Reflective Summary: James Woodliffe

James Woodliffe / / Uncategorized

I am not normally a fan of group projects due to them usually going 1 of 2 ways: Someone doing all the work because everyone else is lazy or one person doing all the work and not telling the rest of the group because of their past experiences with aforementioned laziness. Luckily, this did not happen in our group.

I have had tasks similar to this before and I have found that the hardest part is having a concept that you can feasibly do and you are motivated to do it. Past experience has taught me not to procrastinate on an idea and to get working. We nailed a good idea pretty quickly into the process and had ideas flowing equally within the group; which is very rare in group tasks in my past experiences. This was refreshing and we set up a group meeting to discuss further at a later date.

At the meeting we discussed in detail about the initial idea of travelling to Skegness to record the cliche sounds of the beach and have a nostalgic theme for people who had been there when they were younger. We decided to split the soundscape up by using footsteps as a transitional piece and we booked out a Zoom Hn4 and recorded footsteps and ambience sounds to have an idea as to what our transitional pieces will sound like. First Daniel walked on gravel and we followed behind with the Zoom, then we did the same on concrete. I suggested that we record ambience and wind outside the student bar and then on the walkway over the railway. I recorded 1 minute of ambience at both and also footsteps on the walkway too. Daniel also got a great stereo recording of a train passing by from L to R. The test recordings were a good experience before the actual day of recording.

The time finally came for us to go to Skegness and we were slightly surprised we even made it there and didn’t choose a different idea. However, I am glad we stuck it out and did a more creative concept. The issue that we came across in Skegness was that we went just out of season, which meant that a lot of the promenade was shut and also was the funfair. This did not stop us though and we managed to get a lot of recorded material on the beach and arcades.

Due to other group work projects having closer deadlines we left the editing close to the end and were more concerned with finishing that, which for myself was frustrating but we were lucky that we had everything recorded several weeks prior and ready to go with a good plan for our final product. Due to everyone’s schedules and leaving the editing close to the end I was not able to attend the editing session on Tuesday, which is frustrating however I think Ross Daniel and Declan have done a very good job with the project and have been a pleasure to work with.

If I took anything away from this project to improve on I would plan to have more time to finish all my work quicker, that being said we still have time left.

Reflective Summary: Declan Bryan

Declan Bryan / / Uncategorized

When the assessment got brought to our attention, I was thoroughly pleased with the task in hand and I was looking forward to producing a piece of work within a group we didn’t fully know yet.

After our first seminar, James and I decided to work together as we knew what each other were like creatively and how each of us work. With this Ross and Dan joined the group and the ideas started coming out. Dan came up with the idea of doing it at the seaside to which James and myself enjoyed as we lived near a seaside which we knew rather well. At the bottom of the stairs, we arranged when we were going to meet next and we went our separate ways to think about the sounds and the narrative we could include within the soundscape. I felt really positive about this project due to the promptness of the proactive group I was in.

When I got home I thought of and made note of the sounds associated with the seaside and looked at pictures online to get extra ideas that were outside the box.

Once we met up all our ideas were brought to the table and I was impressed that all our ideas were very similar and that the narrative idea of nostalgia came up. We picked the location, Skegness, the narrative, nostalgia between 3 different locations within Skegness and the sounds we were going to capture while we were there. Whilst thinking of how we were going to record the sounds, we thought of the equipment we could use and the way in which we could record them. To finalise these thoughts, we decided to arrange another meet were we would do some test recordings. We thought that we should focus mainly on the footsteps and the transitions walking from one surface to another. He decided that we would book out a Zoom H4n which was a handheld recorder that we learnt how to use a few days prior to the meeting.

Whilst doing the test recordings, Daniel was the main subject to who we were going to record, Ross and James were the people that were recording and I was the one who was writing up our findings, drawing mic positions and taking note of any technical settings we chose to use. This was rather fun but serious at the same time as everyone within the group were getting involved and we all let each other record something on the Zoom. Personally I felt that this was fair and showed a great impression on work to come as we were all having a laugh but also taking things seriously. We then worked on the pitch for our presentation.

We left going to Skegness until after the presentation so we could efficiently include all our findings within the pitch.

Whilst in Skegness, the thought of “have we got enough recordings” kept echoing in my mind as I kept forgetting that we only had 2-3 minutes for the soundscape itself. After collecting the sounds we then went back. If I am honest, other projects took precedence within our group which pushed the editing stage further and further away. Panic started and although this should have been done before, we just had to focus on the task in hand so we met up in the editing suit and sat down as a group and worked on putting the soundscape together and trying to think of ways we can edit and manipulate the sounds to match the narrative. Despite the panic, we all worked really well and efficiently and took it in turns to edit and do paperwork.

Overall we worked really well as a team to get it done to this standard and I am happy with the work we have produced however, next time I believe we should do things a little sooner to prevent any panic close to deadline date and also maybe experiment with different recorders and different microphones.

Reflective Summary: Daniel Marnie

Daniel Marnie / / Editing

This project has been very enjoyable. Being able to create a soundscape of anything we wanted was a freedom that I had not anticipated we would enjoy right at the start of the course, and I thoroughly enjoyed this module as a result. I had an idea for a soundscape during the presentation on the assessment, and as I thought about it I liked it more and more. I caught Ross, James and Declan as they left the lecture and asked if I could work in their group, and then pitched my idea. By the time we got downstairs we had agreed to use it, and arranged to meet up a few days after to talk more in depth about what we wanted to create. Group work is something I have never particularly enjoyed, but working within a group that I was comfortable with, who were all motivated to make something good, was a really nice experience. When we delivered our presentation, I felt confident about our idea, and aside from running over and being unable to play the test sounds we had recorded with a H4N Zoom a few weeks prior, the presentation went well.

When it came to recording in Skegness we had several problems concerning closed attractions that were to be in our soundscape, so we were forced to focus on the town rather than the funfair. This was due to us as a group not organising our time effectively. We also had problems with some of the recordings that had unwanted sounds within them, and should have been recorded better. Having a list of all the sounds we wanted to capture would have been a great help here.

Unfortunately we left the editing of the soundscape a little close to the wire, and next time I will be sure to being work on projects far sooner, both when recording (see above) and editing. Editing did go rather smoothly though, and I was able to put many of the techniques I had learnt in David’s workshops to practical use. I particularly enjoyed experimenting with the automation of panning clips, and gradually seeing the soundscape come to life was a very rewarding feeling. Ross, Dec and I all met up on Tuesday 16th Dec to work on the soundscape, and Ross began editing the arcade scene. We decided to share the editing between us, giving each member creative control, whilst remaining open to feedback. Dec and I wrote some blog entries, and then Dec and Ross swapped, and Dec worked on the seaside scene. I then worked on the town scene, and ended up re-organising a lot of Ross and Dec’s work. I cleaned up the walking track, and automated the panning and volume of certain tracks in the town and arcade scenes, as well as adding the small section at the end with the subject walking onto the pier. I’ve learned that editing and producing a piece of audio of this complexity takes a lot longer than I thought, so proper planning is definitely something I need to focus on improving.

I feel far more confident using Pro Tools as a result of this project, and am happy with how the soundscape has turned out. I’m aware that it no longer fits the brief perfectly, but that is due to our inexperience in project planning, and next time I do a project like this, I will endeavour to be better prepared.

Editing and scripting

Ross Lyall Blair / / Editing

The group convened in the edit suite to begin putting the soundscape together. With the soundscape being split into three distinct sections, or locations, I place markers on the edit window so that everyone working on it would know when each section started and finish. I also placed a marker at the end, dead on 2 minutes. I started editing and decided to focus on the “arcade” section of the soundscape. One of the difficulties I faced was the naming of the recordings. Dan had noted down descriptions for some of the files but not all of them. On the day off the recording I listened through and renamed the files that I had recorded individually, but I wrongly assumed that the rest of the group had done the same for theirs. This made locating the sounds I needed for editing more difficult and time consuming. Nonetheless I was able to put the section together and I passed the project on to the rest of the group. After listening back to what the others did, I added a few effects to enhance the atmosphere in some places and tweaked some of the panning to emphasise the sense of movement. At some point Dan noticed that I had neglected to allow for time set aside for ending the soundscape on the pier and the preceding sections had to be altered to allow for this.

A timeline for the soundscape had already been agreed upon, but it had not yet been set in stone. After all the sound clips were in place and the group were happy with the way it sounded I created the timing script, showing a second by second account of what was occurring and when.

Problems We Faced Recording in Skegness

Daniel Marnie / / Uncategorized

Our trip to Skegness was ill timed, and this unfortunately meant that we had to make some sweeping changes to our plans. We recorded on 20th November, which in retrospect was far too late. Our soundscape had originally had elements of the fairground in it, but the fairground was closed for the winter, and we were unable to record as a result. The same could be said for several of the nostalgic seaside elements; summertime was over, and so the beach was pretty much empty. This was due to us not organising our time properly, and if we were to redo this, recording everything earlier would be the number one priority.

This has caused our soundscape to differ from the original brief somewhat, but we felt that the setting and transitions we had planned would still make for an interesting and engaging piece of audio. On the day of recording, I did quite a lot of it, as I was the one walking and recording footsteps. I used a pair of boots that produced a nice sharp clack on concrete, which contrasted nicely with the soft crunchy sound produced when walking through sand, as well as the thud when walking on carpeted arcade floor. When recording, I held the H4N towards my feet, and recorded in stereo, so left and right footsteps came through on different channels. When listened back to with headphones, it placed the listener right in the shoes of the subject, which is an artistic decision we decided upon when experimenting earlier in the term.

Audio was either recorded whilst I was walking, or as static clips. Much of the arcade was recorded this way, and we are going to use layering, fades, and panning to produce the effect of the subject walking past machines. The pier was also shut, but we managed to find some decking that wasn’t locked off, and so recorded footsteps on there, with the intention of adding wave and bird sounds, to bring the journey back round to the beginning. I liked the idea of the subject stopping and grabbing onto the guardrail to end the soundscape, and recorded several versions of this grab with the H4N.

Apart from several key features that were locked off to us, I think that the day was a productive one, and we returned to Lincoln in the evening confident that we had recorded good quality clips, that would all fit into a coherent soundscape.