PRP artifact 5

The fifth artifact is called Moose-men. It is a surreal scene of lanky characters with moose looking heads and an elongated dogged faced character. They are, some sat, some standing in a sort of scribbled surfaced room space. They are playing on game consoles. One is playing the game Pong and the other console is playing Space Invaders. There is the dog-man standing playing with a yo-yo. The scene does not have much Foley to be acted out, maybe a couple of feet movements. But the characters are quite static and most of the textures are of this wierd black pen scribble. So this artifact is filled with sound effects made on synthesizer or sound making programs. For example the use of the Subtractor in Reason where sounds can be made from scratch with a good level of control and ability. The scene is very surreal so fictive sounds  give the scene a sense of bizarreness.

Three layers of wavy oscillating tones give the space its weird feel.

Then the alien like characters are communicating in a way which was recorded by flicking a combs teeth. The comb has bigger and  thiner teeth which produce different pitched sounds. So by switching  and combining both becomes their foreign way of talking.

The noise from the yo-yo the dog-man is playing with, was made with a digital camera opening and cutting the sound down.

To give life to the consoles, I made some sound effects  using the program Reason which has a synthesizer called Subtractor. This enables me to create a multitude of sounds from scratch.

Overall this scene has many dreamy qualities to it and is interesting as far as sound because if you are dealing with a fictive subject, one can really go crazy on the sounds he produces as we are not trying to make something sound realer than it is. You just have to know when to be satisfied with a sound and not overwork it.

PRP artifact 4

The fourth artifact was of Dave the robot. A character resembling a robot walking mechanically through a tunnel of what seems to be the hull of a ships or submarine.

So first of all the footsteps were all together different than what i had made before. In stead of trying to mimic the sound of bare feet a different approach was to be undertaken. The robot's or Dave's feet are bulky and heavy looking. They are composed of the front part or the toes and the back which is the heal. So like the past footstep i have made the footstep is of two parts but this time the sound will be heavier and of a metallic quality. THe step was recorded by banging a spanner on a pot. Then sound was altered with a plug in which give the sound a repeat with a slight delay and a pitch bend. This was for one step, so for the other foot decided to duplicate the track and pitch bend it to a semitone which gives the walking more of a rhythmic feel. The footsteps were given an overall reverb effect to give the sounds spacial quality which works in the environment the scene's in.

The lifting of the legs where made by recording different sounds from an electric drill. Different speeds of the drill and counter-forcing the drill changed the amplitude, frequency and made it click which created different sorts of sounds which were then later layered and added to give the impression than the legs were hydraulically powered give to Dave its robotic nature.

Some of the sounds from the drill were also layered with recordings from an electric toothbrush to add to the movements of the robot's stance as its arms were also moving to give balance to the walking.

Dave's head movement were also added with drill sound recordings.

In this clip there are three shots. The first shot is a frontal one, so Dave comes towards the audience until a maximum close up which then cuts to the next shot which is of the back of the robot walking away. Then there is a profile shot of Dave going across the screen from left to right. After having created  and designed all of the Foley, I made a  master fader track to pan the amplitude of the scene's sound.

An Sm57 microphone was sufficient to record the sound coming from the electric props.

PRP artifact 3

The third artifact i "foleyed" was of a character representing a spray can on legs chasing a bee of some kind. The can attempts to spray a few time the bee until it drops to the floor and the can character jumps on it to kill it dead.

So having previously practiced the footstep foleying on the cat, i had new dimension to work on. The bee was made by combining two different types of electric shavers. They were recorded with a SM57 microphone in a to and forth motion. The first shaver had a lower pitch which was the constant of the sound. This give the impression the bee is flying or more precisely imitates the ultra-rapid oscillation of a bee's minute wings. The second higher pitched shaver gives the impression that the bee is bopping up and down in the air as is does not have a strait line trajectory.

The spraying of the can was made with vocal sounds. The human mouth can produce an extraordinary variety of sounds. We as humans have immense control over the way we make noises and we can imitate sounds with great precision. An impressive example is beat-boxing. We can even combine sounds to make new ones. But to come back to the artifact, the spraying was recorded orally and was composed of two layer. THe first of a spraying sound as the character is a spray can and the second layer was of a throwing up noise as the character is animated. This give the character life realism.

PRP artifact 2

For this second artifact i was to act out some Foley on another piece of animation.

The short  is of that same cat character from artifact 1, walking in a void space.

So several recordings were made.

First of all a ticker track was made to syncronise the steps of the cat so to give an audio reference for the acting.

Then several types of recordings were produced. One with some stalettoes, another with my own shoes i was wearing at the time. once this pratice run was done, i though creatively on how i coulod decompose a footstep. So though i needed a track for the initial tapping sound of the toes when the foot first makes contact with the  floor.

Then the thump of the heal was to be recorded and the scrapping of the foot giving the forward moshon effect.

But what is fun about creating Foley is to be inovative in the way of thinking of creating these sounds. This means to not take the obveous or mimikal sounds. This is where sound designing creates sounds that sound realer than they should be.

The only problem is that there was no surface to think about and that character was fictif, wearing no shoes. So i though to create the sound of bare feet on a sort of flat surface.

PRP artifact 1

For my first personal research artifact, i was to fill in sound for a piece of animation.

The short animation is of a cat in a tea room and realizing his tea is actually coffee he becomes discussed by the over powering taste.

I was to record and insert some Foley and ambient sounds to make the scene believable.

I inserted a harmonic buzz of a room and a recording of a TV which was apparent in the background.

This animation is limited when it comes to Foley as their is a low range of materials such as clothing or floor textures.

In the case of this short the cat is not moving around so no footsteps were to be produce and little body movement was apparent.

Two recordings of "slurping" or drinking in the mug were layered.

Thumping of fists on the table  in discontentment were added as well.