https://soundcloud.com/user-741062731/final-audio

https://soundcloud.com/user-741062731/1a-2

https://soundcloud.com/user-741062731/w12-audio-4

“Seeing The Unseen” was the first studio for me in university. The initial purpose of selecting the course was simple, because it was simpler than other studios, besides, I mistook that the studio could teach us more application technologies related to different authoring software. However, I found it was different from what I expected when I really began to learn the course.

This studio has been centring on the core word-noticing. What can you notice? What can’t you notice? What is the difference between the things noticed and the ordinary things? All the above problems have puzzled me.In ordinary life, we will certainly notice something, which is natural, why should we stress it singly? Finally, I have known the importance of noticing to a media worker through reading various projects, which can make us find different and wonderful things around us.

For the first project, I chose to shoot the large screens in the streets at the same time for successive five days and see what I can notice. The videos on the screen played every day are something people watched occasionally, but not intentionally. No one would put the things that we saw from the videos into the conversation unless there was some connection between the already happened conversations with the video contents. Then suddenly, the video contents would appear in our mind and we would notice what we saw. We did see what the videos were playing, but until there was a link or connection point showed up, this memory of watching buried in our sub-consciousness.

This was the first time for me to know “noticing”. We will have certain impressions on what we have seen in ordinary life, but we hide them in deep memory without thinking of them in case of needing them, however, you will find they are different from those in your memory when you notice them again, which seems to present more wonderful aspect and make me experience the interesting point of the course.

For the second project, Rico and I determined to shoot one familiar place to see what are and are not noticed by us in ordinary life or what is hoped to be noticed. This project was completely different from the first one. I originally thought we were familiar with the scene and no fresh things would be noticed. But when Rico presented the pictures to me and I found that there was something I had never noticed!In the project process, the discussions and readings after class all expounded some knowledge related to shooting methods and theatrical scenery. Just like what is said by Mason and Bogost that the integrity and originality of the image structure combine the details noticed and unnoticed, and creates a different effect.Rico applied it well, therefore, her shootings could make me have the fresh experience. Especially when she combined the details with the whole background, I suddenly realized that I knew little knowledge related to noticing in the first project. Noticing the surrounding environment and bring this concept into the work related to media will make great effectiveness and make your media works more vivid and visual.

The third project involved three continuous experiments which were extended from the second project. In this project, I explored two parts, wherein, the large part was to shoot the things noticed randomly and try to combine them together to form a video. Before implementing the project, I thought there were not many things needing to be noticed in life. But my thought changed slowly when I seriously began the shooting: it was happy to shoot many things attracting no notice in ordinary life.Finally, I could hardly stop the shooting in the process of discovery and I even wanted to shoot the leaves on the ground and the flags embedded in the earth. I found my view was broadened when I really threw myself into it, and I thought all ordinary things were fresh for me.Though the three videos in the third project had nothing attractive for others they presented my little progress in noticing. Excellent media workers can create good and popular media works because they notice more things that ordinary people in ordinary life, can find out and enlarge little things thus to present the advantages of the things based on editing. In the future, I also want to shoot more things and gradually from the habit of noticing things, which, I believe, will be beneficial for me in media editing.

In fact, the question in experiment 1 was: whether all the things shot randomly can be combined. Originally, I hoped the answer was yes, namely the things shot randomly can be combined. Only in this way can it prove the creative media videos are created like this. However, the answer was no when I finished the first experiment, and then I conducted the second experiment. And finally, I found I was wrong to think so when the whole studio ended.

My final project was evolved from the third experiment.In the three readings of Frankham, Panse and Ivens, I found the importance of voice, which can present more for the theme and emotion of one video or film and can make audiences have more different imaginations on video. In task 3, I combined different video clips together, which was certain to be interesting. In the final project, I really wanted to know whether the combination of different voices in ordinary life can present different feelings and whether single audio can let us notice what has not been noticed in ordinary life.In fact, this project was more challenging than the above projects. In the last project, I made mistakes: not all media works with so-called significance can be excellent. Different people have different understandings on different videos, therefore, they will have their own understandings and emotions. Therefore, I chose audios only without pictures in this project, besides, I tried my best to combine the voices of different types together thus to bring experience and feelings to people. But the feedback to the original four audios was not good though I liked playing them circularly.But I still re-edited and re-ordered the four audios to form an audio of four minutes. Actually, the effect was good and exceeded my expectation. It was different from the original edition through re-editing, and even I couldn’t differentiate where the effect came from.Similar to others, I will also correspond the voices with the objects emerged suddenly from my memory, which was, though, wrong.

I was satisfied with my performances in this semester, which was, though, very excellent. I could learn new knowledge, ideas and experience through the different projects, and brought them into the next project. Certainly, I thought the projects of the studio were all delicate, which were closely connected. I had basic understanding and thought on the course and media from the first and second project through classroom discussion and reading, besides, I chose the most interesting thought to conduct researches based on different experiments in the third project,finally I made explorations in creation and skill through different forms in the final project, while my thought in the final project was closely connected with the general idea in the first project.

In my view, my projects included pictures, videos and audios. I thought I expressed all things I learnt from noticing step by step based on the several basic forms of media. Maybe my friends will explore their familiar things again like me when they are surprised they also have things unnoticed, that is enough. All ordinary things seem to be ordinary, but they can present the aspect of beauty as well.

The purpose of this research is to record the sounds of daily objects, and then using the recordings to see how these sounds are sound, how these sounds will sound if some of them are combined together, and what could be noticed from those sounds. This research is to study sound, which I find rather interesting and meaningful. It can help with the project because it not only can open the mind of people’s senses to sounds but also it generates creative ideas of learning from different sound combinations.

I have learnt from a paper that the hearing system of mankind is actually composed of three main parts. The first one is the outer ear, which transmits the sound energy to the tympanic membrane. It is more of a sound carrier. The second one is the middle ear, which holds the responsibility to transmit the sound to the cochlea. And the last one is the inner ear, which senses the tone, frequency, and intensity of the sound. From the hearing system, people listen to the environment and hence get perceptions (Osorio, 2016). Those perceptions would relate human minds to different feelings and mood, such as pleasure, agitated, peace, calm, etc. The sound is the base of the design and it determines the project direction. The materials it uses and the media it seeks for will transmit various sounds to the listeners and thus arose different reflections.

By trying combinate the four sets of sounds, it could be seen that different sounds will have different effects, and those effects will change accordingly depending on the combination. Combined sounds on a whole will have enhanced effects compared to what single sound could deliver. Therefore, listening to the sounds and recording them separately is the first step to proceed. Then picture a bigger scene and make arrangement before the audio editing work. Trying not to cover one sound with the other sound and trying to create a condition that people can listen to the sounds and imagine in their minds. Let the sounds tell the story and let the sounds express.

In terms of the overall sense, just like the teacher says in the recording that the effect of combined sounds as a whole and people’s feelings when listening to the sounds individually are different. This reminds me that audio editing work is just like painting drawing, which means that the person doing the work should firstly have a whole picture of what he/she wants to show the final work in mind.

When I say flexible yet orderly processing, I mean that the processing of pieces of sounds should, in the premise of not destroying the overall sense of the audio, be as colourful and changeable as possible, which is also mentioned by the teacher in the recording. In this way, the audio will not only seem more interesting but also be able to express more objects and scenes.

Overall, sounds are like notes in music and lines in the painting, the combination and processing of which through different ways will bring about different kinds of effects. I also believe that the ability in this regard is the standard to distinguish a top audio editor from an ordinary one. In the future, I will work even harder to train my relevant skills and always hold what I have learned from this recording in my mind in my audio recording work.

https://soundcloud.com/user-741062731/final-audio

Bibliography：

Osorio, J. A. (2016). 20-20 listening: a sound documentary dedicated to the study of listening experiences in acoustic environments. Retrieved Oct 17, 2017, from http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6057&context=etd