Angus Jones – 3658552

RMIT University | Bachelor of Communications (Media) 2020 | Climate Changing Media Assessment 4

 Prompt 11: Documented Progress

Initially when I begun the actually editing process of my media work, I realised that I maybe have under researched into potential sound techniques that I could employ into my media practice. I decided to look into 2 examples of audio techniques, one used by the famous Hans Zimmer throughout a lot of his movies called a Shepard Tone. Hans Zimmer’s audio illusion, otherwise called the Shepard Tone, is particularly evident in Christopher Nolan’s film 2017 film Dunkirk, in which what feels like throughout the entire film the audio seems to escalate higher and higher but never actually does; this is achieved with having multiple layers of audio pilled on top of each other but each are a octave level separate.

And another audio technique I’m particularly interested in is employed particular in the Pixar film Up, in which it’s more about what audiences perceives emotionally while the audio remains the same. The very introduction of the film there is a montage of two characters, Carl and Ellie Fredrickson who marry, fall in love and experience the tragic moments together including the death of the stillborn child and eventually Ellie’s death. While these moments are shocking and heartbreaking visually, it’s the continuation of the soundtrack that remains through these moments that truly bring the emotional weight down on the audience. I believe both these techniques are both achievable for my media making project, I do think that to re-create a Shepard tone will be more difficult so I’m more inclined to focus on creating a Kuleshov effect purely based around audio as demonstrated in Up. The intent for this is to arise an emotional response from the listeners, hoping that they can be brought to a state of ‘alarmed’ as address in Rebecca Huntley’s ABC podcast released earlier this year, without bluntly displaying facts rather easing listeners to that.

As far as footage I’m sourcing, I began recording voiceover and audio sounds on my iPhone and then sending them to my laptop of editing. I’ve found this is to be relatively effect though the audio quality isn’t to a high level of standard. After reading through Cristina’s review of my presentation in week 9, she had attached a link to BBC’s sound effects at the end of her response. After which I decided to look into more royalty free music and sound effect websites including ZapSplat and freeSFX, which offers a wide range of effects though anything more specific that I would like to add I will create remotely. Following up on our panel judge Amy; she recommended watching Heather Davis’s presentation discussing the ethical responsibility that we have with plastic and how they can share a similar emotional connection as those of our next of kin. At about 5 minutes into her presentation she discusses a new geological from of rock combined from washed up plastic on beaches in Hawaii. The plastics would melt from heat and bon fires held on the beach and because of this the plastics would be adhere to new kinds of substances becoming it’s own new object. Perhaps this is something could be re-created with my media work combining human audio effects and plastic bottle sounds to strengthen their connection to one another and vise versa.

Examples of Work:

Sound effects planned for Media Artefact

Early Editing Stages: