I’ve always enjoyed traveling. Especially, the type of travel that includes wandering around, seeing what’s behind that next corner. I believe I was one of the first toddlers wearing the harness and leash, or at least in my family I was. The story goes that I would inevitably be looking at something or see something and meander away from the group.
I haven’t changed much.
Last year, I spent five months working and traveling around China. For this audio project, I decided I would capture some of the sounds off my own video from my time in China, and then describe some of the experiences I had.
Traveling to me is so much more than a visual exploration. To me, travelling is a journey of the senses. The smells, textures and sounds are the ingredient that makes the imagery so vivid. This project was a perfect time to explore the sounds I experienced in China. As I journeyed through the country, some of the noises were uncomfortable, while others were entertaining and charming. But, overall it was what I was hearing which made the journey memorable.
To begin, I started by selecting the video which had the sounds I wanted to explore and capture. Next, I opened the video into Audition and then extracted the sound. After I had extracted the various sounds from the videos. I wrote out my narration and then divided it into segments. Resulting in multiple waveform files
Starting with over thirty minutes of audio, I knew I had to start trimming. At the end I had a 2:20 MP3 as an audio draft. But, I knew there would be sequences that needed cleaning up and I hoped the feedback would help me pinpoint these out.
I received my feedback from the group and proceeded to start analyzing the audio. The feedback talked about my transitions between segments and to improve the fade in and fade out. There was also explanation of extending “It’s a small world” to improve the full phrase of the song title, as you tend to sing the song in your head. I went back to the video I had which isn’t the best quality, but I extracted the sound from the video, trimmed the music and added the clip to the audio draft. There was also feedback on adding sound to the end of the segment to finish off the audio.
As I began the process of cleaning up the clicks and audio sound. I used the razor tool, removing bits of sound and then merging the remaining clips together. Not having worked with Audition before this class, I tried some of the cleanup effect tools and worked some of the clips through noise reduction. I did not have as much success as I had hoped with this effort. So, I went back to zooming in on clips, listening for a sound. Perhaps a click or a slight noise and I would razor trim that section out and merge the clip together. Then I would add a fade into that and the next segment. I also would adjust the volume, so one clip wasn’t louder than another. This process took me a little over five hours. In the final phase, I introduced a new piece of music I had captured to finish off the audio. I trimmed and used the fade techniques.
To me, the sounds of China, was not about having perfect sound clips in the background, I wanted the audience to hear the bits of human interaction within the sound bites, that this was not studio produced. The sound was all captured live in China, and I wanted it to remain a bit rough. What I needed to concentrate on was the transitions, click of mouse, and the overall narration flow.
I hope I accomplished that in the final version. Starting with over thirty minutes, trimming to a draft of two minutes and twenty seconds, I finalized with a segment of two minutes and one second. Once again, I appreciated the feedback. It really helps to narrow down what needs focused on and to complete projects within in time limits.
Images: Coco and I, and Nǎinai’s (grandma’s) birthday celebration.
Female Flying Solo 