So far

Howdy

initial proposal doc is going well, draft tree diagram has been sent to Brian to see if he could look over it and im learning a lot atm and finding the new terms to be very interesting :) like External and Internal Sound Logic. :P

fantastic stuff if you would like to have a read check out Michel Chion´s book Audio Vision or check out Filmsound.org HERE

once the tree diagram is verified I can start planning the Objectives and Tasks to them input into my proposal :)

have a great day

Docs

Howdy

Initial docs are being drafted up now for Proffesional Practice and Research methods and dissertation :)

Tree diagram version 1 complete also

Hopefully - time permitting - i will have at least one full draft document by this weekend

have a great day

Web reference

Howdy Just putting up a web reference for all to see that I will be using as it has some awesome citations on some genres of film.

HERE

Seems the best place to get good knowledge on Film sound effects is through the books and web articles from good sources rather than journals at the moment but I will keep trying of course.

Have a great day

wall-e

Howdy

Heres some inspirational and creative thinking shown in the design of the sound Wall-E film :)

videos can be found HERE at an interview blog :)

have a great day

Heylo

Howdy

Got a list of Movies that could have potential Interesting key audio aspects in it that allow me to build up a sort of chart that will detail the different aspects of audio used in different scenes like Eraserhead which I havent seen in a while - apocalypse now which i have seen and written notes on ( which was not given back to me at the end of the last year i was at Abertay so its gone now :| ) and a few others which I will detail.

Also I did not have the meeting yesterday for Magicode games but will have it today at 2:30, fingers crossed.

I should be starting soon hopefully to post up the official docs or info used in the docs for the universitys hand-ins - and much more hopefully as their hand-ins are guidelines but the projects go way beyond usually :P

have a great night :P

Few updates

Howdy

Time today was really scarce in allowing me to type up notes so I haven't yet but they are there for Honours Project and the Documentary (which I can talk about) and tonight I will be having my first meeting as Audio Designer for Magicode games :) a small independant student group which makes... games :P

Oh and also doing the NextlevelDundee showcase music :D - I can't help myself must do loads of Audio Projects!!!! :P

Catch you all soon

Have a great day

First Day filming

Howdy

Today was the first day filming got some nice notes all down which i wil post later on if i feel so inclinded to show progress :P and also watched a documentary to get some ideas today called Objectified at the DCA :) not bad for a day.

So with that said i've now got a few ideas of how we should film still shots with the documentarys agenda of showing consultation at the christmas festival and the process involed in getting there :)

Will soon look at specifically sound effects in Film as thats the area I want to look at assuming the online library will be nice to me and have some interesting articles to read on another day not today, and got a hankering to get an interview with possibly people at the DCA or someones whos involved to get their opinion.

Thats all for now :)

Have a great day

Working for SignPost International

Howdy

I probably should have mentioned this sooner but Abertay University was approached by Signpost International a Community help Group who want to make a Documentary - long story short Im helping :) and Tomorrow is the first day of shooting so It will be invaluable knowledge as Ive only made one scripted action film short Directed and Played by me :P and partially filmed and edited by.

So working with a Team the same size, 3, And I'm not sure If i can say much more about it right now, will need to ask :)

So yeah look out for the Video some time soon hope you enjoy :)

Have a great day

Another list of cool inventions

Howdy :)

Heres another link to another msn gallery (which has been shown before) that is focused on inventions to make the human body 'better' - which I always enjoy as you know if you read my blog :)

HERE

Here are some of the images incase you dont want to navigate away :P

The Argus II

The Argus II is a minuscule artificial eye that attaches to the retina via 60 electrodes. Stephen Rose, chief research officer at the Foundation Fighting Blindness, says it has “great potential for giving vision to people with the most advanced retinal disease.” With the second phase of human trials underway, expect production models this year.

Revolution

The soon-to-be-released Revolution is a dumbbell with a hi-tech difference: you can choose how heavy it is without the need to attach more weights. Spherical weights spin inside the dumbbell at different speeds. The faster they go, the more outward force is generated and the heavier it feels. You select the load you want, shown on the LCD display. Designer Sang-Hoon Lee told T3, “Many people don’t work out because of a lack of space and time, but because this is slim and light – once turned off – it allows busy people to exercise.”

i-Limb Hand

Developed in Scotland, the i-Limb Hand from Touch Bionics is literally a bionic hand, so the future has arrived. As things stand, you wouldn’t chop off a good hand just to get one, but as Ray Edwards, boss of the Limbless Association commented on his own i-LIMB: “It has given me such a boost, both physically and mentally. It has changed my life.”

HAL

Finally, if you can’t be doing with upgrading your body one bit at a time then the robot suit HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb – not to be confused with the homicidal computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey) will do the job in a single, step-motored reboot.Japanese manufacturer Cyberdyne Inc (not to be confused with the homicidal computer company in The Terminator) plans to make 500 this year. HAL’s inventor Yoshiyuki Sankai reckons the suit can, “multiply human strength by a factor of two to ten”. It also makes you look like a gladiator from Tron.

Look nice don't they :)
Hopefully soon I will get to go to another ECA Art showing which always opens your mind when seeing fresh minds work on the materials and skills used by other artists than in your own media - sometimes both :P

Have a great day

Question edited

Howdy

This is what I am thinking of modifying it too

What bearing does the amount of sound effects in any scene in a film have on how that scene is interpreted?

So just mixed a round a little :P but Im still thinking of changing 'any scene' in a film to something more specific atm this isn't a terrible set back so soon I will go ahead and draft my first proposal with tasks objectives and then think about the exact aim again :)

Have a great day

Question formulation

Howdy

This is what I have at the moment:

Does the amount of sound effects in any scene in a film have any bearing on how that scene is interpreted?

I have somewhat left the animation idea on backburner as for the style i would like to use my audio in i believe it would need to be created as the style in films is only in short increments like predator / alien, or mousehunt = camera angles suggesting the view through the 'character's eyes.

Have a great day

Vocals mixing

Howdy

researching into singing vocals mixing at the moment then will move onto film, for music it seems the key points are

1----compressor tiny bit use sparngly

2----16K haaa air frequency - boost
high pass filter at 86hz
-250hz muddy freq experiment with this

3----compressor at 6k down to about -24db to avoid the hiss from 's' only when there is a peak at 6k

:) peachy - from Tutorial 1: Mixing Vocals in Pro Tools Series Part 1 on Youtube

Also its usually best for home recordings to use a nice warm dynamic mic like a Shure SM58, well I dont have 100 pounds to splash on a mic so got the much cheaper Shure C606 which has been tested and is sounding good so far - I might just need to get a portable vocal booth as im using a sheet of card atm which only cancels some background noise and reverb.

have a great day

The new song i was working on :)

Howdy

I managed to create a short loop based on the composing technique of Greg Edmonson who composed the soundtracks to Firefly :)

You may not recognise the similarity but its in one of his songs :P

you can hear it at my website song 11, or Here Hope you like it :)

Have a great day

Floating citys

Howdy

Loving the new innovation of these floating city designs :P all at

This Link

Heres some images if you dont want to navigate away :) All done by Architect Vincent Callebaut/Image © Philippe Steels.

have a great day

This is what inspires me in my audio creation :)

learning from the masters

Howdy

Today im listening to Greg edmonson a composer for the series Firefly and from the song 'In my bunk' i am taking key points from the song and seeing if I can create a soothing melody in the same way :)

more update on that soon

have a good day

sound study

Howdy

Just to get some ideas going and trying new things I recorded some ambience outisde my flat a ew nights ago and now have converted one clip of that which had chattering a car a bus or two etc into what i call the bus reactor :P

original track > HERE
Bus reactor > HERE

Just to show you can get nearly anything from any sound.

Also some inspiration that hekps me is the sculpture and fine art students at ECA, edinburgh College of Art and one 3rd year group has a site which i built and they designed with soem hosted pictures and links to their blogs :)

Bru-d Website

And lastly for today my website where I put all my creative music up on but not sound effects as of yet as its a lot to get through and would put up a few if demanded :)

My Website

have a great day

Review

Howdy

ok putting up the generalised questions i have come up with and going to choose 2 to work on more and research into it.

Subject areas and ideas pertaining to them


Option 1

A study of how abstract sound effects can tell a different story from realistically represented sound effects and no sound effects in film.


Option 2

A study of how abstract voices are different at showing more than just emotion than normal voices in Animation context.


Option 3

The absence of sound, ie Samurai Jack – Few vocals and sound effects, usually focuses on either music vocals or sound effects at any one point than all together. Final Fantasy Dissidia – Dialogue boxes even have sound effects when used, everything as a sound effect and is always accompanied by music.

Proposal
What do fewer sound effects do for an Animation – maybe one reason is because Samurai Jack is a simple animation they wanted simple sound effects not to clog up the ambience and also having to sync them all up would be time consuming.


Option 4

How would the same amount of sound effects used in particular scenes in a film change the way a simple animation is perceived, ie fight scene.


Option 5

What would be the most effective way of using sound to portray voices in an animation without using language.


Option 6

Does a sparse use of audio make you focus on the opposite or more so on the other audio aspects in animation.

Option 7

Can visual design / art / coding techniques be used to:

1) Design effective Audio in a ‘media’
2) Create convincing character dialogue
3) Create effective spatialisation in audio aspects
4) Manipulate diagetic sound / non diagetic sound design
5) Design environmental sound design

Option 8

Perception of Sound – Manipulation of Sound source and image syncing

Are peoples fears of something in anyway imposed upon them by others around them their fears of the same thing? Like spiders for example

At a young age children are impressionable and in some cases I believe that others fear of something could enhance a disliking of instil a fear of such things solely because of others around you.

Assuming fear of something can be encouraged by those around you having the same fear – can sounds therefore encourage your fear or emotional response of a static image.

Can a sound accompaniment to static images change how you perceive certain things?

A series of paintings enhanced by audio accompaniment through headphones.

Ok and the winners are (after consultation)

Option 4 and 6 combined to create a study on the sounds (unsure which to specify at this stage) of a film short or film clip and see what the outcomes are if i changed the levels and or amount of sound effects used within.

Along with my earlier project proposal of the animation and the spider basing the theory of where the effective medium lies when mixing in for the affects of how a spider or otherwise hears sound.

:)

have a great day

Just a thought

hmm just a thought do you think peoples fear of something is anyway imposed upon them by others fears of the same thing? like spiders for example.

I dont like them but I think my early fears of them was possibly spawned by others fear of them possible reinforcing my dislike for them, well fears a strong word I spose and could be age aswell, the younger you are the more impressionable you get. Not going to say more scared at a younger age cause in some cases that isn't true and im only focusing on the part where others influence you.

Even in just a few cases I think this could be true, Could there be an Audio aspect to this I could explore? will hopefully find out soon :)

have a great day.

Sketching an Idea visualisation

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At the fork

Howdy,

Well here I am unsure as how to get a project idea out of my aimed interests; abstract use of sound and sound localisation/ spatialisation and unsure where to go.

I have thought of a few more ideas in which incorporate my recent findings such as:

An animation of a spider and 2 people talking the shots would rotate once every 3 secs ish for a 30 second animation betwen the moving spider on the wall behind the people > close shot, blurred and noise is 'abstractly portrayed as vibration but enough to understand that it is speach. Then switch to the shot of the 2 people talking in which the dialoge is undestandale and the spider a small dot on the wall slowly moving down it. The climax is one of the persons sqaushign the spider and the hook is the dialogue which would be intermittently changed byt he spiders perspective being heard by the listener and that would make for interesting line jumps which would confuse the listener.

So thats one idea put into action for a final product, but whats the question!

As a result of my inability to do so, so far i have tried looking at makign questions which are related like.

A study of how abstract use of sound effects can tell a different story from realisticly represented sounds/no sound effects or just foley.
(or something like that)

Also

A study of how abstract voices are different at showing more than just emotion and intent than normal voices in Animation context.

So these are a few of the lines I've been working on so far but now i turn to my sketh book to see if i can draw out an idea :P

catch you later and have a great day

Critic of initial idea

Ok finally got some feedback on the Honours Project idea.

Basically I need to analyse in more detail specifically what i want to do and hence try to derive some output from it, but get the research area first albeit like throwing a dart in the dark to me, you never know if your going to hit something.

So im condensing the whole Webwinder idea and all its components of how a sound travels along a spider web, which parts of the hand are most sensitive, vibration controllers and installations and i'll just focus on abstract art use of sound and see if anything turns up in an article or journal - even though at this stage in the year I would have liked to have had my idea solidified :|

Anyways good news is I got made Co-Class Rep :) hopefully it will be an eye opener.

So abstract art and in terms of sound usage, hmm. My initial ideas were of an animation short, 30 seconds to a minute long using Flash and the shots would rotate between two people talking about random stuff and cut between that and a close up of a spider either through its eyes or just close and the shot would get blurry and the sound would 'sound' like vibrations and such. The shots would keep alternating, the peoples conversation would get cut up and not sound cohesive but in a humerous way because of the spider shots cutting some info out and the audio of them speaking would be incoherent. The spider would crawl along the wall, also seen in the peoples shot, until one of the persons squashed it.

Or something like that, but again thats coming up with an output before I have much input into the matter only using what i already researched for Webwinder.

So key things to shove to the front of my mind, Research question, Topic of interest and debatable discussion, Find a problem that needs addressed.

...fingers crossed

have a great day :P

Books for thought

Just getting some ground work done on the subject area while I know what it is I roughly want to do, better to try reading up somethign relavent now than not too.

So I dived into the library today to pick up an assortment of books but came out with a few substitutions.

# Noise Control - by Charles E. Wilson, based on Measurement, Analysis and Control of Sound and Vibration.

My choice to get to know the topic better and see different techniques and approaches used.


#Audio in Media - by Stanley R. A,ten, based on the generality of sound and sound design and sound production.

I wanted to get to know more about the intricacies of sound in general and how it might benefit my honours project


#Handbook of Pattern Recognition and Image Processing - Edited by Tzay Y. Young and King-Sun Fu, based on problem solving, statistics, pattern recognition and varying audio aspects like seismic acoustic waveform analysis and biological signal processing

Just the few chapters on audio sparker my curiosity but the book as a whole seems my cup o tea from the glance at its other chapters.

#The Fat Man on GAME AUDIO - by George Alistair Sanger, based on the writers experiences with game audio and how to apply well tried practices.

This is a book i've been wanting to read for a while and got today incase I happen to do the game version of Webwinder and hence gain more technical knowledge of game design.


#Spiders Scorpians Centipedes and Mites - by J.L.Cloudsley - Thompson, based on the creatures listed in the title.

Albeit a not very humble topic to study it is necessary for my overall understanding of the spider and thigns like it on how it 'hears' or senses otherwise and will be good to know other facts when it comes to making the game if doable.


#The World of Spiders - by W. S. Bristowe, based on solely spiders and all you would want to know biologically about them and their habits.

I wanted to get another opinion on the whole spiders issue and so got this book aswell to solidify my research on them.


Well thats that for now of course I might end up dropping the whole subject completely so I will have to get the info as quick and neatly as possible so It wont affect my flow to just drop a book or two.

Have a great day.

Interview with Colin Cartwright

Howdy ho,

12:18 -12:43

ok Initial presentation of general ideas went well and I got a lot of good feedback in terms of what I could do for a research question in terms of either:

# Researching how exactly a spider locates a disturbance on a web by setting up a web system with 8 microphones and somehow documenting the variables of sound disturbances in different locations
# Effectively testing how humans would use this vibration sense, but only with 4 limbs basically seeing what variables would need to be determined for a human to have the same response and where overlaps happen.
# A game mechanic of using how a spider senses and effectively incorporating it into an emersive gameplay with various means.

So I am very glad I had the chat and Ive gotten some new avenues of research to consider and hopefully at the same time not get bogged down to much with the vastness of it for instance it doesnt have to be a spider it could be any other animal or just how a human locates sound effectivly. The list of possibilitys could go on and on and hopefully but pitch week I will have narrowed it down somewhat :P

So thank you Colin Cartwright

Initial thoughts and research behind Webwinder

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