Project Development

After my experimental sound review, I did a hell of a lot more work on my sound project with trying to get my story straight as I was going for a narrative based piece. Simon and Joe's comments really helped and I found the elements I included as a result have made the sound overall a better piece.

For starters, Simon commented that I should try and place the piece in a particular time more to allow the audience to put themselves in a time as well as a space. As I know the piece was released just after the attack on Pearl Harbour I tried to place my setting around that time. To do this I put a radio news report playing the reel reporting the attack on Pearl Harbour at the beginning, as well as recording some voices crying and talking about the subject, as if it had just happened.

Also, Joe told me to have a look at films by Woody Allen as he set a lot of films around the American lifestyle, like the one pictured in the painting. After listening to the sounds in that and listening to the sounds of diners and restaurants on YouTube, I recorded some tracks of plates and glasses clattering, and sourced some sounds of people talking to try and create more of an atmosphere in the diner itself. I found this quite difficult as the diner is supposedly set really late in the evening, when not many people would be around. However I still wanted to make it obvious that it was a diner and so I had to play around a lot with the volume of certain sounds within the diner, as well as the amount of sound in the piece at any one time, also varying the distance of the sounds from the point of audition. All of which I think contributed to a better effect.

The final comment I found most helpful was Simon's comment of extending the story. In my original plan, the character I was using to guide the audience through the space arrived at the diner and then the piece ended there. Though, the diner is my primary location and I think Simon was right in saying that the audience needed more time there, almost just to revel in the atmosphere of the place and imagine themselves there. I wanted to keep it simple as well, so I simply created a short conversation between a man and a woman discussing the Pearl Harbour attack reel heard at the beginning of the piece. That way you get a chance to stay with the characters and the place for longer, and it also reinforces what the audience heard earlier regarding the time and place of the sound piece.