Tracks
Settings/Diagrams
Settings: Elevator > Apartment Hallway > Apartment
Character: Middle-Aged woman returning home after an exhausting day at work.
Original Plot: The character waits for the elevator to arrive at her floor. She exits the elevator and steps into the hallway. While walking towards the apartment, she passes through an apartment under construction. She rings the doorbell, waits for the door to open, and enters the apartment.
Feedbacks & Revise
First Set of Feedback
Second Set of Feedback
Third Set of Feedback
I was unable to find the peer feedback sheet on online, however, some essential feedbacks I did manage to take pictures of and remember from the top of my head include:
(1) The space feels like a hospital and/or somewhere eerie.
(2) Confusion about whether the elevator sound at the beginning was actually intended to create an elevator.
(3) The volume increase and decrease of the passing through of crying dog and playing children are way too fast.
(4) Reminded a peer of a surprise party in an apartment.
(5) Sounded like someone is coming home for the first time.
(6) The actions of sighing and waiting in the elevator helped shaped the character’s emotion.
(7) The room tone needs to be reworked if the woman is in a narrow space. There should also be reverb, too.
Revisions
First Revision
Revised Plot: The character waits for the elevator to arrive at her floor. She exits the elevator and steps into the hallway. On her way to the very last apartment at the end of the hallway, she passes through an apartment on the left with a crying dog, waiting for its owner to get home from work. Because my character is allergic to dogs, she stopped and sneezed. On another apartment to her right, children were playing and laughing. The character arrives at the apartment door, rings the doorbell, waits for the door to open, and enters the apartment where family members cheered for her arrival.
Other Revisions:
1) In order to make the elevator sound more elevator-like, I added buzzing sound to signify the passing through of each floor.
2) I tuned out the room tone of the elevator at the moment when the elevator door opens, to signify a change of space.
3) I increased the volume of the sound of the elevator arriving at the destination to make sure it is audible.
4) I added the dog barking sound to an apartment on the left. I thought the dog barking would make sense since the setting is during the evening when people would usually get off work and return home. Hence the dog is extra sensitive.
5) I added the sneezing to signify my character is allergic in order to give her a little more persona.
6) I added the sound of children playing in an apartment on the left. I thought this would make sense because usually at this time of the day, children are done with homework and dinner, however, it is still too early for bedtime.
7) I added the sound of cheering at the end when my character arrives home to make the event more family-like and warm.
8) The girls cheering sound was slightly panned to the left and guys talking sound was slightly panned to the right after the door opens to help listeners picture the scenario spatially where women in the family are talking in one side of the room, whereas the men in the room are talking in another side.
Second Revision
For the second revision, I decided to keep the overall plot of my space the same and focus on the details to make sure nothing sounds odd. After reading the feedback and listening to the track a couple more times, I decided to change the sounds of the elevator altogether, because for people who does not have a diagram of the space, it may actually sound like subway rather than elevator:
1) I changed the elevator buzzing sound to a more modern beeping sound to make sure that it still resembles the passing through of each floor.
2) I changed the elevator door opening/closing sound to one that sounds more closely to the opening and closing of actual elevator door.
3) I added one small stepping sound in the elevator to signify the slight movement of my character.
4) I added the sound of fabric rubbing to signify the slight movement of my character while standing still.
5) I changed the volume of the dog crying sound to make sure that it is audible the second the elevator door opens.
Third Revision
The third revision of my Create a Room project was rather difficult. This is because when I received peer feedbacks, the comments were very polarizing. A portion of the students said they were able to identify my character transitioned from an elevator into a hallway then into a celebratory space of some sort, whereas some students were confused as to where they were throughout my audio file. Nonetheless, some constructive feedbacks that did appear more than twice are about room tone, the positioning of the dog sound, and the overall eerieness which I intend to avoid. Therefore according to these feedbacks, I made the following alterations:
(1) I deleted the sudden impact sound for when the elevator arrives my character’s floor, keeping only the ding sound to signify the arrival.
(2) I added the sound of a mother with her young baby in the elevator close to my character, I thought this may signify the staying in an enclosed motionless space.
(3) I readjusted the room tone in the elevator to make sure it doesn’t randomly become louder or quieter.
(4) I reworked the panning of the space. The baby sound in the elevator, for example, was originally very close to the left side of my character. However, once my character furthers away from the elevator, the sound of the baby diminished until it disappears entirely when the elevator door closes. The passing through of dog sound and children playing were panned far to the right or left only when my character passes by these apartment doors, then returns to slightly panned as my character walks away from them.
Project Reflection
From my personal experience, I think attempting to describe a room without visuals is like attempting to talk without words. Very difficult, but possible. By having to be the one to construct an environment through sound, I learned that sounds are actually very symbolic to humans in a way that we depend on them and their implied meanings to understand what’s unspoken. A sigh, for example, can mean a person is disappointed. A weird scratching noise in the elevator can mean the elevator is malfunctioning. My experience of putting together this project, then, was like building the symbolics and trusting that my listener’s past experiences will help guide what I want them to hear and picture in their minds.
While working on this project, I found the construction of events without using verbal dialogues to be the most difficult. Although the project’s emphasis is on space, I still thought it was important to give some kind of persona to my character. While attempting to do so, I struggled a lot because there were no actual verbal sounds in the limited sample packs that were given to us. Hence, I had to start thinking about how non-dialogue human sounds can indicate about a person, which was a challenge for me. In addition to the limited samples, I also found the construction of an elevator to be very difficult. In the sample pack, there were no actual elevator sound effects. Therefore, I had to layer and edit elements such as room tone, doorbell, door opening sound, and construction sound to put together what I had. Despite how I think I can do much better with a larger sample pack, I am generally happy with what I ended up with.
By putting together this project, I learned the power of submerging myself in the present. The construction of this project requires us to pick up and re-educate ourselves about the surrounding sounds that we are so used to tuning out automatically. This process alone is very interesting, in a way that while I worked on this project, I started to pay attention to the sounds that can occur in hallways and how different type of hallways, the time of day, and my outfit choice can affect how I hear them. As a person who is constantly listening to music and watching videos on my phone, I think I have not tried to pay close attention to my surrounds for a while now. In a way, this project taught me how to start appreciating what is happening around me and how mesmerizing my surroundings can be sometimes if I just pay a closer attention. Finally, I learned that how everyone hears and interprets sounds are actually very different. This is even more so without the visuals to support the movements and the space. Because The New School is such a diverse environment, I do believe that our backgrounds and past expereiences might have attributed to the variety of interpretations and associations of sounds, proving how the construction of space using sounds is indeed something that needs to be mastered using a long period of time.