Individual Studio Production Project Reflection

My piece entitled, It is Futile, is an audio phonic radio story that explores intolerance, vapid pursuits of happiness, and gender ambiguity. The narrative is comprised of fictitious elements as well as personal lived experiences. I’m hoping to explore the limits and potentiality of this medium, in as far as, how it holds the consumer’s attention, how it is perceived and disseminated.

Conceptually, I am hoping to detach the ‘self’ or the author from the front line of this story to allow the surreal and chronologically ambiguous narrative to speak homogeneously without performance constraints. Using the voice of Karen Jacobsen (the Australian female voice of Siri), we are given no real human face to the text. I was introduced to this concept after hearing the 1978 stylised ABC radio broadcast drama, What’s Rangoon to You is Grafton to Me by Russell Guy. Where James Dibble, the monotonous ABC news radio presenter, showed little to no emotion, which allowed the surreal and absurd text of the piece to shine through.

It could be said, that contemporary podcasts and audio stories, have their own character, which can influence a listeners focus and attention. For example, podcast presenter Ira Glass of This American Life, exposits in a way that makes a listener feel like a best friend. Similarly, Radio Lab actors announce with the same congeniality, offering consumers a sense as if they are all in on the same joke. For the most part, I subscribe to this way of presentation however, on occasion, it can obfuscate certain aspects of an audio story’s essence. And it is for this reason, that I have gone to great lengths to disable the human presenter from my piece.

In order to realise my production It is Futile, I have applied foley sound from both free sounds.org and my own recordings. I have then used dubbing through a cut, copy and paste method to emphasise moments in the narrative. For example in the shaving sequence and ‘outcome introductions’. Dynamic elements consist mainly of the highs and lows over the whole piece. Like for example the rock music sting, which functions to juxtapose the mundane drone of the train sequence.  The harmonic distortion, which was applied to the rock music sting, acted to increase its volume, brightness and texture — further heightening dynamics.

The music sting was produced on a separate session due to a CPU overload. Even without ancillary stems being added to the primary session for this piece, I still experienced RAM and CPU overloads. To circumvent this, I have had to create several auxiliary buses governing the effect path of several tracks. Although, pitch shift, which was a cursory attempt to change characters in the classroom, was applied via the live audio suite render. Interestingly, the pitch shifted dialogue later became the voice of an evil ‘self’, wanting to break free from a homogeneous vice.

Panning and reverb were functions to accentuate texture and spatiality. Some examples can be heard in the skateboard moving from left to right and furthermore, with the word “etc”. Compression and side-chaining was applied to several sequences throughout the piece in order to bias the main voice over and keep it as the focal point. However, towards the end of the piece, when the music sting is re-introduced, I had to resort to a manual automation method as the factory compression plug-in was not handling the information as I would have liked. The Buchla synth from MESS became a feature at the beginning of the piece. It demonstrated a highly artificial and lofi tone which I felt would be fitting for the student “caressing his synth”. The main voice-over was captured by running a stereo 3.5 to 2 x 1/4″ mono XLR cables from a MacBook into the audio Interface on my iMac.

In sum, this is a practice that I hope to explore further. In the making of this piece, I have garnered a new understanding of the work involved in podcasts and radio stories be them fiction or nonfiction.

Bibliography

– ABC Radio National, Russell Guy 1978,  broadcast drama, What’s Rangoon to You is Grafton to Me. Sydney.

– Bowden, D (recorded), Flanagan, J (composed) 2003, Player’s Speech, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Sydney.

– Free Sound, viewed 8th October 2017, <<http://http://freesound.org>>

– Radiolab 2017, WNYC, United States.

– This American Life with Ira Glass 2017, podcast, WBEZ Chicago.

Spatialisation Homework

In this spatial sound composition experiment, I explored the effect that saturated reverb, delay, warping, EQ and panning have on the dynamics, colour, density and rhythm of a simple mono sound file. For my piece, I chose the sound of dripping water.

To begin my composition, I first applied the Protools’ Airkill plugin in order to cut the unwanted high frequencies that were present in the original recording. This sound was then bussed to a stereo track that facilitated the first reverb in the chain of effects.

I wanted to create a composition with a three act structure. I began the first act with the dripping sound at a low level which was only moderately effected by a De-verb plugin.

The second act introduces the BBD Delay that warps the tone throwing the composition from somewhat familiar to detached from the sounds of everyday life.

To add an extra layer I have applied a reverse effect on the dripping to heighten the detachment of the second act further.

As this was passed through several chains of delay, the feedback function began to override and foreground the entire dynamic. Therefore, I began to automate this delay affect by switching it on and then off again in rhythmic patterns. Interestingly, it was At this stage that, what sounds like the ringing of the telephone was inadvertently created.

This sound was re-introduced at the end of the peace creating a kind of a palindrome where we are again familiarised with day-to-day sounds.

Some of the warping automation revealed undesired artefacts as my system’s CPU struggled to keep up with the processing tasks. My solution to minimise these unwanted artefacts, was not to get rid of them entirely, but to reduce the volume of the aforementioned sequences.

There are some moments that I have attempted to freeze by cutting sections, and then duplicating them several times. These moments develop their own sub rhythm seemingly independent from the overarching rhythm.

Throughout the composition I have applied panning and volume automation to create colour, dynamics and spatial texture.

I am keen to explore the detachment of the ‘self’ from an audio artefact through computer automated speech narration with accompanying foley sounds.

My interest with the ‘self’’ came about through studying Cartesian philosophy and the malleability of perceived existence.

The affordances of audio can offer a similar malleability in that, sound’s place in time and space can be far more abstract than a visual form.

My interest in audio stories, is relatively new however, through listening to many audio books and podcasts since falling down the sonic narrative rabbit hole so to speak, it has become a primary pastime and career focus.

My aim in this module of Studio Production, is to merge, explore and experiment with these notions.

With regard to the production method, I would hope that the dialogue and scripting could be as human and naturalistic as possible, and thus when narrated by an automaton, a resulting juxtaposition may evoke new discoveries.

Furthermore, having oral anonymity throughout this piece may also allow for the writing to speak for itself without issues of performance and human emotion heightening the absurd and summoning the uncanny.

This will be quite a full on experiment for me, aside from creating a good foley sound balance, my concern is that people may perceive these naturalistic characters in subsequent productions as illustrations of themselves. And therefore I guess I should be prefacing this with an assurance that this is primarily fake fiction with moments from my past that have been pushed into obscurity but to cut a long story short, should not be taken as literal.

I had a crack at delivering a super short super intense audiophonic trailer of my world with some visuals.

Sonically it is actually a lot wider in sound field and brighter than my main artefact.

I’m hoping that this could be considered for our end of semester presentation!

My favourite dance scenes are as follows…

Hal Hartley’s Simple Men (1992)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Yy221HYps

Jean-Luc Godard’s Bande à part (1964)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1MKUJN7vUk

Quentin Jerome Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSLMN6g_Od4

It’s been a dark week and I feel I need this.

I’ve roughly cut together my audiophonic piece, it’s ticking the boxes so to speak in terms of my world, the story, the narrative, blah. But there’s a certain magic dust that I feel that’s missing from it.

Nevertheless, the voice-over artist who generously offered her time, did a smashing job, for someone who isn’t all that versed in radio fiction. Annalise’s ability to listen and take direction was outstanding. She was such a trooper!

But my story is so hyperreal, it’s also fairly esoteric, and it was a feet to even get close to the performances that were required. In addition, having run out of time to cast the Beecroft character, I had to perform the protagonist myself, and by golly it was tricky. I think my neighbours might have grave concerns for my welfare after a series of yelling, crying, moaning and… “I’m leaving you!”[s].

What this story could have benefited from, was some dramaturgy, possibly a collaboration with performers to land on the feel of a real breakup in a world that was…  breaking up.

The process of creating a media artefact for the Beecroft story, has been really big! It looked simple from the outset, but it was deceptively simple. Had I produced this piece on location, and at the Docklands Studios, or even with video vision and multiple actors, I think I wouldn’t have survived. I’d be rocking in a corner somewhere saying bring me some chamomile tea. Though overall, I’ve had a great experience producing this and have been constantly learning as I go!

Though, I think I’ve again gone against an ethos that I’m constantly reminding myself to conform to, which is keep it simple stupid.

But, I am pleased to say that I am done with dystopian stories! I have gone as far as I can go with trying to get a visceral sense from the viewers on this instance, and I think I would like to come back down to worth and create stories and work on ideas that are real… or as close to real as possible.

We’ve been asked to consider a taxonomy of world attributes as they relate to our Media 5 project. In the following blog, I hope to contextualise this to my piece Beecroft.

First of all we are to Cast the world. For example;

1.1 Which characters belong in the world? For my project, it would be the tough, or conversely,  those willing to be mules 
1.2 Which characters don’t belong in the world? The benevolent and naive 
1.3 When characters that don’t belong in the world still inhabit it, how do they and other characters react? Toward them, with trepidation but eventually with positivity as, those who don’t belong, are talismans of hope
1.4 What are the character hierarchies of the world, and how are they maintained? The primary populous includes societal leeches and the leech’s mules
1.5 What relationships exist between the characters and their world? How does the world affect them on a daily basis? The world fuels the leeches but it sucks dry the mule’s resources.

Next, we are to consider Structuring the world;

2.1 Does the world have a specific, tangible hold on the plot – things that literally can or can’t happen? In the world of Beecroft, the huge division between the rich and the poor prevents prosperity in the lower social economic bracket.
2.2 Does the world suggest – or demand – a specific type of emotional movement or arc? Perhaps with the existence of ‘growth characters’ like Mr. H, who is the voice of reason, the arc may swing into the positive field.
2.3 What’s the pace or feel of the world, and how does that play out in the sequences and scenes you write? Despair = fast paced and frantic, Controlled and calculating may give the sense of a timpani introduction, like in 2001 Space Odyssey, Hope = moderate, rocking fluidity.
2.4 Are actions affected by the world? What do characters feel they can and can’t do? (See 2.1)
2.5 What different varieties or versions of the world exist, and how do they play out through the plot? This question I will need more time to think about and discuss with my peers. 

Voicing the world

3.1 What does the world sound like – does it have a universal voice? Like with 2.5, I may require a second opinion
3.2 How might character dialogue be infected by the world – attitude, perspective, etc.? Like in draconian societies ruled by a dictator, one cannot be heard saying anything that goes against the leeches regime in this world
3.3 Does the dialogue complement or in fact juxtapose the world? The head leech character would compliment this world but by contrast, the mule juxtaposes. However, Mr. H’s voice aspires to entertain and subvert introducing a new formal element
3.4 Is there a style and pace to character dialogue that reflects what the world’s about? Yes! Beecroft’s compulsive and frantic belief that he is shrinking, in addition, the Head leech exudes a confident ostentatious language
3.5 What are the competing voices in the world, and how do they go about being heard? Beecroft must scream to be noticed, Mr. H uses humour and wisdom, and the Head leech boasts.

Theming the world

4.1 Does the world demand a type of understanding that translates into an obvious theme? Again, I will need clarification on this question
4.2 Which themes are already prevalent in the world? Capitalism, societal depletion, psychosis, hope, growth, transition, transsexuality — and which are denied? Marxism perhaps.  
4.3 How might theme and meaning be woven into the world through characters, action, visual motifs and dialogue – and then communicated out again, to the audience? This is a fairly open question but here is what I came up with; There is the theme of growth through the many references to horticulture, these sequences will be driven by jocular banter. Growth character Mr. H (the voice of reason) is transexual and does not conform to the world’s regime,. The Head leech is visually pristine in contrast to the other characters. Violent psychotic moments relay despair, confusion and hopelessness.

It was great to see so many people wrestle with the glide cam for the first class of week 5! This is a camera mount that mechanically isolates the camera person’s movement, which gives the sense of a steady shot even on an uneven surface.

It was such an underwhelming experiment and nuisance to lug around that I gave it back to AV Loans. It was also frequently knocked out of balance when it was passed around to different operators.

This device was borrowed in the look to adding sexy camera shots to the class chronicles as next week, it is our group’s turn to present the semester thereto.

The chronicles will involve the usual stuff like interviews with the students, attempts to be funny, and just a rushed cluster of media artefacts bound together with digital Scotch tape.

So far, willing participants offered some interesting feedback on the course. However I was surprised to learn that students were less engaged with the readings… ha ha ha, who am I kidding, I wasn’t surprised!

So, what I’ve garnered from this experiment is that the glide cam should only be used for specific projects where there is only one operator.

It was just bloody mayhem!