Week 2 - Voices

In week 2 we looked at Voices in audio. We looked at how specific sounds can change the idea of what environment the audio piece is taking place in. Reading and interpreting pictures in to sound is something else that we looked at or giving the sound a picture to relate to. Both of these regardless of which way round can give a piece of audio or an image context.

"...sounds linked to people, objects, and actions/environments that can be fleshed out with sonic ambience... clues to emotions of the scene... moments of dramatic transition"

Sonnenschein, 2001

The above quote sums up what it is to give context to an audio piece. With voices this could be something as simple as using a person with a British accent in an audio piece would give the context that the setting on the piece is in England. 

Something that we have strongly focussed on is that voices should not be telling the story through voice over. We ideally want to use sounds that deliver the emotions, perspective and context. Dialogue can be used if it fits into the narrative you are portraying but just should not be used as a voiceover. Dialogue can clear and it doesn't matter if we can make out some of the dialogue as long as it does not detract from the holistic environment.

Within voices, there is often a meaning embedded in different types even if subconscious and past experiences can change the meaning that is embedded. For example, I see a male voice to be deeper and to come across as more assertive but some people might see the male voice as threatening and aggressive which may also be the same for the female.

For the next week, we were tasked to choose an image and create a short sound piece (1-3 minutes) based on the things we discussed in lecture. We chose an image from the London riots for our piece, allowing us to create a simple piece which used a range of different elements to make it effective. This audio piece will be linked below along with the image we based our piece off.