For my sound effect story, I wanted to continue off of another assignment I did earlier in the semester. That assignment had me tell a story through five pictures, so I told the story of how I make coffee. For this assignment, I told the same story but with sound effects I found from https://freesound.org/
I took six sound clips and shorted them, made some louder, softened the sound, and tied them all together. I used Audacity for this. All in all it took me about 20 minutes, so I was really happy with that. I think audio editing is so much fun and actually a lot easier than I was anticipating.
Tell a story using nothing but sound effects. There can be no verbal communication, only sound effects. Use at least five different sounds that you find online. The story can be no longer than 90 seconds. Another example (by a UMW student): http://ds106.us/wp-content/audio/audio_story.mp3
The following is a Sound Effect Story, creating a narrative made only from sound–no words or communication allowed.
I chose this particular assignment from the assignment bank because, well, I had to! This was a mandatory assignment. I chose this particular setting because there is nothing more atmospheric and amazing than a rainstorm to me. The idea of running and jump in this rainstorm–either into a puddle or a lake, came to me pretty easily. I’ve always loved rain, and being out in the rain! I often wonder what it’s like to jump into a large body of water during a rainstorm–what the world looks like from underneath the surface…
— Picked out a variety of sound effects, such as a roaring thunderstorm, running (wet) footsteps, the sound of panting (provided by me), and various splashing sounds.
— Manually increased the speed on the stepping sound effects to have them move faster towards the climax of the story.
— Added both fade-ins and fade-outs so the piece ended in a nice, quiet way.
— Saved as a WAV, then uploaded to Soundcloud.
That’s really all there was to it! It was a fun, easy assignment that I wouldn’t have qualms with doing again. Thank you for the opportunity!
What does the morning sound like for a secret agent? The instructions for the “Sound Effects Story” assignment are to “Tell a story using nothing but sound effects. There can be no verbal communication, only sound effects. Use at least five different sounds that you find online. The story can be no longer than 90 seconds.”
I decided to create the story of my character’s morning. Mia doesn’t need an alarm clock, because her dog wakes her up almost every morning. In my story, Mia is woken up by her dog Gus barking. She yawns, and then grabs his leash and collar. They head out the door and into the sounds of the early morning for a walk.
This assignment was a fun one! It took me awhile to think of how I wanted the story to go, and then to find the sounds that I wanted on freesound.org. I uploaded each of the sounds to Audacity and then spent awhile trimming them to the length that I wanted. I lined them up so that the story flowed well and made sense. You can listen to the finished product below.
For this assignment, we were to choose five sounds and create a short story. I decided to use a knock on the door, dogs barking, baby crying, a gasp, and a gunshot. This story ties into my character Joe Moore finding a Russian who is involved with kidnapping his wife, knocking on his door, hearing the dogs bark, the baby cry, and when the Russian opens the door, Joe is there with a gun pointed at him so he gasps and shoots him. That’s all to this short story. I used my VoiceMemos to record sounds from freesounds.com and I put them all together in an editing app. I picked this specific scene because I really want Joe to kill the bad guys. I hope you guys like my short story! You can see this assignment below (3.5 stars):
I found this assignment to be very challenging. I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to do this audio assignment because I had never worked with sound effects. I also was having a hard time trying to find sound effects that matched up with a story.
I ended up deciding what it would be like for myself if I went to go get lunch. So as you hear the first sound effect is my car door slamming that I found off BBC effects. After that I chose a car down sound to signify myself going into the place. Then I start eating and I chose a very obnoxious noise for this one. I decided to chew an apple because it made the most noise. This was the same for the next sound effect which was someone drinking a bucket of coke so you hear a lot of slurping and gulping which I found to be hilarious. I finally finished with a person snoring because everybody wants to end a meal with a nap! Hope you enjoy!
This is how I used to start my days before I became an agent. Oh how I miss those days. Getting up early morning to go take care of my horses. I often dream about those days. When I awake, I am sad for a few moments. Don’t get me wrong I love my job, but I do miss the simpler times. It is crazy how fast life changes. My hope is to one day retire and buy some land, build an amazing barn, and own a couple horses. Maybe I’ll even start teaching others to ride! Who knows? All I know now is that I am chained to my job for a good long while. Well, until next time my fellow agents. This is Flaire signing off for the night.
This 3.5 star assignment was awesome! This was my first audio assignment and it took an hour or so to get the hang of it all, but I think I got it. Check out my <90 second audio story using a total of 9 sounds:
I chose to go with a simple story, mostly because I enjoy simple stories. This story is of a man who after work, heads home on a train, reaches his destination, steps out onto the platform, and begins walking into his home city where you can hear the sounds of traffic (he’s probably happy he didn’t have to sit in it). He finds a nice place to dine for dinner and then heads back to his home/hotel/place of residence, brushes his teeth and goes to bed!
This assignment wasn’t too bad once I got the hang of how to use GarageBand. The reason I chose to use GarageBand over Audacity was because I already had the app on my computer and audacity would have sent my available storage over the edge (-:
I have used GarageBand only once when I was in middle school to create a video assignment – in which we used the school’s iPads to complete this assignment. Therefore, this was truly my first time using the app on my computer! When I first opened it up (first time ever) I began to panic because I had no idea how to use this app! Especially on the pc, it seems much more complex than the app on the phone.
To complete this assignment, I used the FreeSound website to pick up specific sounds I wanted to use and then downloaded them to my iTunes account. From there, the iTunes account automatically uploads them to GarageBand, and then I can individually edit each sound, for example how long I wanted each sound to be and then placed them on the track which order I wanted them to be in. Once I finished and I liked how it sounded, I saved it to my desktop and then shared it as a “.mp3” to SoundCloud.
I think what I enjoyed most about this audio piece is knowing that everyone is perceiving this story differently. Maybe geographically they are thinking different places, maybe they are visioning an older or much newer train. Maybe their ideas of where he ate dinner were different. What did you think of the story? What kinds of things came to mind when you were listening?
For my final audio assignment this week I decided to create a sound effects story. This assignment was specifically asked of us to complete, however I probably still would have chosen to participate in this assignment regardless. On the weekly assignments page for our class this week, it is stated that this assignment is three and a half stars. That being said when I clicked on the assignment and was taken to the audio assignment bank, the assignment showed it was four stars. Unsure of what amount of star it falls into I was still up for the challenge.
Since I completed three other audio assignments prior to this one, I felt it was right to connect this assignment to the character I created a couple weeks back, princess/secret agent Juliet Stones. Out of all the assignments I did this week I felt this was best suited to further tell the story of my character.
First and foremost I will share how I created this audio track and then get into the nitty gritty of the story and inspiration. Like my other assignments and basically everything this week I used audacity. This super simple application allowed for my story to come to life. That being said I went on to freesounds.org and downloaded seven different audio tracks I wanted to use for my story. All I had to do was click on the sound, listen to it, and if I liked it press download. From there I gathered my tracks in a folder to make it easier for myself to retrieve them in audacity. Once organized, I opened audacity went to the file section, down to import, then clicked audio, and my browser came up with all my files. Following I selected each track I planned on using and opened them up in audacity. From there I played around and arranged the tracks the way I wanted them to tell the perfect story. I had to do a decent amount of copying, pasting, and cutting but ultimately trimmed my track down to just what I imagined. Finally after I had finished making my story I saved it as a .mp3 and uploaded it to Soundcloud.
In a previous visual assignment which I completed last week, I told the story of how princess/secret agent Juliet Stones was given her trusty sidekick Lucy on her 21st birthday. This was an important story to share because she had been longing for a dog her whole life, doubling as a princess and secret agent she never knew who to trust and often lacked friends. Once her brother and fellow secret agent Harrison gave her Lucy for her 21st her world was complete. Since then she and Lucy have gone everywhere together, in fact Lucy hasn’t missed a mission since entering Juliet’s life. This little pup has helped save Juliet one too many times to count and has earned a respective name in the secret agent world. That being said I wanted to create an audio story using sound effects to portray the moment Juliet got Lucy on her birthday.
The seven sounds I used in my story were, the singing of happy birthday, cheers for when Juliet blows out the candle, unwrapping of a present, whimpering and barks as Lucy is unwrapped, the phrase “no way” uttering out of Juliet’s mouth, and then we end with quit footsteps, and a door opening. All of this compiles the story of when Juliet Stones was given Lucy for her 21st birthday and how she leaves to go show Lucy her and her brothers secret agent hide out (the door opening). Ultimately we go from a birthday celebration to suspense and the unknown (if you’re unfamiliar with the story). I felt this all was a pivotal story to tell because Lucy is a key character in Juliet’s story. Sidekicks get little respect and I think it was important to share how Lucy enters the secret agent world. Likewise I thought it was cool to tell this story using sound effects. Last week I compiled a collage together of Lucy and this week it was exciting to tell essentially the same story just in a completely different way. The use of audio allowed for connection and immediacy to be established. The way the sounds vibrate and intertwine create a sense of space.
I certainly would love to do this assignment over and over again!
When I think of stories, I usually think about movies or tv shows. I think of amazing visuals and images that drive the story along. Never before have I really thought of audio as a major part of the storytelling process.
One of this week’s assignments was to create a sound effects story. This was a challenge to tell a short story using nothing but sound effects. I was really nervous to complete this assignment, because I was unsure about my ability to make a story driven solely by audio, but I had a lot of fun creating this assignment.
My first task to complete this assignment was to decide on a story to tell. I came up with multiple different stories that I could tell. I thought of a boat trip, a soccer game, or a secret agent fight scene. But after a lot of thought, I finally came up with my story.
Can you guess what it is?
To make my story, I first outlined the sounds I think I needed to make my story. After that, I used a website called FreeSound. Free Sound made it really easy to find the audio clips I used for my story. I simply searched for an audio that I wanted, and Free Sound generated possible audios that fit my search. I simply had to find the perfect one I was looking for and download it! Once I downloaded all of my audio, I imported the audio into Audacity. Using Audacity, I was able to quickly cut, edit, and overlap the audio files to make my story!
Despite my nerves, I had a lot of fun with this assignment. For starters, this assignment made me a lot more comfortable using Audacity. This week is the first time I’ve used Audacity and I am starting to feel a lot more comfortable. Lastly, this assignment was my first time creating a story just using audio. Usually when I make stories, I focus on videos and images and combine audio at the end. Never in my life have I made a story simply using audio. This was an eye opening experience to show how audio is often forgotten as an important part of the storytelling process, but how stories literally cannot happen without the small background noises that sometimes go so easily unnoticed.
This assignment was much more fun after breaking through the anxiety wall of recording myself in the previous assignment. I made a story with audio only, different sounds to be exact. It’s pretty simple, comment with your idea of what the story tells you below.
