Sonic Design: Project 2
21/10/2024 - 8/12/2024 (Week 9 - Week 11)
Seh Zi Qi/ 0355872/ Bachelor of Design(Honours) in Creative Media
Module Name: VSA60204 Sonic Design
Project 2
LIST
Project 2: Audio Storytelling
LECTURES
INSTRUCTIONS
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PROJECT 2: AUDIO STORYTELLING
"Students are to pick one popular fairy-tale story of their choice and
create an audiobook. The task is a step up from auditory imaging whereby now
the students not only need to think about suitable soundscapes, but they
need to record the voice with the suitable voice acting and bring it all
together with sound effects to highlight and enhance the storytelling
experience. Imagine that this is a show for radio"
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Progress
For this assignment, I had a few ideas that I wanted to do, mainly
consisting of comics that I had read in the past or from a game called
Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ). The in-game scenes are made into comic strips
which fascinated me as I have never seen this type of storytelling within
a game.
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| Fig 1.1, Zenless Zone Zero(ZZZ) Ingame Cutscenes, 23/11/2024 |
However, after asking Mr Razif for advice, he told me to stick with
folktales or old stories since a higher quality animated comic would be
harder to match with our student skill level; meaning it would take more
work to just make it sound remotely close to the quality the comic it's
giving.
So, I decided to find a fairytale and ended up with my childhood
favourite, Princess and the Frog by Disney. I decided to use Mr Razif's
advice and go to YouTube to find a video with a read-along to get an easy
summary of the whole story.
Link to the YouTube Video:
Fig 1.2, The Princess and the Frog Read-Along, 29/11/2024
Within the summary, I colour-coded the needed sounds with orange while the
dialogue of the character with light blue for easy indication of what is
needed. I also wanted to try and voice the characters even though I have
no prior experience.
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| Fig 1.3, The Princess and the Frog Read-Along, 30/11/2024 |
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After writing the summary, I recorded my own read-along of the written
script and went ahead with finding the sounds needed to create a more
immersive audio storytelling.
Fig 2.1, Sounds Recorded & Found, 2/12/2024
Once I was done with recording, I went into Adobe Audition to start the
audio storytelling. Firstly I started off by trimming my storytelling to a
preferable length and tuning the audio file by highering or lowering the
audio of certain areas; I also cut out any breathes or prolonged silence
for a better storytelling experience.
Fig 2.2, Editing the Storytelling, 4/12/2024
After that, I started tweaking the character lines as I found out I can't
really voice act different genders.
Naveen Voicelines
First, I tackled Naveen's lines as he was the hardest one to do with my
own voice. Using the pitch shifter and going down a few octaves, I was
able to achieve a deeper voice than my own. I also added a premade
parametric equaliser called Vocal Enhancer to enhance the quality of the
voice and overall tone.
Fig 2.3, Editing Naveen Lines, 4/12/2024
Charlotte Voicelines
After that, I did Charlotte's voice. I had already made the southern
accent but I couldn't achieve her higher pitch, so I decided to pitch
shift the voice by going up to 3. Her voice needed to be in a higher pitch so that people could differentiate her voice from the narration.
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| Fig 2.4, Editing Charlotte Lines, 4/12/2024 |
Dr Faciliear Voiceline
Dr Faciliear only had one line within the script I wrote so he didn't need much besides a Pitch Shifter which I had gone down to -2 for a more mysterious and looming in-terror voice rather than a sly talker because I don't really have that tone of voice.
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| Fig 2.5, Editing Dr Faciliear Lines, 4/12/2024 |
Main Audio Storytelling Progress
Once I was done with the preparation, I made a Multitrack to begin layering the sounds. I put down the narration first, then the character lines and lastly the soundtrack itself to tie everything together. I lowered certain parts of the songs so the narration came through better.
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| Fig 2.6, Audio Storytelling Progress #1, 6/12/2024 |
After that, I added the different sounds that occurred in the story like how I've written it. I panned the tracks to match the story so that it didn't go above the narration and that's mostly it for the audio part.
Fig 2.7, Audio Storytelling Progress #2, 7/12/2024
Once I was done with the multitrack, I downloaded the final version as an mp3 and went into Adobe Premiere Pro to edit further. I used relevant pictures from the movie to help the audience visualise the telling of the story.
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| Fig 2.8, Audio Storytelling Progress #3, 7/12/2024 |
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FINAL Audio Storytelling
Drive Link to Sound Files used, Final Mixdown, WAV file and Video
with Audio:
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| Fig 3.1, Final Mixdown of Audio Storytelling, 8/12/2024 |
Fig 3.2, Final Script & Sound files, 30/11/2024 - 8/12/2024
Fig 3.3 Final Audio Storytelling WAV file, 8/12/2024
Fig 3.4, Final Video with Audio Storytelling, 8/12/2024
REFLECTION
For this assignment, I used the skills learned from the exercises and Project 1 to complete the audio storytelling; Even though there weren't a lot of sounds, I liked the simplicity of the narration taking the spotlight without needing a lot to achieve that goal. I was quite inspired by ASMR roleplays I've watched in the past because the whispering and talking is what's most important where there isn't an established storyline to go off of. Overall, this helped me realise that simplicity in sounds is what makes a narration so enticing, that there isn't much to hear besides the story that's being told.
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