Instructor: Dr. Dan Hosken

Reading:

• "Sound by Design" by Nick Peck (on "online readings" page), read by Feb. 20
• "Favorite Effects Tips from the Trenches" by Nick Peck (on "online readings" page), read by Feb. 20
• "Walter Murch" chapter from LoBrutto, Vincent. Sound-on-Film: Interviews with Creators of Film Sound, read by March 5

Projects:

• Assignment 1: Whoosh-Slam! Due Wed., February 21 at the beginning of class. Reference information for completing this assignment in Digital Performer can be found here.
• Assignment 2: Spider Sounds Due Mon. 3/19 at the beginning of class.
• Assignment 3: Danscape First draft due Mon. 4/16; Final draft due Mon. 5/7
• Assignment 4: Sound Collage/Mosaic (due Wed. 5/16 at the beginning of class)

Paper Assignments:

• Paper 1: Analyze a Movie Scene (due Mon. 3/26 at the beginning of class)
• Paper 2: Analyze your Collage/Mosaic (due Thurs. 5/24 at the beginning of the final)

Assignment 1: Whoosh-Slam!

In this assignment, you will use Digital Performer (or whatever you'd like) to create a sound that consists of a crescendo of "whooshing" followed by a door slam. You should have at least three elements to the "whooshing" and three elements to the door slam chosen from the samples found in the "496 Resources" folder on the Music Lab Server (there's an alias to this server in the dock of the computers in the lab). If you're working at home you can burn the files to CD in the lab. The whoosh should probably not be more than 5–8 seconds. When you're done,

You will be graded on:

• Using 3 whoosh and 3 door slam elements
• Using editing techniques, reverse, and pitch shift/time stretch
• Using panning and volume changes
• Bouncing the elements down to an mp3 file ready to play
• Making a really cool, and effective sound.

Assignment 2: Spider Sounds

In this assignment you will create the spider sounds to accompany the spider man clip using only the sounds that we recorded in the studio. The recorded sounds plus the spiderman clip are available here (~200MB! .zip archive). A Digital Performer project that has all of the sounds, the movie clip, and tracks set up for the required layers is available on the server in the lab. Although there are many other sounds necessary for the full scene, you only need to create the spider sounds during it's three occurences (~25s to 29s, ~38s to 48s, ~52s to 62s). Bounce the sound down to a .wav or .aif file —I'll combine it with the video when we play it in class (if you can combine the sound with the video using your software, then go right ahead.

You will be graded on:

• Creating the layers that we discussed: leg sounds, web sounds, mood setting sounds, bite sounds, and drop and scuttle sounds (it would be wise to use separate groups of tracks for each layer to keep them straight).
• Building the scene from the first appearance of the spider to the bite
• Using multiple elements in each layer as needed (e.g., the bite will not just be one sounds, but several, possibly including a pre-bite, the puncture, and the juicy-ness)

Assignment 3: Dancescape

For this project, you will create a soundfile of approximately 10 seconds in length to be "scrubbed" using the dancescape max patch and EyeCon in collaboration with a dancer from Prof. Morrison's dance class.

For the final version, you must include:

• Your revised 10 second sound file
• The name of your dance collaborator
• The name of the painting that is the inspiration for the dancer's choreography
• A paragraph describing your dance collaborator's choreography (if they use dance-specific terminology to describe their choreography, then please use it in your paragraph and define it)
• A paragraph describing what was changed about the sound and what was changed about the choreography in your collaboration

Assignment 4: Sound Collage or Mosaic

For this project, you will create an audio collage of approximately 3 minutes in length using all of the sounds that we've used so far plus any that you wish to custom record. You will first produce a "sound map" that will serve as your plan for the project (if the plan changes while you're creating the piece, make those changes to the sound map). The goal here is to create a work of "pure sound" without reference to an external narrative.

Among the things you should consider are:

• The balance between the overall design and the integrity of the source sounds (a piece that is all design and whose sources sounds are not identifiable is a pure mosaic; a piece with no clear design and very clearly identifiable sounds is a pure collage). Your piece should fall somewhere in the middle.
• Consider the variety vs. unity of your sound sources. Too much variety and the piece won't cohere; too much unity and the piece gets boring. Even with a single object, you can create sounds that have sufficient variety by striking, rubbing, etc. In practice you might want to use a handful of sounds from objects that are related but not exactly the same.
• Having a clear sound property plan—changes in pitch, loudness, timbre, and articulation over time that help to delineate the structure.
• Having a clear event-type plan—movements from mostly ambient events to event-driven, etc. over time that help to delineate the structure.
• Be aware of types of changes—static (no change), smooth (continuous change, linear or some other curve), sudden (changes that are, well, sudden)

You will be graded on:

• Duration of approx. 3 minutes.
• Sound Map (to be turned in as part of Paper 2 including:
  • Basic Structure (A-B-A')
  • Sound Property Trajectories (timbre/articluation, pitch, loudness)
  • Source Sounds
  • Event Types (ambient, event-driven, beat-oriented)
• Creating a piece in accordance with the sound map:
  • a basic overall structure
  • a variety of changes in sound properties (timbre/articulation, pitch, loudness)
  • a variety of event types (ambient, event-driven, beat-oriented)

Paper 1: Analyze a Movie Scene

Choose one of the movie scenes available on the server,

• create a detailed "sound log" (with timings) for the scene
• write a short paper (3–5 pages) discussing the qualities of the sounds used in the scene and their affect on the psychological impact the scene has on the viewer.

In the paper, avoid just a prose recounting of the sound log; try to connect the various sounds together with the psychological intent of the scene.

These are three very different scenes and each will require a different approach. Here are notes for each scene (but you should WATCH THE MOVIE):

• Driving Montage from Solaris (available in the library). Solaris is an early 70s Russian film that concerns a discovery of mysterious properties of a planet that is being studied from a space station in orbit around it. This scene occurs very early in the film and consists simply of a character being driven from a country house into town. This movie makes strong visual and sonic distinctions between the natural world and the technological world which has some bearing on this scene. Because the sounds changes continuously and gradually, when making the sound log you should note when the quality of the sound changes and what the characteristics of those changes are (addition of high-pitched noise, addition of low rumble, addition of medium-pitched electronic sounds, etc.).
• Dream Montage from The Conversation (available in the library) . We discussed this film in class and looked briefly at this scene (so I'll expect more from you if you choose this option). Here the main character has fallen asleep and dreams of an encounter with the woman he has spied on. This scene combines a desire for intimacy with her (hence the personal story) along with his anxieties about her safety. When making the sound log for this scene note the elements that remain continuous along with those that change. Try to characterize each of the sounds by it's relative pitch (high, medium, low), descriptive timbre (e.g., bell-like sounds), and rhythm characteristics (e.g., a steadily repeated sound, a single event, an irregular sound, etc.).
• Gogo fight scene from Kill Bill. First, be warned : this scene is intense and bloody. You are much more likely to be familar with this movie since it is quite recent. Here the heroine is fighting one of the minions of her enemy. The sound is a stylistic mishmash and combines realistic sounds with hyper-realistic action-movie sounds, with comic book inspired sounds. When making your sound log, note characteristics of the sound (it's relative pitch, descriptive timbre, and the environment that the sound appears to orginate from---large reverberant space, etc.) and the real/hyper-real/comic book characteristic.

Paper 2: Analyze your collage/mosaic

Using the sound map that you created to guide the creation of your collage/mosaic write a short paper (3-5 pages) discussing the source sounds used, how they've been processed/edited, the resultant "referential"-ness (collage vs. mosaic), the event-types that you used, and the relationship between the source sounds (as edited and processed) and the structure of the piece.

The sound map should include:

• An approximate timeline
• The "Form" (assign letters to different sections, use the same letter with a "prime" mark to denote similar sections—for instance A and A')
• Source sounds (the actual source if you can discern it, or what kind of sound it is similar to)
• Sound properties (timbre, pitch, and loudness)
• Event types (ambient, event-oriented, or beat-oriented)

The paper should discuss:

• The variety/unity of the source sounds (are they all bell-like? are they widely varied? etc.)
• The ways in which the source sounds have been modified (edited, looped, pitched-up/down, processed, etc.)
• How referential the source sounds are (collage vs. mosaic; included music and voices should also be considered referential)
• How the source sounds are used to create different event types
• How the combination of sound properties and event types create the overall structure (form) of the piece.