Assignment #1b

I give mad props to people who want to do sound design for a career. It's a lot harder than it seems. I could spend hours in front of the computer editing a simple two-minute soundscape and still find ways that I'm not satisfied with it. I can't imagine having to edit sound for an entire feature-length film.

One of the biggest things I learned after  my group messed around for awhile with it for awhile is that you have to layer sounds thickly to make the soundscape sound full enough. If there aren't enough sounds, the entire thing falls flat and seems bare. The more complicated and intricate that sound design, the more pleasing it is to the ear. It was difficult to weave so many sounds together in a way that didn't sound erratic.

I like how all of the different soundscapes were completely open for interpretation. There was no "right" or "wrong", since they were all supposed to be devoid of narrative structure. Some of them still seemed like they followed a linear path like a narrative, but nothing was concrete. It was interesting to hear everyone's opinions of what they heard.  Most of the time people had similar thoughts, but other times I was surprised by how someone's interpretation differed from mine completely.

My group spread out our work on the project over the course of two weeks; I think we met four times total. In the end, being able to hear our soundscape with fresh ears every time we met really worked out in our favor. After sitting in front of the computer for awhile, listening to the same ten seconds of sound over and over again started to make us stir crazy. All the sounds began to blend together and our ears almost went numb. Taking a break helped us out in the end.