If there’s one assignment I’m excited for, it’s this one. I JUST WANNA WORK WITH OTHERS!! I wanna see where their brains are, and how we can connect them!
An idea I had was to use Sol as a radio host. We know Sol as a painter of the skies, a painter of stories, but what if we also saw that they told stories through audio? What if they had a podcast where they reflected people’s stories, or discussed the latest story they painted in the sky?
I think it would be interesting to see other people’s characters as the ones who have told their stories on Sol’s radio. Maybe they come on air, and maybe Sol helps them relive the stories? Or maybe they just talk about it and discuss! Perhaps Sol is working with a character that is more into audio or engineering to help tell the stories, maybe a cohost!
These are rough ideas, and I have no idea if anyone else would be down, but I’m interested to see other people’s thoughts! (I’m now going to look at all the brainstorming posts to see if maybe someone has a better idea that I can piggy back off of)
You wake up in chains in a room you’ve never seen, the last memory you have being of AI taking over. There is a soft Catholic church song being played in the back, so close that it sounds real, yet so distant in the echoes. The radio in the corner of the room is playing something, a message, but it never quite gets through. The bell tells you your time is running out.
I got a little bit eager with this one and skewed the rules a bit (not really, just went above what the directions were!) but here is my Audio Assignment, and here is the prompt,
“This media assignment has two parts. First, edit a song to sound like it is playing from another room. The audio should sound muffled and the bass should be prominent. Here is an example of this effect and here is a tutorial on how to do this. The second part of this assignment is to write a weirdly specific description of your song. Here is an example of a description.“
No one said I didn’t have to add more sounds . . . but I had so much fun with the other Audio Assignments and adding sound to add eerie vibes that I had to again! And this one I put a lot in, so here’s my walkthrough using Freesound, as always..
I used this Catholic church folk song that I found, because it already sounded a little faded and I thought I could make it eerie. I put this in Audacity, and instead of using the tutorial that the assignment had, I went in search of my own, because this one wasn’t on Audacity. I found this tutorial on YouTube, which just had me mess with the Low-Pass Filter. After that, I also played with the bass a little bit and then lowered the volume on it.
In the background, I also added a very soft wind sound. It’s barely noticeable, and mostly just adds white noise, but I think it’s nice and makes it feel heavier. I also put this in the Low-Pass Filter to make it sound distant.
Now, starting from the beginning, the first sound we hear outside of the song and wind is some synthy morse that is probably gibberish (but if it actually says something, pretend it doesn’t . . . or that it does, I guess!) I liked the different radio-like sounds this had, and I imagine in the room, there is a radio somewhere that is playing this.
The next sound is the slight rustle of chains. I imagine this is the protagonist realizing that they’re chained up!
Following this is just another muffled message from the radio. It’s incoherent, and over before you even realized it started.
Next is some knocking, that I added just to make it a little more creepy. This sound also got put through the Low-Pass Filter to make it muffled and distant, as I imagined it in a different room, like the protagonist is hearing it through the walls.
Directly after the knocking is some more morse code, yet this one actually has a message. It says “peace and love” which feels so eerie in this environment. I imagine this message is coming from AI, almost in a snarky, sarcastic way . . . reminds me of a certain AI I know . . .
And again, more knocking. This one is louder, more intense, more threatening. It’s beginning to get a little bit scarier, and you feel a lot more uneasy than before.
Following the knocking is the sound of chains rustling against something or dragging against something, and this sound was also put through the Low-Pass Filter. I wanted to set in the idea that there were more, that this wasn’t the only person, but also, this sound has a creepy feel, like it’s coming from the people (AI?) that put the protagonist here.
As soon as the chains are quiet again, there is a very soft sound of a clock ticking. It’s here to symbolize that your time is running out, that this is the end. It builds tension with each soft tick, despite the sound not changing in any way . . . until . . .
The clock is chiming. It’s time. Time’s up, that’s it. And as the clock chimes, as you realize you ran out of time, there is a synthy noise that starts getting louder and louder and more and more intense. The wind starts getting louder and heavier, still muffled slightly from the distance. All the while, you can still hear the clock ticking, and you can still hear the sound of the song, but it’s getting drained out by the synth and the wind, until there’s nothing else.
I think it’s pretty cool, if you ask me. THIS IS FUN!!! Sorry for everything I said about audio engineering, I take it all back, all I needed was a good night’s sleep and some motivation and BAM here we are.
I’d like to say that this is slightly inspired by a teaser for a song by the KPOP group ATEEZ (thank you ateez i love you ateez). They did this teaser live and out of nowhere with no context at all, and it was just creepy and weird and all the sounds were random and then there was suddenly morse code. While this teaser also pairs visuals to paint the scene, when you look at the unchanging scene for 30 minutes, you start focusing more on the audio. I tried to take a similar approach that just made this seem so weird and creepy. There’s also a bell that plays in the teaser, and I wanted to find a bell to fit for mine too, but none of the audios clicked well for me. The clock was the next best option!
But yeah! I hope this was cool! I also hope I helped some people with the assignment with the link to an Audacity tutorial!
“Within this assigment, you must find some spooky sounds and create a scary audio clip. Select more than four sounds and overlap them on a program like Audacity. You can use Freesound to select your sounds. Make them as spooky as possible. Good luck!“
So, obviously, I did just that.
I wanted to keep it kind of anonymous, let your brain fill in the story. I got all of my sounds from Freesound, as always (what a good source of sounds).
I wanted a white noise sound in the background that would stay the entire time, something eerie and creepy . . . weird, even. It’s there to build ambience, to set the mood rather than setting the scene. To set the scene, I added wind noises to create an environment. I also added footsteps to create texture, making sure the audio I found was on concrete or at least something hard, because I imagined it as such. Maybe it’s an alleyway, but I think it’s just an abandoned road, because the wind isn’t bouncing off of anything and the ground is hard.
One little thing to paint the story with the footsteps is that I paired them with the eerie environment. I stopped them, paused them and cut out the audio there abruptly, as our main character pauses after hearing the baby laugh. Another little thing, I kept the main character breathing shakily throughout it, but upon hearing the laugh, she not only stops walking, but she stops breathing, holding her breath.
She keeps going after the laugh stops, catching her breath again, and it’s just her breathing with the white noise, wind, and her footsteps, until there is the distant, barely there sound of a child singing. Only this time, she does not stop, and she doesn’t run ahead, because just after the child sings, there are two sounds that play out that create tension, one like a catherdral, and one almost like a jumpscare. But you keep hearing her footsteps and you keep hearing her breathe: she’s still going.
And then it ends.
What happens next? I don’t know, maybe she starts running as the child laugh gets closer. I was originally going to end it with a “boo!” from a child, like it jumpscares her and that’s the end, but I couldn’t find a good enough audio for that, so the end is ambiguous.
This was so much fun . . . I don’t like creepy things, but I play horror games and if there’s one thing that is so important about horror, it’s sound. It’s the ambience. It’s the scene that you make through audio to fuel visuals in your brain, to let your brain freak you out more and more over the littlest of sounds. It’s so so cool.
Also, I believe this was a student from a few years back, but I listened to this as inspiration (I was going through the assignments) and I just think they did a really good job and that was really cool, so I just wanted to promo it!
I’d be interested to see if anyone from this semester does this assignment . . . I wanna see all the creepy scenes we can build through audio!
“Create a breaking news story. This should be fake news. You should create a dialogue and have an AI read it using text to speech. There are several free programs. One possibility is Colossyan.com. Mix in a news jingle to make your story sound legit. You can find some jingles on freesound.org. Be sure to give credit if necessary.
Be creative, funny, or serious. The choice is yours. Just make it sound realistic.”
There wasn’t a lot of work put into this. I used this news jingle from Freesound, which I thought fit perfectly. I did have to edit the sound a little bit to give it that repeating bit while the voice is speaking over, because it wasn’t long enough before. That was easy though, I just copied that segment in Audacity and pasted it over and over until it fit the length of the voice audio.
The voice audio is from Colossyan, which was actually really cool! There are a ton of free voices to use of different cultures and languages with different accents and dialects, and I actually got a little distracted by playing with it for a bit. The script is just something I came up with on the spot, though, now that I’m thinking about it, maybe I should’ve run it by Dr. Oblivion and asked for his advice! Next time I come up with a script, I’ll hear his thoughts!
One thing to note about Colossyan if you use it is that it told me it would take 6 minutes to generate the audio to download . . . and then it took like 20 minutes . . . which isn’t really a big deal but it annoyed me a smidge. Maybe that was my problem on my end, though. Otherwise, really cool! Recommend it!
I didn’t edit the voice at all in Audacity, although I did lower the pitch slightly in Colossyan. I wish it were more dramatic, but I guess you can only do so much with AI.
One thing that I think I should’ve added was dogs barking and cats meowing faintly in the back. I think it would’ve been funny and set the scene more, but I didn’t want it to be distracting, if that makes sense. But maybe distracting would be necessary, because this was unexpected breaking news? Interesting . . .
Anyways, this was fun!! I’m getting it . . . the first audio assignment was a doozy but I’m started to feel good about my work now, so that’s a lot of fun!
Here is my sound effect story, where I tried to tell the story of someone painting something in a serene environment, then having to leave, that someone being Sol!
I used rain as background noise to set the scene, along with a quiet piano and the sound of people talking quietly. I layered each of these all ontop of each other in order to make the environment. The environment can be imagined to be a cafe or a restaurant or any sort of quiet place with quiet talking, not alone, but not noticeable. Everyone is doing their own thing, no one is paying attention to anyone.
It’s peaceful.
I wanted to start it off with the opening of the paint and putting it on the paper, then actually painting. I thought this added to it, put in movement and story. They had not started by painting, but they are now, and you can hear that.
I added two different painting audios (this one and this one). There really isn’t a lot to say about this, but this is someone (Sol) painting.
The bell in the rain audio was unintential, but I think it worked out great. I imagined it as a timer for Sol, telling them that that was the end of that painting, and that it would be time to go onto the next. I showed this through the sound of someone packing up a bag after the bell rang.
I like the rushedness of this. They only have time to paint a little before time is up, before the bell is ringing and telling Sol it’s time to go to the next story. As a painter of stories, painting the sky to tell people’s stories, perhaps this story was short, that’s why Sol had to pack up so fast (definitely not because of my time limit). It’s really interesting to think about!!
I was really happy about this! I took my time and I think I did a good job! All of my sounds come from Freesound and I linked each one in the Soundcloud post as well as attached to the words in here, if anyone wants to go listen to them.
Today, I listened to “Moon Graffiti” to understand how the story is told through audio, without any visuals.
I like how they started this with the audio, with the story, to understand and put ourselves into the story already. They introduced a narrator after the first audio, the sound of the crash, and the narrator gave a brief introdocution. I also liked the sounds in the background of the narrator.
While they were in the spaceship, I really liked the sound that stayed present in the back, almost like waves, or like the distant, white noise of the ship. I think it was really immersive. You could tell when it changed, when they landed on the moon and were walking on it. The sound was gone, but there was still white noise, something wind-like in the background. You could also hear the footsteps and the sound of them placing the flag.
What really added to the storytelling was filtering their voices through intercom. You could really understand they were in space, they could not speak outside of their suits. You could hear the crinkle of the mics, the slight muffling of their voice. It really helped you visualize it. Sometimes, I’d close my eyes and just imagine it in my head, allow my brain to paint the picture through the audio.
When Buzz was getting stuck in his head around 11:50, as Neil was talking, you could slowly hear the white noise intensifying, getting louder. I think I also heard a clock in the back, ticking, maybe to signify that Buzz knew he was running out of time. For a moment, instead of being an observer, the listener was in Buzz’s head, hearing him freaking out and losing it. You start to feel it, too.
A lot of thought went into this storytelling, and you could tell. I just think it’s really interesting to see how all these little things made the big story! It reminded me of when we listened to an hour of Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? for ds106radio. Here is my post about it.
Overall, I really like how you were able to feel and hear their frustration without seeing it, both through their intense voices, the sounds of the intercom, the white noise of the moon or ship, heavy breathing, buttons being pushed. You could feel their anxiety of the moon, of the crash.
Also, reading the comments on the story, I saw someone mention using a different sound that was distinct and really what the astronauts used, so it made me think, would it be any different with the sound? To a listener who doesn’t know the details of the sounds or the tools in the ship or the buttons or the applications of the ship and intercoms, I don’t think it would’ve changed anything for me. Maybe, to someone who is well-informed on this stuff would listen and feel disappointed for inaccuracies, because they know about it, but I don’t. I don’t know about these details, and I was still able to envision it regardless, but I think that’s really interesting!
To conclude, I just think audio stories are really cool, and this is coming from someone who needs a visual desperately. I think audio books have got to start being read like this, because it would definitely get me more interested in audio books (right now they bore me out and become monotone). I definitely can appreciate the work that gets put into audio storytelling more after actually listening to some, and watching Abumrad’s videos about the creation of it.
I am really not someone to put out work that they hate or aren’t confident in, but I really don’t think audio is for me. I have no idea what I’m doing, every option is like a different language, and I’m just confused and frustrated and posting this because I feel like I’ve tried everything and I’m tired and want to go to bed.
SO here is my ds106radio bumper:
Kudos to Dr. Oblivion for giving me a beautiful script, and then not being aware that I was going to keep his voice in . . . sorry old man, but you are a robot so I get to make the choice!
There is a lot that frustrated me with this. I used two audios: the synth sound and the bell? sound, both of which I downloaded from Freesound. I wanted to get this synthy-vibe, almost like the Stranger Things opening, but not entirely, just similar. I liked the mystery behind the synth audio, and I liked the idea that it was easily repeatable, and would be cool to fade out softly.
I thought the bell was cool to add for drama and emphasis, but I really don’t know what I was doing. I wanted the emphasis to be on the word “time” because I thought it sounded kind of creepy and weird and spooky, but I couldn’t figure out how to edit the actual audio of Dr. Oblivion saying “time” to continue that emphasis. I wanted the word to echo, but I couldn’t get that, or at least make it more emphasized.
I think I need to explore Audacity more, because this was so stressful and now I’m so afraid of the rest of the audio assignments . . . safe to say that I don’t think this is for me, but when I work tomorrow, I’ll give it my best shot.
If anyone has any specific tutorials they found useful for Audacity, I think I’d be your bestest friend if you guided me to them.
Yesterday, I listened to the ds106radio playing an adaptation of a Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? and it was actually, really really interesting.
I found myself a lot more focused on how the sound made the scene instead of the actual scene, so I don’t think I could tell you exactly what was going on. I think it was a lot about the humanization of androids in this dystopian world and the uncertainty of knowing whether someone was or was not an android. For the bits that I did pick up, it was very interesting.
My favorite things were the little things in the background that set the scene, that allowed you to imagine what was happening: the click of a cup on a table, the rustling of furniture, as if someone was shifting their weight or taking off a coat, the click of buttons on an intercom or on a flashlight. I think my utmost favorite was when two of the characters were speaking in what I assumed to be an alleyway, both of their voices echoing, and you could tell one of them was further based on their voice having more echo. It was such a little detail, but it added distance and depth and was just so cool to me.
There was also, in more intense scenes, heavy white noise in the background that stayed and got more intense as the scene got heightened. I thought that was really cool, because it definitely made me feel tensed up. The scenes went from being calm to heavy all of a sudden, and I wish I had a better way to explain what “heavy” looks like in audio, but I don’t know how to explain it. A lot of white noise, I guess, that’s loud and constant without fluctuation. It wasn’t an environmental sound, it was almost like it was just in my head, just there to build tension. The characters didn’t see it, it was just for the audience.
There also was a sound that played between scenes, almost like a little cutscene that helped transition into the real one. I don’t really remember what it sounded like, but I thought that was helpful to understand where one scene ended and the next began without being able to actually see it.
Overall, I thought this was so cool. I wish more people were in the Discord, because I would’ve loved to also hear their thoughts and what they had picked up on, but regardless, I was amazed and impressed by this.
Another week has gone by, and another week has gone by where I didn’t complete any of the goals related to time management that I had . . . in my defense, this was the most anxiety-inducing week (for reasons I will not get into that also have nothing to do with ds106), so my free time was spent resting and trying not to explode into a thousand pieces instead of working.
But, lucky for me, this week seemed a little easier! Maybe because I’m comfortable with design and enjoy it. I actually ended up having a lot of fun working on everything here!
So here is the tale of my anxious anxious anxious anxious ANXIOUS week (in ds106):
On Monday, I did nothing. Actually, I might have commented on a few posts from my memory, but I think that might be it.
On Tuesday, I also did nothing. Maybe commented, but I feel like I didn’t because Tuesdays are usually long days for me.
On Wednesday, I did something! I did a Daily Create, here is my post on Mastadon related to it! The prompt was to post a gif related to your first job, and this was the gif I posted:
I worked at McDonald’s!
There’s some irony in the gif, because yeah it’s Ronald McDonald, yeah I worked there, but the irony is that I did not have a good time. I did not YIPPIE! It was during COVID and I was soooo stressed out, and working only made me more stressed to the point that I literally had to quit for my own sake. I don’t look fondly at the memories.
That was all I did Wednesday, although I may have commented some! But . . . I don’t remember . . . it feels like Wednesday was a week ago.
On Thursday, I started to do real work! I, of course, started with the Daily Create. Here is my post on Mastadon.
We were asked to find a song that could represent your theme song. I thought for a really long time on this, because I really wasn’t sure, but I eventually came upon Anna Sun by WALK THE MOON, a song that has been one of my favorites for a while. It’s not my most favorite ever, but something about it feels empowering, and if I was walking forward dramatically, with all eyes on me, I think this would be my anthem.
I also completed the Design Reflection, where I went on a circlular rant about social psychology and if first impressions really matter (the answer? it depends). It was inspiring to read all of the media and watch the inteviews with Chip Kidd and see how some designs were made, the inspiration behind them, the use of different colors, etc. It was so interesting to me.
I talked about how I love judging books by their covers, despite the phrase being to not judge a book by it’s cover. I think it’s fun! It’s like a game to me, and if the cover ends up depicting a different story than the real story, I think that’s really interesting. Personally, I believe that shows just how everyone can interpret a different story in their own way. It shows individualism in the way we all think and make impressions and perceptions. It’s really cool, God, I love psychology.
I also completed the photoblitz, which I had a lot of fun with! I chose to think out of the box for some of the prompts (mostly because I had to), and I think it really got my brain working. In the post, I also talked about how it allowed me to feel appreciative of the little things around me in my direct sight, the things that go unnoticed. I brushed dust off of things I hadn’t touched in a while and relived memories.
It was really warm, I think. I wouldn’t mind doing another photoblitz!
On Friday, I decided it was time to finish up all of my assignments. Work was canceled today, so I had all day and told myself to give myself breaks, but . . . I almost didn’t. I just worked and worked because I was so inspired to finish everything, and I had a good time!!
I started off with the Daily Create again, and here‘s my post on Mastadon.
I titled the word for the the In-Between Time as Dreamy-Psychedelic, and used this picture as reference.
I love the art behind psychedelics and I really think they portray this idea really well. This weird inbetween being awake and not being awake. Almost paralyzed, I think. It’s really weird!
I guess the idea is a subgenre of psychedelic art, so that’s why I called it dreamy psychedelic. I imagine this subgenre, this feeling, it visualized through bright colors, but maybe they’re a little faded, and there are shapes and swirls that have no start nor no end. Everything is connect, yet nothing is connected.
It’s a mess! That’s what it is
It’s really cool though.
I also worked on my Demistifying AI assignment. This one was frustrating for me because I do not like the idea of AI art, but I will admit that I had a bit of fun coming up with ideas. I talk about it more on the post with my different versions from different prompts, but I just really don’t feel comfortable with this idea. I feel as if it will constantly learn, and to learn, it takes from real art, from the Internet, from prompts people give it, and so forth.
I saw that someone ended up doing their assignment using two different AI image generators, and how both produced completely different images despite the same exact prompt, and that made me wonder: how differently do they work? And also, is it possible some AI models know better than others? Do they take from different sources or the same? I wonder about the actual models of them, but it’s interesting.
I also had fun looking at other people’s images they came up with and what their prompts were. It was interesting to see what everyone was thinking of. Some of them were a little all over the place, but that made them really cool!
But . . . needless to say, the assignment did not demistify AI and still made it feel really weird.
I worked on two different Design Assignments. The first one, I was prompted to make a business card, so I created one based on my couse character, Sol! Here is Sol’s business card:
There is more reflection on my thoughts and my process in the actual post, but I had a lot of fun with this! I wanted to keep the central idea of the sky and Sol being a painter, but after I finished, I realized that I wished I put in more of the storytelling aspect. Sol’s theme is that they paint the sky filled with stories, but I only really mentioned that they paint the sky.
I talked about drafting up other designs, and I think that’s what I would want to do sometime. I hope I could portray the storytelling aspect for Sol then, or show a story they could tell through the sky painting!
My final assignment was another Design Assignment in which I had to create a cartoon version of me! Here is what I made, as well as a little draft of Sol!
This was so fun, because it challenged me to go out of my box with art styles. I have a cuter art style generally, but my art is always messy and sketchy, whereas cartoony styles have to have crisp lines without a lot of detail, because in a comic, they have to be able to be drawn quickly and to tell the story without needing all of that detail.
As you can see, I couldn’t help but go into a little detail a bit . . . shhh…
I hope that if we do more design assignments that I’m able to do more drawing prompts and work on different styles to improve my art. I kind of gave up on art a couple of years ago, but it’s a little nice to bring it back!!
This was my overall week! Outside of my terrible anxiety, I had a good time with the prompts this week! I think I’m biased because I do like design though . . . but this was really fun! I’m excited to see what we do next week.
As for my goals . . . I really, really would like to actually do my work not just on Thursday night and Friday . . . SO! Goal (for the 4th week in a row) is to work on my work Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at least. If I can log on and work a little bit on Tuesday and Thursday, that’d be great, too! But the other days, I have a lot of free time that I could work.
I said next week will be the one . . . it was not, but NEXT ONE!! I meant it please I really do mean it.
For my final Design Assignment of the week, I worked on this prompt:
Remake you (or someone you know and love) into a cartoon character. Draw you on a piece of paper, on a tablet, take a photo and use software to convert it to comic book style, or use online programs to create a cartoon version of your character. Extra bonus points if you can come up with an origin story or add comic book elements to your final image.
So, I did just that! Using Procreate and my iPad, I sketched up a little cartoon version of me! Here it is!!
It was kind of hard because I kept wanting to put in more details but I knew I couldn’t because cartoons are supposed to be small and easy peasy. My usual art style is much more sketchy and messy too, so this irked me a little bit to do, but hey!! That’s me!! I looked at a picture of me to do it but then I kind of just started doing whatever.
I was a little inspired doing this, so I also sketched up a little headshot of Sol!
I really like this one, I think they look so cool :)) I’d like to draw them more often, finalize their design and figure out exactly how I imagine them, but I’m actually having a lot of fun with the idea that they can have any appearance, so there really is no final idea for them!! Honestly, it’d be a little fun to see how other people would imagine Sol, so if anyone wants to come up with a design, I think I’d explode (in a good way).
I just got a text that dinner is ready (at 3pm?!?!??!) so I guess that’s the end of this post!! I had a good time and I really like these art design prompts and assignments, they really get my brain thinking again and it’s actually getting me back into art, so I’m very happy for that
