Author: Declan Bryan

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.

To record the sounds for our soundscape, we took a day trip to Skegness. The equipment we took with us was a Zoom H4n recorder and a Mirantz recorder with external microphone. We chose to take both so we could get two people recording and the other two people within the team would create the noises. This would also be useful to get the perspective of the individual walking and collecting the external sounds.

Upon arrival we headed to the beach as it was the start of our soundscape and we wanted to capture the sounds in chronological order. When setting up the recorders for outside use (turning on and putting the outdoor, wind mufflers on) we tried doing some test recordings. To capture a stereo feel, we set the microphones built in the Zoom recorder to 120 degrees which would allow us to capture wider, ambient sounds.

Whilst setting up the Mirantz, We noticed that the Mirantz kept coming up with an error to do with the memory card so to try identify the problem, we switched the memory card form the zoom and put it in the Mirantz however, the error message kept appearing. We checked the memory cards had been formatted before use so this problem unfortunately eliminated the use of the Mirantz and external microphone. The main focus of our recording was to try to collect the footsteps as this was the main part of our soundscape which was going to be used for the transitions between each location.

To record the footsteps, Daniel held the zoom recorder pointing down at his feet to create a stereo feel whilst walking which would put the audience in the shoes of our character.