the soundstage

A mainly sonic experience where the story is revealed to those who listen (with headphones preferably)

Video project, 7:12 min

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Description

After a false start on a project I had to abandon later, I was to deliver a finished product within 2.5 weeks. I had to think of a way to tell a story effectively using means I could control. Thus, the idea of telling a predominantly sonic story supported by abstract visuals about a prisoners flight to freedom was born.

  • All visuals were made using a Cinema Canon EOS C100 MarkII
  • The project was edited with Premiere Pro CC
  • The sounds were either recorded by myself on a Zoom H5 or downloaded from royalty free internet sites and later edited in Audition CC
  • The music was composed and played by me

Making of

Storyboard

Do to sound being more important than visuals this time, a short summary of what each scene should sound like sufficed to start working on the project.

Sound design

All sounds that were connected directly to the main character such as breathing, footsteps and bootsteps  were recorded by myself using a Zoom H5. Other sounds to build the atmosphere were downloaded from royalty free websites and edited with Audition CC.

  • Audio tracks 1-9 consist mostly of self-made sounds such as the protagonist’s breathing, footsteps etc.
  • To create the robotic voices, I used a Furby voice line, reversed it, tuned it down and distorted it with a guitar plug-in in Audition CC
  • Most of the effort for the self-recorded sounds went into adjusting the convolution reverb to create the underground bunker setting
  • Audio 10-21 are ambience tracks. Thanks to Audition CC, I was able to take a more playful approach using samples of trains, cardboard factories and an electric toothbrush to create layers of background sounds
  • Finally, I invested as much time  as I could to pan the sounds just right to create a sense of motion

Workstation

For the visual aspect of my project I set up a impromptu studio in my basement to control as many aspects of the filming process as possible.

  • I used a number of narrow and tall vases filled with water
  •  I dripped food dye and drawing ink into the water with a syringe
  • I used a light bulb and a strong flashlight to illuminate the scenes 
  • Depending on what visual effect I was aiming to achieve, I put the vase on top of the camera (as seen in the picture) or in front of it

Criticism and Reflection

I aimed to tell a story as clearly as possible only using sounds. This meant that I had to make as many people listen to it over the course of its making.

At first I’d describe the audio story to each new listener. I quickly realized however, that it was more useful to let them interpret what they were hearing, then to tell them, what I wanted them to hear. The longer I worked on it the more people started to understand, what my story was about.

There was one catch: at the time, nobody paid much attention to the visuals. Adding them later proved to be a huge handicap for the project because it took away most of the attention from the sound almost instantly. This also meant that this particular project was not fit to be presented on a big screen, because it would distract from the major focus, the sound.

If I ever had to redo this project, I’d probably choose a much more minimalist approach to the visual aspect like for example animating it similar to my “CAKE” video. So, however tempting the screening on a big canvas may be, I’d say that watching the video on a laptop with headphones on is much more effective and enjoyable.