Exploring Sound

        The goals of this project were to illustrate a 1-2 minute scene through only sound. We could use sounds from the internet, as well as at least 4 Foley sounds. The project was done in a group of 3 members.

    Our project outline.

    When starting the development of this project, me and my group members first started by brainstorming a few potential scene ideas. After some time discussing, we focused on trying to find a scene that would be concise enough to fit the time restriction, have certain iconic features that would make the soundscape distinguishable, and have a wide diversity of potential sounds. With these considerations in mind, we settled on a Mcdonald's drive through for a scene setting, and decided that the video would consist of the process of ordering and receiving food from this location. 

    After settling on the basic premise, we got started outlining, and began by writing out all of the primary and secondary sounds, we could potentially include in our project. After gathering a list of 20 sounds, we began to organize them into a coherent structure, adding in more sounds as we saw fit. Once we had our outline prepared, we began to search free online sound databases, where we found freesound.org to be the most useful, for suitable sounds. We would link the sounds we'd found onto our outline for easy access during editing. We also designated as per the project guidelines 4 sounds to be made with Foley, here is the footage of our group member creating those sounds.

    Finally, once all our sounds had been compiled in the outline and our Foley sounds were filmed, our group's editor, which was me, downloaded all of the sounds and began the editing process. The meticulous outline made this process rather easy, as the order that sounds were to be placed in was already determined. The hardest part of this process, was layering the sounds together, and adjusting their volumes in a realistic manner. This is what our editing timeline ended up looking like. 

Our Final Soundscape

Camera Shots and Angles Quiz

       Activity guidelines

    The objective of this activity, was to create a story through only stationary shots, compositions, and angles. The story could also only contain non-human subjects and the activity was done in a group of two. We were to tell this story through a series of 15 shots, including certain requirements for shots we must include. After having all of the images we were to place them in order in a slideshow, with identifications and explanations for the shots and compositions used. Along with the presentation we were also to include a short explanation of our story.

Summary of Project execution

    Before getting started and collecting our shots throughout the school, me and my partner created a rough storyboard of the project. We had a required set of shots, and this pre-planning was imperative in ensuring that we would include all requirements of the project, in a coherent manner.  It also allowed us to experiment with interesting ideas and compositions before putting them to practice. 

    Then, me and my partner went out into our school, and with our storyboard, photographed the shots that we had planned out. Once we returned to the classroom, we began to assemble our shots in a shared Google Slides presentation, and included our rationale for the chosen compositions. 

Reflection

    I am proud of the final project that arose out of this development.  However, there were certainly things we could have improved upon, and both positive and negative lessons to take. On the positive side, our pre-planning was very helpful in creating a satisfactory product, and allowed us to use shots and angles in a meaningful way throughout our project. On the other hand, the group dynamics could have been improved. My partner took the lead on the project, and would be resistant to my input which impeded the collaboration of ideas. Therefore, this activity taught me to be more direct with my communication in group projects, and to set group expectations and roles from the beginning of a project to ensure that all group and individual needs could be met.  

 

Camera Shots Quiz Project file

Introduction

 

Hello Blog readers! I'm Juan, an AICE MEDIA AS level student and creating this blog to document my progress throughout the course.