For 3.5 stars, my sound effect story takes place in Delia’s lounge. She is singing in the background as the listener hears two people have an exchange. The man comes in first, lights a cigarette and starts to drink. The woman follows shortly afterward, sees the man, sits beside him, and opens a briefcase. He is surprised, she is not. No one else is the wiser.
This assignment took me a fairly long time to complete- about two hours. The music I used was an audio clip from My Lovely Girl, a K-drama. I pitched it down 20% to be more jazzy. I also added fades where the original file cut. I used restaurant walla as is, and the following: Squeaky door
All of these clips, I cut, pitched, changed speed or tempo, or altered in some other way. I didn’t find any good female sound effects, so I just recorded myself making some vocalizations and pitched those down about 15%.
That’s how I layered everything, in case you’re interested.
For this audio assignment I have to tell a story using nothing but sound effects so no verbal communication… only sound effects. I have to use at least five different sounds that you find online and the story can be no longer than 90 seconds. Lastly, It has to be about your ds106 character, in my case , it’s Jota. I forgot to make a post about my character earlier so I think now would be a good time to introduce him as all of my other character assignments wont make sense until I do so.
“One thing for sure, Jota has a dream. He has a desire of owning his own multi-million dollar estate with a supermodel wife, driving a red Ferrari 458 around town.
Born and raised in one of the party capitals of America, Miami Fl, Jota knows how to boogie like no other. As a 25 year old college graduate, he is taking his chances by opening his own nightclub. His posh grandma is in love with the idea and decided to help fund the business. He also has the brains on how to get it done. Graduating at the top of his class with a degree in Business Management from Miami, Jota has it all.
Jota knows its gonna take a lot of hard work to get his club world known, but he is willing to do what ever it takes…”
Anyways, here is my sound story!
I first downloaded Audacity and played around with that, I even went to the digital knowledge center for some quick tips that really proved to be useful. Afterwards, I had to think of a story to share that would be plausible with my character. Once I gathered my thoughts, I then proceeded to www.freesound.org and created a free account to start downloading sounds. I made a folder on my desktop so I could put all of the sound files in one easy to find location. After I dowloaded all the sounds in order they would appear in the final track, I opened up Audacity and dragged the new sound files from my folder, one-by-one, into the app. It took me a little over a hour and a half to complete this assignment.
Recently at The Krusty Krab, Mr. Krabs has been hinting at a promotion that is coming up that is between Spongebob and Squidward. Then one day after work, Mr. Krabs called Spongebob and Squidward into his office and told him that he will be making his decision on who gets the promotion to Assistant Manager tomorrow. Squidward as always looked half interested, where Spongebob’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. That night all Spongebob did was think about the promotion and he couldn’t even sleep that night.
That morning Spongebob woke up, and it was the most exciting moment of his life. He went through he morning routine, but with a lot more excitement this morning. He knew that he could potentially be Assistant Manager of The Krusty Krab.
Little did Spongebob know that rumors have been spreading across the sea of an amazing sponge that makes the best burger patties in all of the ocean. Everyone was hearing about Spongebob’s ability to make an amazing Krabby Patty. One sea creature in particular heard about this, her name was Ursula. She the most dangerous villain under the sea. She was curious about Spongebob and wanted to meet him and see what all these rumors were about.
Ursula decided to create a plan to kidnap Spongebob. She sent her two eels Flotsam and Jetsam out to go find this sponge and bring him back to her. That morning Spongebob was happily walking to the Krusty Krab, excited thinking that he was about to receive the promotion. While on his way, he was spotted by the two eels. Flotsam and Jetsam swam up behind Spongebob and electrocuted him enough to keep him unconscious then, they put him in a bag and brought him back to Ursula.
When Spongebob awakened he was confused but excited to meet Ursula, but he did not have any idea of who she was. When Ursula asked him to make her one of his famous Krabby Patties, he was thrilled too. Spongebob completely forgot he was missing work, he was just happy to make someone a Krabby Patty. After she tasted it, the rumors were verified, it was the best meal she has ever had. Instead of letting him go back to bikini bottom, she decided that she was going to keep him against his will as her personal chef. Spongebob did not like that but he did not have a choice, he was held captive by Ursula, and for the next few days he was making Krabby Patties for Ursula all day long. Little did he know that while that was going on, The Krusty Krab was in trouble. Since Spongebob was not there, no one was able to make Krabby Patties. Customers got restless that they couldn’t have the best item on the menu, so they destroyed the Krusty Krab and burnt it to the ground.
After a couple days, Spongebob was able to find his way out. Ursula and her two eels had a huge Krabby Patty feast, they were so tired from all of the eating done that they all took naps forgetting that Spongebob was in the kitchen. He took advantage of the situation and escaped from Ursula’s cave. After escaping, Spongebob was lost and did not know how to get back to Bikini Bottom. Luckily, he ran into some monster friends of his from when he went to retrieve the crown from King Neptune. Patrick was with the monsters as well, Patrick got worried that he had not seen Spongebob in a while and went searching for him. Patrick met up with the monsters to see if they had seen him recently. Spongebob told his friends what happen and they gladly protected him and escorted him back to Bikini Bottom along with Patrick.
After returning home, Spongebob rushed over to The Krusty Krab, He saw what had happen to it, and was devastated. Mr. Krabs was depressed and went into hiding, while Squidward took at job at the local theater. Spongebob was also worried because he did not have a job to help pay the bills on his Pineapple house. Spongebob was desperate to keep his house, and in his desperation he took a job with Plankton at the Chum Bucket. Plankton took the Krabby Patty and change the name and sent out flyers to all of Bikini Bottom. The Chum Bucket became the most popular restaurant in all of Bikini Bottom, and was a success. Even with its success Spongebob was living his worst nightmare, working for the Chum Bucket.
In the second to last installment of Winnie’s great adventure we see him visiting some old friends before his final confrontation with the bees. For this assignment, I re-completed a project that I had done earlier this semester in the form of audio. Many may remember the Sound Effects Story which was a personal favorite of mine, so I was happy to give it another shot.
In this short audio story we hear Winnie walking through the tall grass towards his friend, Christopher Robin’s house. Once making his way through the gravel driveway, he hear him open up the loud creaky door. Inside, he hear some commotion but quickly listen to some greetings from his closest friends. First, there is Piglet who lets out a few oinks. Then, a couple growls from Tigger and hoots from Owl. Lastly, we hear Roo the Kangaroo bouncing around. Sadly, Eeyore decided the plan was a little too daring for him and decided to sit this one out.
In completing this assignment, I used Audacity and Freesound.org. I found a couple sound effects for walking through grass ad gravel and added them first. Then came the creaky door which there were plenty of examples for. I knew I wanted to bring some commotion into the fold so eventually I found a sound clip from a small gathering which worked well. Then came the animal sound effects. The effects for Tigger and Roo were relatively easy and they came from the cartoon show itself. However, Piglet and Owl were authentic animal noises which didn’t sound too overwhelming and fit the narrative.
I simply imported these sounds to Audacity and used the time-move tool and cut/paste to edit them into their correct positions.
For DGST 106’s Return to Silent Era project, I took a clip of the ending of the series, Shin Mazinger Z Impact, removed the audio, and replaced the dialog with title cards. I also changed the clip to black-and-white and applied a filter to give it the appearance of aged film. I did all of this in Movie Maker, though to add the aged film filter, I had to import the finished movie into an older version of Movie Maker. The newest release has fewer filters. All of the music I used came from the series’ own soundtrack.
This a a sequence of sound effects meant to mimic a home break in. First the perpetrator knocks on the door, then kicks it open. Gun shots are fired where a man screams. The perpetrator then reloads the pistol. This scene is something I thought would fit into the Wire because of the violence.
Since we seem to be refreshing our audio editing skills in preparation for the radio show, I’ve decided to try the sound effects story assignment. Considering most good radio programs utilize sound effects for not only ambiance, but to help get information across, it seems vital to get used to the nuances of leveling and layering tracks. I decided to try to illustrate a short story of a fisherman finally managing a catch.
Since we can’t see what’s happening, I had to rely on short auditory cues to give a sort of idea on the setting. Constantly in the back you can hear waves crashing to show this person is out on the ocean, not on some riverbank. The slight creaks in the beginning signify the wooden hull of his ship. A sail is flapping in the back, giving an idea of the weather conditions. And towards the ends, I tried to include some big splashing sounds to indicate a large catch. I used Audacity to get merge these tracks together, and edited the balance and level of each one to give a sense of background and immediate surroundings.
In honor of hunting season, I decided to do the “Sound Effects Story” (3.5 stars) of someone shooting a deer with a bow. I obviously could have made it much longer because the background noise could have gone on forever before the deer walked up but I didn’t because it had to be less than 90 seconds. Here is the story:
How I did it:
Using Free Sound I pulled different sound effects that I hear (or hopefully hear) when I am sitting in a tree stand. First you hear the ambient noise of the woods, including some annoying crows. Then you hopefully hear (or see) a deer walk up. You draw your bow and let it go and hopefully hear the thump when it goes into the deer. Then you hear the deer walk a couple of steps and hopefully see it lay down.
Once I had all of these sounds downloaded I imported them into Audacity so I could edit them together to make a cohesive story. Obviously the order that I said up there was the way in which it happened in the sound story. I had to fade in the deer walking up because as it gets closer it gets louder. Then I had to make sure that the bow release and the thump were not too far apart or it wouldn’t sound real. I also had to make sure that the deer didn’t wait after it got hit to move away because generally that happens immediately. I faded out the deer walking away because it is getting farther away from you (generally). I also had to make sure that much of the ambient noise in between the crows cawing wasn’t in my sound story or it would have been distracting. Unfortunately I didn’t know what to do with the ambient noise behind the crows actually cawing, so that stayed in there.
Overall I am happy with how it turned out. Though to the casual observer it may be hard to figure out, once you know what it is, you can pick out the noises and what they represent.
For the Movie as Radio assignment, I took episode episode 5 of season 12 of King of the Hill, Death Picks Cotton?shortening it to ten minutes and removing the video.
