Sound Editing 101a

There was a bit of a change to the plan. Instead of giving me three 30-seconds clips, Ray gave me one two-minute clip. So I figure I can split his song in half so that I can start with his song and end with his song. I used audacity to make the sound edits.

I think the overall song is a good representation of how people’s minds flow throughout the day. First, you’ll be working fine, then there are some environmental distractions, then you’ll think of a place you would rather be, then you zone out into another world and finally you realize you need to get back to work.

Ray’s song brought to mind a very focused thought process. Batman's First Fight mixed in with construction and ambulance noises would be some sort of distraction. Bossa na Praia (Beach Samba) mixed in with ocean waves and seagulls would be the paradise island daydreaming. March of the Nucleotides would be when thoughts begin to digress. The only change was some Wah wah added for a wackier sound.



Everything was pulled together with fades intermixed with white noise. Here is what a screenshot of all the layers:



Take a listen!

Sound Editing 101

Assignment: Compose a 3-5 minute sound clip that describes a place or emotion and create a piece that communicates the nature of your subject (Due 10/19). Develop lists of sounds to capture, record, etc. Identify sources for your sounds (environmental, interview subjects, effects lab, etc.).

I was planning on working solo on this, but after talking to Ray, we came up with a good idea to co-produce. The place that we are creating is as if a person were listening to radio and began changing stations. Ray and I will each work on different stations.

Some of the tracks I plan on using include:

1- Comfortably Numb, Pink Floyd (Purchased from iTunes)
2- White Noise Effect (http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/pir/PIRsfx.html)
3- Batman's First Fight or Batman Chases Inque, Batman Soundtrack (CD)
4- Changing Radio Station noise (To be captured)
5- Bossa na Praia (Beach Samba), Astrud Gilberto (CD)
6- Construction Noise Effect (http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/pir/PIRsfx.html)
7- Window Slamming noise (To be captured)
8- Different Conversations (To be captured)

Some tracks I would like to use include:

1- Ping Island/Lightning Strike Rescue Op, Mark Mothersbaugh (CD)
2- Echo, Incubus (cd)
3- Take me out, Franz Ferdinand (cd)
4- March of the Nucleotides, Bit Shifter (http://www.bitshifter.cc/)
5- Quizas Quizas Quizas, Nat King Cole (cd)
6- Something composed on Garageband

Working with Photoshop

Assignment: Create a story using atleast 5 photos and edit atleast 3 of the photos. Work in teams.

Ray and I discussed how we were going to work this out and it was decided that one of us takes the five photos and the other person will make up a story about them. I only told Ray that the photos will involve Greenie so it will be interesting to see what story he made up to go with the pictures I sent him. In the meantime, I actually editted my own photos and placed the story I had in mind together.

All of the photos needed color work and resizing. In addition, I added a bit of a vignette to each photo to give them a more aged/old-timey look.

Here are the steps that I took:

1- Take photos.
2- Bring into photoshot and auto level.
3- Apply saved action called “lomo-ize” which was found from a Flickr discussion board.
3a. File: Open: the picture you want
3b. Image: Adjustments: Brightness/Contrast: increase contrast by 20
3c. Image: Adjustments: Hue/Saturation: increase saturation by 20
3d. Choose the Rectangular Marquee Tool (your basic selection tool)
3e. Change feather amount to 1/12 the width of your picture (if your picture is 600px wide then you will set your feather to 50px)
3f. Select your entire picture note: using select: all, will not work
3g. Select: Inverse
3h. Layer: New: Layer
3i. Change your primary color to black. Fill the selection (on the new, blank layer).
3j. Change the blend mode of this layer to Overlay
3k. Layer: Duplicate Layer
3l. Now select your base layer (the one with the picture on it).
3m. Layer: New: Layer
3n. Change your fill tool to Gradient
3o. Change your Gradient Type to Spherical
3p. Change your Gradient Shading Style to "foreground to transparent" (I believe this is the default).
3q. Change your primary color to white.
3r. With the fill tool selected, click in the middle of the picture, and drag the line out to the farthest edge of your picture (if it's a portrait, use top or bottom, if landscape, use left or right).
3s. Change the blend mode of this layer to Overlay
3t. Change the Opacity of this layer to 40% (or whatever you see fit)
4- Reduce the size
5- And save.

Here is a look at the before and after.

Here is a look at the final product.

And because I can't leave well enough alone...here's another little Photoshop project I worked on:

I began with the final photo from my Greenie montage and fixed some color.



Then I looked through my archived photos and found this:



I cut out the kid and pasted into the same document as greenie, duplicated the layer and move behind the original, selected the new layer and filled with black, faded the layer to a shadow, and then rotated to about the same angle as Greenie's shadow. Then you get this: