Final Piece for 4D
Ok so this is my final piece for 4D – Moving Sound
It hasn’t turned out quite the way I hoped but it still is effective and shows how time and space can be compressed and peoples movements can be tracked by the sound that they’re hearing while following their own route. It’s interesting to see how different peoples journey has overlapped and their paths cross without them being aware of the other persons movements, and how they take different things from what they hear.
Here it is:
If I could take this further, I would enable you to zoom in and isolate a particular sound clip to the place they are in, for instance when Annabel is talking about Tinside pool being open already, being able to zoom into her timeline that the line represents to the point when she was there exactly. Or the bar that Tim walks past when he decides to go for a quick drink after skating at Prime.
I’d also like to be able to add spots like the picture shown in Visual so that you can play the sounds heard on that persons timeline, and perhaps enable someone to go forward or back on one persons timeline, as well as being able to play it from beginning to end in a linear fashion.
I would also consider using a different programme to animate the timelines or at least the sound that goes with them, maybe AfterEffects or something. Only because I didn’t think flash handled the audio too well, in other editing software the actual sound files were quite loud, so that the background noise really stood out as well, however when importing to Flash it becomes quieter so you can only really hear the voice of the person and hardly hear what’s going on around them.
For instance when Tim is walking past the bar, you should be able to hear a barmen hand over a Corona to a customer, or with the Fish and Chips hear someone order them instead it’s too faint to make out.
Flash
I’ve recorded the sound, peoples description and the background noise around them, I’ve uploaded that to the computer and edited it, now it’s time to visualize the data.
I kept with the idea of mapping their route on google maps and drawing their route out, but I thought having plain lines looked a bit dull, so I’ve changed it, just by adding one or two effects to it so the lines are luminescent, giving it a cool look, and how detailed their route is also effects the size of the line and the effect given.
So for one of the routes it was a small route but quite detailed so it’s thicker than the other lines, and one has a longer route but less detailed, so is thinner etc. (see below)
What I’m now going to do, is import these routes into Flash, and add motion tweens to them so that the line grows with the audio, as well as adding an interface so someone can play all of the clips, or one of them or two or only three or whatever, this makes it a bit more interactive.
I would like to keep with the idea of having spots to show when sound was recorded but unfortunately flash isn’t able to handle it too well, and instead makes it very big and very slow! I will just have to work with what I’ve got.
The audio still plays, and you can still see where peoples paths have interacted, and what’s going on around them which is what I wanted to show, how audio helps us to see what’s going on without having to be in the same space at the same time as the person.
Voicemail 2
I’ve come across a problem with my voicemail, I cannot transfer the voicemails onto the computer in order to manipulate them or find a way to visualize it either, so I might go back to the recording sound on the mobile phone instead but keep the idea of mapping out their roots and showing how their paths interlock etc.
And maybe I could do a flash animation that shows them their travel route as the sound progresses, so that in the quiet periods the line is still going despite nothing being recorded showing how long their route takes, but obviously compressing it so that we’re not watching someone route into town take ten minutes lol!
I also think I might scrap the script idea, only because having a ‘forced’ script isn’t needed it doesn’t add much to the piece and the paths cross because their made to cross rather than it being accidently that these people ended up missing each other or being in the same place just a couple hours apart or whatever.
So what I think I’ll do now, is have someone describe their route and record background noise at the same time, so that their position is known from their description and the knowledge of an area rather than being told exactly where they are.
For instance using the Lighthouse on the Hoe as a pin point, maybe have someone realize it’s open so anyone who knows the area will be able to visualize what they see knowing where they are, and maybe being able to show follow their route more closely without graphics by what is seen or heard.
Visual
Now that I’ve decided how I’m going to proceed with the audio, I’ve been thinking about how to visualise what is being heard.
I want to show how peoples lives overlap, so maybe a grid like representation, and if I go along with the script can show where each person was at a particular time, or see where their times crossed paths or their audio matched.
For instance if someone witnessed an event and they had to report it they could go to the police station at 10, and someone else who had seen it went at four, there’d be a dot perhaps on their grid to show when they went there and what they each saw and heard etc.
So i thought about a grid, a way that show their own network made up of time, space and audio to play out the day but from different points of views taken from different times, I just don’t quite know how it’ll work or what it will look like, so I’ve done a mock up of a grid system.
Each line will represent someone’s audio and the dots will show when their paths or times overlapped. (see image below)
I don’t think this type of visualization will work, as I will need more than a couple of people in order for it to look good, a grid made up of four would look more pathetic. Also each of those lines don’t show anything they’re just lines, and they can’t even properly interlink with one another either, the horiztonal lines cannot be linked to one another and neither can the vertical lines.
The image also doesn’t show anything important doesn’t represent what I’m trying to show in my piece.
The other option which is more likely to be the one I choose, it perhaps have each persons route tracked using google maps, and have a line showing where they were going with dots symbolising when they were at a particular place with the audio that goes along with them.
Perhaps where they were when they made the first voice mail, I also think it’s more likely to show how all of their routes were linked in someone despite being their at different times. (See image below)
I do prefer this style, you can see more clearly where one person has been, and how that links with the others, and the dots will show audio was recorded there, which will make it easier to identify the differences of each persons perspective when being in the same place even if it’s at different times.
Mobile Phones
Hmm I haven’t done any more experiments just yet with my 4D project I’ve just been using the time to do research for my dissertation on Mobile phones, something in them has given me a new idea for my project perhaps.
Most of the books I’ve read to do with the wants and needs of mobile phones have looked at how they help society co-ordinate their lives whether it’s for work, family or friends and that got me thinking about how our mobile phones to bend time or at least play around with it.
Our phones are with us at all times of the day, even when it won’t be socially acceptable to use them say at a dinner table but it’s very rare we’re without them. We use them as time devices instead of a watch we check the time on the phone, or instead of a battery powered alarm clock we use our phone.
But that’s not the only relationship between time and phone, messages for instance they bend time to a degree, I can send a message to my friend knowing she won’t get it until a particular time, but that’s ok because I plan for her to get it then and not before.
So I use my phone to play around with time, I send her a message in my present, for her future, perhaps telling her something that happened to me in the past – but I don’t wait to tell her, I tell her right then and now, so the language I use isn’t past as it would be if I was with her to tell her but present, despite knowing it won’t be present when she gets it.
I was thinking about how this could relate to my 4D piece, and I thought about voice mail, and how the background noise could let the receiver know what is or was going on when that person made the call and where, but not get it until after the event.
So thinking about how the listener is transported through sound ignoring time and space to their location, so tying in what I wanted to do, by using sound to recreate a space in an empty space but just using voice mails to do it…looks like more experiments are needed!
I want to see what you can hear when someone leaves a voicemail, whether it picks up the background noise or not, and how I can transfer a voicemal to the computer.
Recording
I’ve uploaded the recordings from that evening with my friends to my computer, it’s going to be interesting to see how it turned out, and whether it produced the effect that I want or hope for. I’m not expecting too much because I did only use mobile phones to record it, and used three different handset providers so I do think the quality of the recording will change.
I recorded about an hour of the evening with no one knowing so that part of the experiment was successful, and the mobile phones were able to handle that, which does mean if I want to do more experiments later I know mobile phones will work might not be the best solution but they can at least work.
After listening to what was recorded I can see it didn’t work quite as well as I hoped…one mobile phone was really good, the sound quality was decent and it managed to pick up a lot with little static (as this can be a problem with other mobile phone recorders) however it was a little bit too good.
Not only did it record what was going on nearest to the phone well, but also what was going on on the other side of the room, so the voices weren’t faint or distant, so that didn’t work quite so well to isolate the sound to each ear depending on where in the room it was taking place.
I was able to do this in editing, because I knew what should be where in that room, so for instance I knew that Tim was sat on the sofa by the double doors of the living room, which is at the back of the room, so any sound from him would be to the left of someone if they stood in the middle of the room looking at the left hand wall.
As for the other two mobile phones, their recordings weren’t great, they were fuzzy and you didn’t quite get what was going on around them, I don’t know whether that’s mainly to do with the device themselves, or because they were recording conversations rather than just sounds or a description.
the I tried to send the audio to the left ear headphone or the right, I was able to use my knowledge of the room and the evening to play with the sound. And although when I played the piece after editing it, I was able to visualize room, what was going on, and where everyone was in relation to me listening as if I was in the middle of the room, it’s not as successful as I would have hoped.
I’m not sure if it only worked because I’d been there, I knew the layout of the room already, I knew where the furniture is or was on that evening, what the people were like, and knew what was going on as I was part of the evening…for my final piece though I want anyone to be able to see what they hear without prior knowledge of the people or the room.
I do know though that more than conversation needs to be recorded, description is vital so that people get a sense of the space they’re inhabiting with the sound and the people in it, and then I’ll need to think of a way to digitally represent that.
Sound
I haven’t had the chance to organise an appropriate time to record, ideally I want it to be in a big enough room that the mobile phones aren’t so close to each other that they end up picking up exactly the same things at the same level, and also when I have more than a couple of people, so that I can add more conversation etc. as for my final piece I want to do something that involves four or five people compared to one or two, to be more affective.
So it has been nearly a month since my last post but tonight I’m having a group of friends round to play games, drink and just chat, it’ll be interesting to see how much of their conversation I can pick up and the different levels of sounds.
Been a while
As you can tell from the title my it’s been awhile since I last blogged…having not blogged for a year it’s been hard to get back or start getting back into the habit of blogging. I see it as a chore something I want to push-off, rather than a way to get my ideas down as and when I come up with them…which is what I know a few in on my course do.
I think I better get started…first off I can’t believe that the first term of my final year is over already! It seems like it’s only just begun, it’s also starting to freak me out a bit because I feel like I haven’t done much work wise since starting uni again in September.
However now it’s the Christmas break I have got to get myself motivated and actually do some work! That being said it’s going to be a busy few weeks, I have a Scripting for New Media coursework to do, I’ve got to make an application that does something across a network in Flash, I decided to make a game, an old school battleships for two players.
I need to spend some time looking into the coding for that, how to design it and if it’s possibly for me to do in the next few weeks, as the deadline is the first week back.
I also have to write a draft chapter for my dissertation; I’m still undecided how I feel about that whether I’m confident with the subject I’ve chosen and where it’s heading or not, Geoff my tutor did like my structure I sent him last week which is a bonus! My biggest problem would have to be my final year project, I have no idea what to do…I did have an idea which was a bit weird but would work only my tutor didn’t like it and wants me to head in another direction that I’m not too keen on myself…I’ve been thinking about it for a few weeks and I’m still coming up blank…which is freaking me out a bit.
Another module I need to work on is my 4D, the proposal for that was my last blog entry…Mike does like that idea which again is a major thumbs up and has motivated me to start work on it…he suggests I try recording something and see how it sounds played back at the same time to help me sort out what i want this piece to be about.
What I’m thinking of doing, is setting up mic’s around a room and recording everyone in that room, listen to all their conversations running at the same time…which is a rough sketch of what I wish to do for the final piece. in a weird kind of way.
The games module is going ok, I’ve been put in charge of the website which to be honest about I am less than pleased about…I cannot stand web development, it drives me round the wall and I hate it with a passion! I’d rather be doing something much more arty and creative, and design things, and do marketing which unfortunately Ollie has put Claudia in charge of.
I do feel like I’m a dead weight with this game though, because there hasn’t been much for me to do, the web development is pretty much one of the last things needed to do…I’ll much rather get stuck in to the marketing and media side of things…that’s what I’d really like to do…I’ve asked Ollie and he’s like I don’t know…oh well just have to wait and see how it goes.
That’s uni work out of the way…but since my last blog so much else has happened!
I got into a car accident, resulting in my car being written off, I am currently in negations with the insurance company over the value of my car; I am now carless 
and have resorted to using the bus and walking everywhere which is just time-consuming and annoying.
I still can’t believe how expensive Plymouth Citybus is! I’m on the bus for ten minutes and it costs me £2.40 for a return! That isn’t even 2 day’s worth of petrol! It’s not just the price that’s annoying it’s the fact that the buses are so unreliable, they’re either early, late or just don’t bother to turn up! When I’m going into uni for a meeting or a lecture I don’t want to have to wait half an hour for a bus or catch a much earlier bus just to guarantee I’ll get in on time!
That’s what I loved about having a car, I could drive to uni, park and know I’ll get there on time most of the time depending on traffic. It also meant that if I needed to do something or get something I’d be able to do it in my own time when I can and not whenever the busses would allow me to get there.
I am hoping to get another car soon, one which is the same as my car that’s just been written off as I would gladly have kept that car for two or three years and I know I wouldn’t have too many problems with it…that what really gets me is that I now have less money to get a car, so it’ll have to be older and most likely have more problems with it than the car I did have. My car also came with two years MOT and Service which meant I wouldn’t have to worry about additional surprising costs when it comes to fixing things! Grr…
Anyway I need to go, have work to do…it’s going to be a busy few weeks…lucky me!
Experiments
So I’ve sent in my proposal, got to think how to carry on, and how exactly it’s going to sound, now’s the time for me to do some experiments, I think the main area is trying to get the recording done how it sounds, what manipulation I can do with it just to see if it is possible to do what I want with the sound.
What I’m planning on doing is recording an evening I spend with my friends, using mobile phones from each side of the room get snippets of the conversation to see if it gives an accurate reading of what’s going on, if I can isolate the sound and if I can play around with it so build what’s going on in the room but just by using sound.
They don’t want to be recorded so I’m going to keep quiet about it, and see what happens. I expect the sound to be a bit distorted as mobile microphones aren’t the best quality as I do have to hide the phones from them so they don’t know what’s going on.
Also they won’t be able to describe what’s going on, as they don’t know they’ll need to, however it’ll still be interesting to see what happens and how it goes.
What I’m really hoping from this experiment is that recording an event which is only heard and with no other visual aids a picture of what’s going on can be demonstrated, like for instance if to your right someone puts a cup down and you hear it, then perhaps the hearer could establish that perhaps there’s a table in that general direction.
Or if they hear noises behind them but are faint then they could believe that there’s a door there, and be able to start to visualise the room they’re listening to around where they themselves are stood.
So hope it all goes fine!
