CUNY Weeks 6-7 – Time to Make Some Hideous Sounds

Mar 6, 2012 By mbransons in Digital Storytelling, Teaching and Learning 23 Comments Tags: audio, Charlie Chaplin, ds106, ds106radio, foley

A remix of cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by WordRidden & cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by Martin Lopatka.

For the next two weeks our class will be exploring the use of audio to create projects and tell stories. In class yesterday we got off to a good start with a foley artist project blitz in class working together to perform live a soundtrack for Charlie Chaplin’s Lion’s Cage. This assignment was completed by students in Jim & Alan’s UMW sections of ds106.

We introduced the class to the art of foley by watching this great one minute video produced by the LA Times as well as legendary sound designer Ben Burtt (Star Wars, Indiana Jones) describe the history of foley art in early Walt Disney animation. After that, the class was divided into four groups and given 20 minutes to explore ways to create sound, allocate roles for performance, and do some quick rehearsing. It was a lot of fun to see what kinds of tricks students pulled out of their pockets and from the hallways of York College to produce sound – newspapers, keys, nylon backpacks, a tray from a planter, a doorstop weight, and more…

Each group performed in sequence 50 seconds of the soundtrack while I walked around the room recording with a microphone attached to my iPhone. Below are the results of the two groups, which I think each had some great moments of creativity.

Assignments for the next two weeks:

1. The same group with which you explored foley will be your group with which you will create a 20 minute radio show of any variety, theme, topic, and/style you want. By Monday 03/12 10PM you will need to collaboratively create a 30 sec bumper/teaser for your show and post it to your blogs. Only one student need upload the file to Soundcloud, and each of you should embed it to your blog and describe your role in producing it.

Please have a look at the ds106 page for additional description and links to some examples of bumpers and shows created by previous students. The final 20 min show is due by Sunday 03/11 at 11:59PM, again only one student need post the file to Soundcloud, but everyone needs to blog about their experience creating the show and embed the file in the post. We will be broadcasting your shows Monday 03/12 on DS106Radio for a live show.

In a comment on this post, please let me know your group’s name, show topic, and the members of your group. If you don’t already have a group, use the comments on this page to find one to join by asking to get in on one, or by creating your own and inviting others.

2. You will also be exploring the audio assignments bank and doing 15 stars worth of assignments over the next two weeks. I would like everyone to do the three star sound effects story assignment during this time. Read the post I wrote last semester describing the main tools needed to do sound projects. It talks about recording, sample sources, editing, and publishing tools.

Also you can visit Alan Levine’s 106tricks site for additional resources about working with audio over the next two weeks. And here’s a lot more links to videos about foley if interested.

And the title of this post is inspired by Bob Dylan infamously dismissing the majority of modern music since his time saying, ‘the radio makes hideous sounds.’ Well I say in response, let’s turn these two weeks ‘up to eleven.’

DS106 Radio One Year Anniversary

Jan 21, 2012 By mbransons in Digital Storytelling 2 Comments Tags: ds106radio, GNA, NoiseProfessor, Timmmmyboy

An animated GIF to mark the launch of the most fabulous broadcasting station ever.

DS106 Radio Is The Thriller!

Oct 25, 2011 By mbransons in Digital Storytelling 4 Comments Tags: AudioAssignments, AudioAssignments36, ds106, ds106radio, Thriller, Vincent Price

DS106 Radio is the Thriller cc licensed in flickr by Michael Branson Smith

Preparing for the Monday’s Halloween themed ds106radio event, “The Horrors of Education,” I created this Vincent Priced themed ds106 radio bumper sticker and bumper. Looking forward to here your most scary experiences in education, as well as any other spooky stuff you can think of.

DS106 Radio Is The Thriller

I edited this bumper in Audacity using the dry voice recording of Vincent Price posted on Youtube from his session for Michael Jackson’s Thriller. I was searching for Vincent Price audio and when I found this, I just couldn’t believe I found him saying “Can you dig it!” It’s like he made it knowing ds106radio would need this sound on tape some day.

I also added two sound effects found on freesound.org:

rbh thunder storm.wav by RHumphries
suonho_ScaryScape_01.wav by suonho

Fat Chance DS106 Will Ever Stop

Oct 11, 2011 By mbransons in Digital Storytelling 4 Comments Tags: ds106, ds106radio, monopoly, occupywallstreet, protest

As a New York City resident with easy access to the #OccupyWallStreet protest, I felt I’d be stupid to not go and check it out. But I wanted to also force myself to do something more than just troll the protest and take some pictures. So I committed (via tweet) to broadcasting some interviews with protestors on #ds106radio. I really enjoyed talking to the few people I did, and particularly Sharon and her grandson from Michigan. Here’s an archive of the broadcast thanks to Giulia Forsythe.

Sharon and Grandson – Occupy Wall Street

It’s going to be interesting over the coming weeks to see how #occupywallstreet evolves as a movement and/or how will we know it succeeds. It appears this protest is potentially “allowing” a long overdue conversation about the growing economic disparity between the richest 1% and the rest of us. And the fact that just by saying we’re not going to leave until we’re done talking about this issue, means the protest could possibly never end (#protest4life).

I want to thank everyone that sent in questions and listened the morning of the broadcast, but huge shout out to Guilia Forsythe for archiving and posting the audio as well as making a Storify out of the Twitter conversation. This kind of community reaction to work created in #ds106 is what excites and inspires me the most. The collective creative energy of ds106 is definitely more than the sum of its parts. Everyone is always reflecting and building together and I hadn’t previously found a community that was so generous with one another (big Twitter hug for ds106).

So I was inspired to continue the #occupywallstreet conversation by making a set of “Fat Chance” cards reinterpreting the Monopoly Chance cards. There is a set of five so far, and I’m hoping to make a few more. The cards describe issues you might find discussed by people if you spent some time at #occupywallstreet. Most of the people I spoke with were honest with themselves, recognizing that definitive change resulting from the protest might not happen. For example, the demand that big money lose it’s influence over politics seems very unlikely, or “fat chance that’s going to happen.” But the #occupywallstreet crowd answer is, “fat chance we’re stand for the status quo.”

I’m mostly using Photoshop/Illustrator to make these cards, I’ll admit I don’t have the stomach to really stick with GIMP. I’ve been an Adobe user for far to long, and struggle to use other tools. But I’ll force myself to do some more for the sake of supporting open/free tools for ds106.