Documentation of SoundVacation
For this soundvacation assignment, I want to reveal the mind of a OCD psycho who felt isolated and overwelmed at fancy New York. She wants to pursue the escapism, but no one can really escape in the end. It’s like a irony of city wall, once you get in you never get out.
The original Brainstorming
I only wanted to illustrate the feeling of relief at first, so I imagined to opposite direction of theory of evolution. Maybe the character can be degenerating to a fish, return to the water, return to the nature of life.
The script for the recording
Before getting started on recording, I sorted out the plot and timeline for soundvacation.
The basic clue sewing the whole piece is the footsteps, counting and the collision of bumping into sth. The frequency of footsteps and counting directly conveys the emotion of character.
The project has 4 parts: messy mind travels between different places, running to escape, drowning peacefully in the water and deadly silence in the end. The first part is walking through 3 different places with a bump on the head at the end of specific place to reveal that the character has a overloaded mind and she felt scared. The second part is to switching the background soundtrack of all placed to illustrate that the character has no idea of where she was. The third part is the feeling of relief breathing beside the water and drowning in peace. The last part is the incoming danger and final dead to satirize the escape in vain.
I used sounds of walking,running, restaurant in suzhou, beach, running-into-pond and monster from the freesound.org. I recorded the sounds of count1, count2, count3, breathing, Chinatown1, Chinatown2, subway, traffic, Manhatton street1, Manhatton street2, pole and bike by myself.
I recorded the counting and breathing using my own voice. I imagined the fear of being trapped in an unknow cycle and strengthen up the anxiety through time line.
I went to the Chinatown to capture the fragment containing Chinese dialect features. I recorded the yelling of Cantonese and the conversation of street seller.
I recorded the sound of subway on the way heading to Manhatton. I want it the be the background of time travel tunnel.
I stood at the middle of Manhatton’s crossing street and recorded the sound featuring the fast paced life.
I went through the open market street near the Chinatown and recorded the talking and the music.
I want a sacred and peaceful sound to illustrate the underwater ambient and I found that the sound of striking the poles on Manhatton’s street was really comforting like church bells.
I really like the sound of chains so I rolled the city bike faster and faster by hand to present the raising level of anxiety and incoming danger.