Unit 5 - Sound Production

 

Lesson 1 - Soundscape 


A Soundscape is a combination of sounds that can in a form an environment 

In the Videos that were shown to us here are what I heard and if they could make it more recognisable. The first one is the sound of a thunderstorm, the reason I could recognise these by the flow of water  and the loud sound in the background to make this more recognisable they could increase volume of the thunder and increase the flow of the rain, the next one is of a medieval battle the reason for this is the constant sounds of swords scarping of each other and screams of people heard in the background, to make this more recognisable they could add sounds of distant horses to fully indicant a battle of that period.

If you were to make a Park Soundscape things you were to hear is the sound of birds tweaking in the distance, a person riding there bike, a dog barking, distant of a football being kicked and two people talking as they walk. If you were to take away the birds the audience may think its a local street if you were to take away the dog barking it could be a town centre, if the bike sound was taken away you could interpret it as a large field.

Two Soundscapes that will be good to analyse would be a City Soundscape and a night forest soundscape the reason for these in particular because they have the most distinct sounds from a normal park and they are lot of sounds that make them what they are. Sounds that i intend to create is the sound a grasshopper or a sound of a owl hooting on a branch and the wind blowing through the leaves.

Task 1    

(9) Open Window New York City Soundscape at Night (Midtown Manhattan City Sounds) 4k - YouTube


Open Window New York City Soundscape Reference 



Forest at Night Sound Video Reference 


(9) Soundscape - Forest - YouTube


The first soundscape I will analyse is of City the individual sounds that can be heard in a city would be for example the sounds of cars driving past while the distant sounds of arguments being made and the loud car horns over the sound of traffic. Another sound that be heard is the constant sound of footsteps of people going to there destination through the footpath. One other sound that can be heard in a city would be the sound of car horns, the reason why these sounds form a city soundscape because these sounds happen almost constantly in most cites for example new York and Manhattan but also without them from a listeners perspective they may not feel like they are in a city at all. Another sound that if replaced that would effect the soundscape as a whole would be the sound of cars honking driving past, the reason why this sound would greatly effect the overall sound of the audio is that people wont think as the sound of New York anymore since it is very unlikely that you would hear the very populous city like New York to be silent, a way to increase the entire feel of the audio you could include the sound of construction being made or a couple of police driving past with their sirens on. Another thing that I did not include in till now is the sound of somebody's music playing in the background, to make it work so it doesn't overwhelm the other sounds, to make it work you make it faint so that you can hear it the background but not enough that it is the only thing you can hear. If you do this correctly and you mix them all together without one empowering the other you will get the perfect soundscape and you have mastered the art of Foley. 

The second thing to analyse would be of a soundscape of a night in a forest, for example the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves while a nocturnal owl is porched on branch hooting while the crickets play in unison, another sound that may be heard would be a passing fox screech. what makes these sounds unique to a forest is that you usually don't see a fox passing through the same area often so hearing it in its habitat is a good thing, if you were to take away a singular sound out of the soundscape it could be described as something different entirely, for example if the crickets chirp was taken away from the equation people would interpret as a regular day since crickets only chirp at night, to make this even more immersive there could be a distant sound a wolf howl since seeing a wolf in for example seeing a wolf in a forest is common. Another thing that if removed would make the overall sound different is the sound of the wind blowing through the trees, the reason for this would be that if not already stated the listener wouldn't quite know if they were forest at all and would understandably think it could just a plain grasslands. If you wanted to be more immersive and lifelike in this soundscape you can add the following the gentle sound of a pond going downstream or you can include a nearby waterfall splashing against the rocks below to really get a feel for the environment you are listening to and if you did it correctly it will sound like you actually went there instead of making yourself with the usage of Foley 

Task 2  

For my Soundscape that I hoping to recreate through the use of Foley, is of a Forest and here is the sounds i want to make is the wind whistling through the trees, I can produce this sound by gently blow into the mic so when i mix it together it would sound somewhat realistic, another sound I can make in the soundscape would be the distance sound of running of a animal, i can recreate this through Foley since I can use shoes and do it in a distance so it could be heard of a animal running in a distance and even the flow of water in the background i can replicate this by gently using my hand through water

In Another soundscape, that I could replicate through the use of Foley is of a City the sounds I could have is the sound of footsteps which can be heard when enter a populated street, another thing that you often hear in populated City's like New York and Chicago, is the constant sound of car horns and the inaudible audio of people talking and arguing as they walk past. 

Narrative - For my Forest Narrative Soundscape it would be of a man walking through leaves and stepping on branches and mud puddles, when he encounters a bear, the bear roars from his sudden appearance in its territory and he gasps and sprints off to avoid the impending danger. 

Ideas -   The Bear Sound I can simply import from YouTube if I am unable to recreate it myself, the wig sound I can do myself by finding a twig somewhere around the college, Footsteps i can recreate by using some hooves or shoes and the puddle I can try finding a bucket and putting a shoe in it. Finally the leaves in which is the easiest to recreate around the college since I can find one use those to capture the sound.  

Lesson 2 - Foley 

Foley is the practice of adding sounds to added video to improve the overall experience of a film or TV in which all sounds can be used for example everyday items or objects.


Foley is used in film when a sound in a film needs to be enhanced in post production for example the sound of walking on snow or even a thunder storm, most sounds can be replicated like snow is just sand and a sound of a boat is just a towel and someone putting there hand through water and another role is a mixer in which they put the made sounds together

Creation of a Podcast based on Foley

(18) Episode 1 Barbatos - Foley - YouTube    This is the 4 minute podcast that I and three others created where we talked about the Origin of Foley and how and when Foley is created in the industry 


Lesson 3 - Score/Soundtrack

The score is a simply sound a piece of media specifically crafted by a composer to fit the overall tone of the film or tv show, and a soundtrack is a collection of music that was collected by the director to be used in the film, for example the characters favourite type of music would be selected to fit the tone.

Task 3 - Creating a Soundscape

https://youtu.be/sAoG7qBn4h8

This is a Soundscape of a Forest I created through the use of Foley. The way I got the noises together was creating all the sounds myself then mixing them all so when you listen to the audio it seems like you are hearing the actual environment you are recreating, the first thing I did was doing a sound of walking and running though fallen leaves, I collected enough leaves and with a quiet room I did the sounds and if it isn't quite loud enough you can increase the audio through the editing software, I did the gasp myself plus I did the splash effect but in retrospect  I could of done it better to make it sound more believable since if you silence the other sounds it sounds like something different entirely. The two sounds that i had to borrow of YouTube was the bear roar sound and the background sound of the wind blowing through trees, the reason I did this was I couldn't replicate a good enough sound to be believable when making the soundscape. Lastly the editing, since it was my first ever full attempt to you use Adobe Premier Pro it took some time to understand the software, when I started i had to change things like making the audio sound loud enough and figuring out how to export the audio i created on to YouTube. 

Evaluation

If I had done something differently when making this audio I would practice editing more since i was quite new when making soundscape and I feel like if I knew all the things that can be done throughout the software I could of done it smoother than I have now and even better since i would know all the settings, also I would be better at editing in general since video editing and audio editing are in the same software, another thing I would have done better would be simply to learn more about Foley since if i knew the things that make the right sound I feel like I could of done a better job, how I would do this would  be I would look into Foley through YouTube and some other sources. Another thing i would add in the future would to get more the one clip of each sound so when the audio you have isn't great you could use the second clip as a backup when needed, another thing when making it through editing try to use those clips together so it does not sound like the same clip getting repeated over and over again. If i had any strengths when making the soundscape i would say that did a good job of using what I had and making it work in my favour, especially when sounds I used wasn't particularly great. One last thing with this experience of making a Foley soundscape if I were to do it again I feel like I would do it slightly better since i know what to expect when making one.    




 

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