P3

Intro

My goal for this unit is to create a soundtrack for an animation from Unit 10 to give a feel of depth to the animation and bring out the story more. Since the characters in my animation are silent, it would be difficult for the viewer to understand the narrative of the animation without any audio indication of the current scenario. By layering in audio this would resolve that issue and create new meanings for the audience to understand. This can also bring the interest of my target audience(age 13+) with the type of music used or the techniques on how the audio is used. Since the purpose of the animation is to entertain some action can be placed in to bring in the interest of the audience more. Furthermore since the theme is all about winter the track would also need to aim to further bring in the atmosphere as if the audience is there(Screenshot below for reference to theme). 

To make my planning easier I will make a spider diagram to break down my idea of how the audio will go. There are four sub categories for it which are: Characters, Location, Current state(scenarios such as during a battle or an emotional moment), ambience(Wind, birds chirping, walking on snow, etc.).

This is the entirety of my spider diagram for this unit. It consists of each section on where I will use audio and broke it down to three sections to get ideas on what to do. I've gone more in detail on how the sounds would come out after the animation is finalized. 

Characters

The Character section is all about how the characters within the animation will sound like and what is the justification of why I'm planning to do that way. With the game Don't Starve characters have a unique trait of not having their own voice, but rather an instrument is being played when they talk or when they are the main focus. The way the viewer understands what they are trying to do is by expressing it with action like a simple example is instead of them saying "hello", they instead wave at each other. As said previously, characters have an instrument playing when they try to talk or being the focus, there will be a total of five instruments playing even though there are six characters. The reason for this is because the focus isn't pointed always at each character and there will be only four characters that will either be the focus or be the one talking. The fifth instrument will be reserved for grouped characters like for example when the three survivors prepare to fight, that will be the time when the instrument will be played.

Ambience

For the Ambience I will mostly be recording outside with a mic in my hand to capture any wind or sound of trees. There will be some tricky parts like recording walking on snow or an object freezing which will mean that Foley sound will be used to improvise. Like for example I won't be able to record the sound of fire so I could record myself breaking sticks since fireplaces emit similar sound.

Current State

Current State is what the feel of the current scenario is and what is happening at the moment. Like for example a buildup to the audio will be done when something is approaching, intense music will play when there is danger in the current scenario, dramatic music will play when someone is a goner or a misterious character is present. In short, current state will play different music for whenever something different happens.

Location

This section is all about the current place/environment. Different types of sound are used to further give the feel of the place to the audience as if they are there or have been there. The types of sound that can be used can range from misty wind or the steps in the snow, animals like birds being present to demonstrate if the place is dangerous or safe.

Foley effect Research

Before making Foley sounds for the animation, me and a groups of classmates joined together to record and make foley sounds as an experiment. We chose a video online called "Fantastic Mr. Fox Anger Management" and used it to create our own foley sounds for the clip.

Photos

Here are photos of us working on some of the foley sounds that will be present in the experiment.

What we did

A lot of the sounds in the video are objects being smashed and tossed around due to the character in the video being mad. Because of this most of the audio recorded was objects being tossed lightly or dropped on the ground. Most sounds required obvious objects being used like when paper is pushed of we quite litelerly pushed off paper of the table, but other sounds needed improvising like the blinds being torn of or the chair being smashed. For the blinds we just teared through two sheets of paper to simulate the same sound, while the chair being broken used multiple objects which were a bucket with metal object in it, a paper book and a big file dropped at the same time.

Audio Files that have been made

All of the audio that have been created have been put up in one video.

The file type of the audio that we will export to will be MP3, since it takes less space while keeping the quality of the audio good.

Before recording, we first looked around the room to make sure any sharp or breakable objects aren't around the recording scene. We gave this role to Henry and check around the room to make sure there aren'y any problems around.

In this section, I'll explain how we made the sounds listed:

• Chair Break - We used a File, Thick book and a Metal Bucket Dropped at the ground to simulate the chair breaking. Each object is representing each material used to make the chair.
• Electronics Throw 1/2 - For this we used a bucket with metal objects in them to simulate the complex structure inside the electronic. The bucket was dropped on the ground to sound like it was thrown.
• Electronics Table - Same thing as on top but the bucket was dropped lightly on the table.
• Slide - We put some paper and some metal objects on the table and pushed them off as the character in the video does.
• Glass Spinning - We had a glass cup spinning on the table as the sound of the glass object continuing sinning.
• Glass Klink 1/2 - We put a metal object and shacked the cup lightly to simulate the sound. This was done in two takes to sound different as it can be heard multiple times in the video.
• Footsteps - We had Arsentijs walk on one place while the mic was recording the sound.
• Metal Throw Box - We threw the bucket lightly on the ground.
• Hand Slide - We just had Toby slide his hands on the table.
• Glass Drop - Dropped a glass cup from a small distance.
• Glass Slide - Slided the glass cup on the table.
• Thud - Had toby make a light thud on the table.
• Plate Metal Drop - Dropped a metal plate on the ground.
• Breathing - Had Arsentijs breathing in the mic.

Recce

The location that we have chosen for recording will be in the UTC in an office.

Legal and Ethical Issues

During the recording there can be possible issues that must be addressed before starting the recording. The most famous legal issue is Copyright. To avoid this issue, we showed screenshots above of us working on the Foley sound experiment. This is so that we prove that we were producing the audio files is someone were to claim that such issue is seen within the experiment.

The final result

The top video is the video of the original video and the bottom one is the experiment.