have a lot to learn. I’m looking forward to the work.
For this assignment, I wanted to tell one of Aesop’s Fables, “ The Bear & The Bees ”. These short stories are intriguing and interesting to read. I wanted to find one that had wildlife characters, and an environment in the forest. I also chose “ The Bear & The Bees “ because it was a Fable that I hadn’t heard before and wanted to learn something new along with this project. My ultimate goal with this P4 Audio project was to tell this story using dialog, including environmental sounds and give the listener a more immersive listening experience. Adobe Audition is super new to me, and I had a great time playing around with the program for this assignment. There is still so much to learn and utilize in Audition and I look forward to improving my audio work. The audio effects and ambient noises I used were all free, non copyrighted audio downloads on freesound.org. They range from sounds like ambient forest/field sounds, with birds chirping in the background, a swarm of bees flying around and darting near the microphone, to a cannonball splash sound effect to enhance the section of the fable that talks about the bear evading the bees by jumping into the water. The Sound Cloud bear photo is also non copyrighted and free to download. Overall I feel like I understood this assignment and learned more about audio editing programs.
This assignment was a fun journey of learning new skills and eventually being able to realize my initial idea. In the beginning I had many different scenarios in mind, but I was able to settle on my final product because it is what I found the most inspiring. My concept allowed for a lot of room to expand on sound effects and the overall atmosphere I wanted to convey. It was a bit challenging in the beginning trying to find ways to get the effects I wanted in my audio, as well as collecting all the sounds I wanted to use; but once it started clicking it was a smooth process that really became enjoyable. My least favorite part was recording my own voice for the narration, because I could never feel satisfied with my voice and the way I read my story. But once I added all of my various audio in to create my mix, I felt satisfied with the result. I want the feeling of my project to be a calm, cozy morning in a beautiful hillside town straight out of the Hobbit movie. The Shire.
Name: Pretend Podcast by Lady Diaz About: You are listening to the last minute of a random mystery episode from a pretend podcast. Production progress: 1. Come up with story ideas. 2. Search for audios that match what I had in mind. 3. Record my voice, multiple takes. 4. Edit the audio to match in loudness, get rid of noise, crop unwanted areas. 5. Rearrange and adjust so that the story is clear.
Struggles: I lost some voice files and had to retake everything halfway through.
What I learned: This is the first time I have created a story through sound. For any obstacles encountered such as altering voice, removing unwanted noise, I used youtube tutorials to help me and learned new editing techniques.
It took me a couple hours to make. i added a voice changer to the mom. They didn’t have any free whistle sound effect and i can’t whistle. So i made my mom do the whistle for the audio. I record all of it on my phone so that’s why the audio is not the best.
I knew from the beginning I wanted an audio project related to Star Wars. Some of my ideas were Alan Rickman acting as a Star Wars character and a trio of heroes trekking across a desert. But given my love for movies, and Star Wars is more than movies to me, I wanted to make an audio project that had the two coexisting. The most common high point for movies is the Oscars, and what if a Star Wars character was a Best Actor Oscar winner? Someone particular came into my head: he’s a bad guy who only appeared in the prequel movies, but the actor had a fantastic acting style, so I thought the character would be a good fit.
I knew I could finish this with good writing and my voice impression. Crafting the perfect lines that would resonate with fans of both Star Wars and the Oscars was a challenging but rewarding experience. The writing needed to balance between Dooku’s fictional persona and the real-world nature of the Oscars. Recording the speech was a thrilling experience. I worked meticulously on my voice modulation to emulate Dooku’s distinctive, refined tone, ensuring it sounded authentic and immersive. The recording process was a mix of retakes and adjustments until I achieved the desired result. This phase allowed me to hone my voice-acting skills and familiarize myself with audio editing software.
After the lines I wanted to be recorded by myself and a colleague, post-production was another crucial phase. I integrated the ambient sounds of an Oscars ceremony to create a believable atmosphere. Properly mixing and editing the audio was essential to ensure a seamless, professional-quality final product. This stage introduced me to the technical aspects of audio production, including sound editing and effects, which I found incredible.
Overall, my audio project, featuring Count Dooku’s Oscars acceptance speech, was a creative journey that allowed me to explore the fusion of fictional and real-world elements. It was a project that tested my scripting, voice acting, and audio editing skills, and the result was a captivating and unique piece of audio that I’m proud to have gotten done.
The link embedded here will disclose that I don’t own anything copyrighted.
I was trying to make a creepy song that reminds me of sirens. I named the song “the wail of sirens” because of this. I struggled recording the instruments correctly, though, so the audio isn’t so good. I also added wave sounds to match the theme. Since we had to do some storytelling, I added the song name, something about sirens, and something about myself and how I feel about the ocean.
I’ve always liked the ocean, and living near it. I’ve always felt a deep connection to water, and it reflects through sports I played growing up. I did water polo, competitive swimming, and boat rowing. But the ocean has always resonated with me, especially when I was living in Humboldt. It was one of the reasons I stayed there so long, but life brought me to the city. One of my favorite beaches is also Cape Kiwanda, which is on the northern coast of Oregon. I used to go there with my family a lot, but now I just go by myself.
It’s been a while since I swam consistently, and I miss it a lot. I hope when I’m older I can live somewhere cold, near a big body of water. That’s the dream.
In this assignment, my goal is to set up an environment that lets the listener fully immerse themselves in a story. Using special effects such as owl noises, ambient sounds, and dreamy, fairy-tale-like music, I wanted to craft a narrative that sounded like a lullaby. The creative use of a free soundtrack and enchanting special effects transport our audience to a place where the story is happening: a forest. By changing the tone of voice I try to impersonate the characters. This audio offers the comfort of a bedtime story. It’s like an escape, a way to the most peaceful of dreams. The Audio tells at the same time a story and teaches us a great life lesson. It shows how flattery can sometimes be used against us.
My intention with reading this Aesop’s fable was to create a recording of the story that my children, or other children in my life, would enjoy listening to. I enjoyed recording The North Wind & the Sun, as well as providing the sound effects of the North Wind blowing. That was achieved by recording myself making the noise of wind blowing and replacing the parts where I had to take a breath with the last few seconds of audio, but in reverse. The music I used for the recording was “Magic” by drób, which I found on freemusicarchive.org. I had originally recorded an alternate story, but the one I initially recorded I ended up finding difficult to record or think of sound effects for, so I chose one that I felt would work better for this project. I enjoyed working on this project, in part, because it lines up well with what I would love to do once I get my degree, which is to be able to do voice acting. I also enjoyed the process of editing the audio itself, and would love to learn more about how to be an audio engineer.
