EL 1 Portfolio

Ambience and MX transitioning

The narrative transition is from a cold baron environment to a utopian harmony between technology and biology, the soundscape should reflect this transition. The wind changes its narrative representation from isolation to calmness. I would like the geophony to be present throughout the sequence, as i would like a constant reminder of the setting in which this story takes place. I plan to create a sense of protection while the baby is in the cocoon by reducing the volume and high frequencies of the wind in this section, this is to recreate the sound of being sheltered in a very windy environment. I have a reference for this sound, a recording i made withe an Iphone on the 4th of January 2022 on top a large hill named Binsey, located in the lake district. At the summit there are small wind shelters made from balanced rocks.

Iphone recording from Binsey

The biophony and MX are narratively intwined and so will build in volume and harmony together. The MX is the sonic identity of the metal buildings, a remanence of human organisation and engineering from the past. The harmonic resonance of this metal should represent the harmony between industry and nature.

The strongest representation of this is the bird recordings i conducted, where i played field recordings of birds through the metal. This recording is both natural and cold, industrial and metallic. This was inspired by Cristobal Tapier de Veer’s Utopia soundtrack (see artist research post). A blend of natural and artificial, although he achieved this through granular synthesis and extreme time stretching of audio, i achieved mine through resonance and transducers. I hope that this timbral blending of MX with an ambience detail results in a seamless merging of the two.

These compositional decisions will hopefully result in a clear representation of the narrative, using the informational implications of environmental sound (Harrison, Sound design for film 2022), and intertwining the musical representation of industry with the biophony. I am also hoping that this link between music and nature ambience will further diegetically solidify the score into the scene.

Wind shelters at Binsey summit photographed in background

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