Honestly, I was bummed when I was the only person in our class who didn't get to work with an entirely new 3 minutes of sound and a new title and meaning to accompany it. How come everybody else would breathe new life into their projects and i would be stuck with the same one.
But after starting to work on it, it was kind of cool to be able to say, " well we were thinking that this would mean this and that that was supposed to be that," as well as create visuals to convey those original ideas.
Morgan and I are each working on components of the visual accompaniment to the soundscape of i can see dancers in there. I've sketched out a few more ideas I want to add to the stuff I've done but want to be able to put real time into it. I'm blocking out this weekend to really add polish and quality to the finished portion of my parts.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Painting with Sound
Things learned from this project include the fact that hard drives have to be formatted for the right kind of computer. After making 99% of our project, we realized it had been saved on a hd formatted for a pc and couldn't open our project. So we had to recreate the project all over again.
but besides new technical knowledge, certainly more was gleaned from the project. learned new technical skills and gained more experience with fcp. I also learned that certain sounds, like certain images, next to each other can give them a new meaning. and altering them, like elongating a toilet flush can make it sound pretty and mysterious and not obvious and gross.
but besides new technical knowledge, certainly more was gleaned from the project. learned new technical skills and gained more experience with fcp. I also learned that certain sounds, like certain images, next to each other can give them a new meaning. and altering them, like elongating a toilet flush can make it sound pretty and mysterious and not obvious and gross.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
"striking" light observations
1
I’ve always heard and known that fluorescent lights are tinted green and will show up as green when you film them. But it wasn’t until this weekend when we were filming a project that I really noticed. We were in Bear Hall shooting some scenes in the hallway. We left the fluorescent lights on but added other lights and gelled them to bring out other tones. But when we got the shots we wanted and turned those other lights off I was standing there and saw the hallway and everyone in it turn from a warm yellow to a cold gross green. And that’s when I saw what everyone had been talking about.
2
I have a really bad habit of leaving my bedroom lamp on when I leave the house. But while I’m wasting precious energy, I’m also able to observe the shadows, the light and the contrast that the lamp makes on the blinds in the window. The curve of the lampshade is dark but as soon as the light gets to either the small opening in the top or the large one in the bottom it shoots out and lightens the dark. It’s kind of hard to explain but from the outside, if you didn’t know what it was you might think there was a solar eclipse going on in that room.
I’ve always heard and known that fluorescent lights are tinted green and will show up as green when you film them. But it wasn’t until this weekend when we were filming a project that I really noticed. We were in Bear Hall shooting some scenes in the hallway. We left the fluorescent lights on but added other lights and gelled them to bring out other tones. But when we got the shots we wanted and turned those other lights off I was standing there and saw the hallway and everyone in it turn from a warm yellow to a cold gross green. And that’s when I saw what everyone had been talking about.
2
I have a really bad habit of leaving my bedroom lamp on when I leave the house. But while I’m wasting precious energy, I’m also able to observe the shadows, the light and the contrast that the lamp makes on the blinds in the window. The curve of the lampshade is dark but as soon as the light gets to either the small opening in the top or the large one in the bottom it shoots out and lightens the dark. It’s kind of hard to explain but from the outside, if you didn’t know what it was you might think there was a solar eclipse going on in that room.
Friday, September 4, 2009
1A Response : esnopseR A1
First of all, every time I read the name of this assignment (do you hear what I hear) I hear the refrain of the Christmas song of the same title in my head.
This week I learned (or maybe relearned) how much fun it is to bang random objects together. Our first sound assignment and then the next class when we compared sound design to framing shots really made me think about what we hear in films. It's very true that we do take sound for granted sometimes. Most of the time while watching a film the sound tries to blend in, to bring dialogue to life or to highlight certain moments with a musical soundtrack. More often than not sound tries to mimic your ears by honing in on what sounds you would follow to understand the story.
So to think of sound as its own form (different from music and different from an auditory complement to a visual track) is kind of new for me. That's not to say that sound in narratives or documentaries isn't important. Now thinking back to different films I've seen, I guess that they've used sound to their advantage but never really drawn attention to it like certain visual edits do. Like making the ching-chang of a gun louder if it's more threatening, or making a creepy creaky floarboard in a ghost movie just loud enough so you lean in further to hear it.
While these techniques utilize the qualities of sound, they don't necessarily celebrate or focus on them, they merely serve to elevate the visual.
Maybe sound in experimental films can serve just like the visuals do, to make the viewer, or rather listener, experience things they hear all the time as something new.
Maybe sound is like this fish dude here, a great big beast whose mobility and freedom is being trapped by it's surroundings: the visual.
Other things I learned this week included how to set scratch disks and how to break and then fix a key on my keyboard. (the shift key)
This week I learned (or maybe relearned) how much fun it is to bang random objects together. Our first sound assignment and then the next class when we compared sound design to framing shots really made me think about what we hear in films. It's very true that we do take sound for granted sometimes. Most of the time while watching a film the sound tries to blend in, to bring dialogue to life or to highlight certain moments with a musical soundtrack. More often than not sound tries to mimic your ears by honing in on what sounds you would follow to understand the story.
So to think of sound as its own form (different from music and different from an auditory complement to a visual track) is kind of new for me. That's not to say that sound in narratives or documentaries isn't important. Now thinking back to different films I've seen, I guess that they've used sound to their advantage but never really drawn attention to it like certain visual edits do. Like making the ching-chang of a gun louder if it's more threatening, or making a creepy creaky floarboard in a ghost movie just loud enough so you lean in further to hear it.
While these techniques utilize the qualities of sound, they don't necessarily celebrate or focus on them, they merely serve to elevate the visual.
Maybe sound in experimental films can serve just like the visuals do, to make the viewer, or rather listener, experience things they hear all the time as something new.
Maybe sound is like this fish dude here, a great big beast whose mobility and freedom is being trapped by it's surroundings: the visual.
Other things I learned this week included how to set scratch disks and how to break and then fix a key on my keyboard. (the shift key)
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
sounds sounds all arounds
I sat in the library tonight a short distance outside the limits of Java City Proper. While trying to read one of my textbooks (and not making much progress) a certain noise caught my ear. There the buzz of conversations was overtaken by the powerful arresting sound of
the
B.B.B.B.BL.LLLL.EEEE.nder.
The sound of the blender is a whole eleven seconds long. First the ice and other ingredients battle: smashing and crunching against each other. Then they join forces in a thick slow resistance against the blender blades. Finally the blades win and celebrate for four seconds of motorized hum. That hum has been there for the entire time but is only noticeable now that the other sounds have subsided. The hum reaches a higher pitch for five seconds then it falls immediately asleep like coming out of hyperdrive.
On the other side of me in the library there was a book reading. I didn't realize when I sat down but my temporary nesting place was diagonally behind a podium and sound system where an organization had set up to have an author read from her book. It wasn't too distracting at first but then I noticed she had a certain way of pronouncing her
SHs into the microphone
Even though the author talked about a soldier fighting in the chaos of the war in Iraq, her SHs are very calm and soothing. I hear her SH sound in worlds likeMichigan, She, Machine guns very softly alive. SH. Her voice echoes distinctly in the microphone with every other spoken syllable but her SHs are extra drawn out. SH. They sound like a swish. SH. Like a swish of soft fabric. SH. Like bing underwater and feeling the water swish aways as you kick. SH.
When she finishes reading the applause sounds like rain and I go back to reading my book.
Nearby another student studying stands up and walks towards and then past me. The odd clapping of her steps draw me from my homework and back into the odd world of sound by
flipFLOPS
When she walked, she knew what she was doing and where she was going- her pace was fast. Her shoes sounded like their name. flip FLOP. The flip is when the shoe hits the bottom of her foot. It is a muffled fleshy pop. The FLOP thuds as her shoe hits the short stubby carpet.
The rythm is lopsided; the soft flips against the rough FLOP. I don't imagine her walking straight, but waddling from side (flip) to side (FLOP) creating the unbalanced sounds.
So much for getting some reading done.
the
B.B.B.B.BL.LLLL.EEEE.nder.
The sound of the blender is a whole eleven seconds long. First the ice and other ingredients battle: smashing and crunching against each other. Then they join forces in a thick slow resistance against the blender blades. Finally the blades win and celebrate for four seconds of motorized hum. That hum has been there for the entire time but is only noticeable now that the other sounds have subsided. The hum reaches a higher pitch for five seconds then it falls immediately asleep like coming out of hyperdrive.
On the other side of me in the library there was a book reading. I didn't realize when I sat down but my temporary nesting place was diagonally behind a podium and sound system where an organization had set up to have an author read from her book. It wasn't too distracting at first but then I noticed she had a certain way of pronouncing her
SHs into the microphone
Even though the author talked about a soldier fighting in the chaos of the war in Iraq, her SHs are very calm and soothing. I hear her SH sound in worlds likeMichigan, She, Machine guns very softly alive. SH. Her voice echoes distinctly in the microphone with every other spoken syllable but her SHs are extra drawn out. SH. They sound like a swish. SH. Like a swish of soft fabric. SH. Like bing underwater and feeling the water swish aways as you kick. SH.
When she finishes reading the applause sounds like rain and I go back to reading my book.
Nearby another student studying stands up and walks towards and then past me. The odd clapping of her steps draw me from my homework and back into the odd world of sound by
flipFLOPS
When she walked, she knew what she was doing and where she was going- her pace was fast. Her shoes sounded like their name. flip FLOP. The flip is when the shoe hits the bottom of her foot. It is a muffled fleshy pop. The FLOP thuds as her shoe hits the short stubby carpet.
The rythm is lopsided; the soft flips against the rough FLOP. I don't imagine her walking straight, but waddling from side (flip) to side (FLOP) creating the unbalanced sounds.
So much for getting some reading done.
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