Of a selection of 32 random sounds, i was given this one to animate to:
After listening to it a sickening amount of times, I began to visualise and shape the sounds in my sketchbook.
Some initial thoughts we words such as WET METAL and RUBBER. by assigning materials to different sounds i was able to begin visualising certain shapes. For ease, I separated out the sounds into five section.
1. "Bloops"
The first section, composed of 5 different "Bloop" sounds. The first three are comical, rubbery and warm. So i looked at circle shapes. I tried a variance of colours and found that the reds/yellows worked well. I also experimented with their movement and transition. My first thought was to have the circles expand and contract in accordance with the music. however i wanted to see if i could vary it at all, change the wobbliness of the line, make the shape wobble, make it move like a jellyfish, but nothing seemed to match the sound quite like the simple expand/contract motion.
the second two were more sharp and metallic sounding, hence a more metallic colour and sharp shape would be used. A similar motion to the circles would be used, as they seem to sound derived from one another.
The only background noise i could detect was a slight wobble in the background. I decided therefore to have the background flicker at the same pace as this oscillation.
2. "Splash"
In the second section of sound i could hear what sounded like a stone being thrown in a bucket. I wanted to stay clear of anything objective and try to make it abstract to illustrate the sound, so i broke that sound into three parts - a dull metallic percussive sound, a splash/slosh, and a second dull metallic hit. The illustration of this sound seemed pretty clear in my head, the splash would be shown by the blue object (water) and the black dot coming together. The percussive sounds would be shown by the black dot pulsing before and after it enters the water.
3. "There is a lot going on here"
there are so many small incidences of sound here, I've had to break it down into its own composite sections.
A - loud grating Beep
B- Light metallic ting
C- metallic, insect like descent
D- A record reversal style sound
E - Low slide sound
F - A record pick up sound.
For A, I decided to go with the colour Red, as it sounded slightly like an alarm, in the shape of a square, and i will probably have the shape flail wildly to connote the shrillness of the sound
for B, the quite crisp metallic ring, i will be re using the triangles from the "Bloop" section, but this time in a menacing kind of circle, extracting like cat claws.
For C, the sound seemed green to me, as it slightly reminded me of insects, or crickets. The kind of jagged slide it does downwards reminded me of stairs, so i decided to have a trio of scratchy lines zigzagging violently downwards.
For D, since it sounded like a reversal sound, that i display C in reverse, only with a bit more distortion E - This melancholy slide sound could only mean one thing to me, a large brown blob.
F - similar to D, a distorted reverse of E.
4. Zig Zags
One of the most stand out points of the soundtrack was the "zig zag" noise towards the end. It consists of a low dull sound followed by a higher sharper sound. the sounds increase in pitch as it goes on. I decided to assign a colour and shape to the lower and higher noises. The lower ones were rubbery and squishy, so a brown seemed in keeping. The higher sounds were far more sharp and harsh and metallic, so a triange shape / point with a blue/gray colour seemed appropriate.
5. "mellow ending"
The final sound is a slightly vibrato warm/ melow sound. An orange blob was my immediate thought.
I combined them all into a time line to illustrate how the shapes form and change as time progresses.
Compared to other peoples sounds, mine was quite sparse. Many peoples were quite evocative of a feeling or location, or reminded me of classic slapstick cartoon foolery. However mine was quite a neutral selection of sounds, and i think that led to my decisions to make the film be quite objective of the sound, to focus on the shapes, colours and textures expressing the sound.
