MODULE C (Technical production)
Sound Project
Play Research
The play "2.22-A Ghost Story" is a play written by Danny Robins, The play is about a woman who moves into a house and believes that the new house is haunted, the play follows them across a 24-hour time period on a newly gentrified part of London. Jenny believes that the house is haunted whereas her husband is not convinced at all. They start to notice strange things happening around the house. I have done this research to give me a greater understanding of the play to make sure i can create the most authentic sound scape possible.
Initial Sound notes and mood board
This photo on the left shows my Initial sound ideas for this First scene, I have done this so when I start recording I can find sounds easily.
Editing sounds
Once I had recorded the sounds I edited them to how I wanted them to sound. I did this through a software called Adobe audition. In the play that I was designing a soundscape for there is a dying monitor sound, on the last beep of the monitor I wanted it to sound like it was almost fading out. I did this by loading up the sound into audition then from here i went into the tab at the top which says edit, from there I went to pitch and bend which means that the sound will fade out with its pitch lowering. This was really useful as it is exactly what I wanted my sound to sound like. Once you have found the bend that you want you can then click save and it will save the effect to the sound you have selected.
The photo above shows my Final neat cue list which can be easily used for other people the read. The cue list shows what is happening in each cue and what it is.
Final Qlab File
With recordings that I had recorded and sounds that I had sourced off the internet, I composed a Qlab file which has all of my sounds organised in how I wanted them. They were organised how they were laid out in my Cue sheet this is because if I was to give my file to someone else they would find it easy to operate the show. The Qlab file consists of solely sound effects that would be heard by the audience and the actors on stage. These include the sound effects such as General Misc which includes the babies snore with white noise, The old mcdonald which sounds as if it was computerised and finally the sound of beeps which indicate the dying of a baby monitor. In my Qlab file I had chosen to use groups to make the General Misc easier to trigger as well as stop the sound effects. I chose not to use groups for the beeps as i wanted them to be triggered one after the other to give a more realistic sound to the rest of the performance. The photo on the right shows my Qlab file.
Evaluation
This project has helped me develop my skills in recording and editing sound effects as well as creating a Qlab file. Things that went well in this project were: Editing sounds in adobe audition, Using Qlab and using a recorder to record sound effects. I have developed my skills in using Adobe audition by being able to use effects and cut and snip tracks down to the size I wanted this aided the sound scape as it gave me more control over the whole soundscape, I have also learnt how to use Audition to place tracks on top of each other to create a detailed soundscape. My skills have also developed in being able to use a sound recorder to record sounds, I have learnt how to use the H5 Zoom recorder as well as being able to format the SD card in the recorder to record in both stereo and multi. I have also learnt how to choose which input I want to use on the Recorder by using the input buttons. My skills in Qlab have also developed, I can now set up a fade and can set up other effects such as stops. These were important so that the track didn’t end so abruptly. Things that could of gone better in this project are: Using auditions wider range of effects, Making sure the recorders in the correct format and creating a more detailed cue sheet.