Soungle

Soungle is one of the sites mentioned in Tom Barrett's presentation on using Search Engines in the classroom that I blogged about recently. Soungle is a free site dedicated to collecting various sound samples. You search for the sound you want and if they have it you are able to download it and use it in your projects free of charge.

My media students now have this bookmarked on their computers. It's great to be able to quickly find a simple sound or background noise for a video production.

Good resource to add to your bag of tricks.

[via ICT in My Classroom]

Capturing sound energy

In a sci-fi story I once read, their was a carthat was almost totally silent. The characters in the story believed sound was reflective of bad design. Any noise from a device, like a car, represented poor components and lost energy. Don't know if that is a true engineering concept or not, but I've always remembered that silent car. (If anybody remembers the name of this story, shoot me a note.)

This award winner from the 2008 International Design Competition got me thinking about noise. The SONEA is a device that captures sound and turns it into energy. Pretty much the opposite of what a microphone does. Place a bunch of these along a busy highway, a train station, a crashing surf.......a high school gymnasium, and you could gather some of that wasted noise and feed it back into the electrical grid.

Fascinating concept! I foresee a day when my lectures could power my students iPods. They would beg me to lecture longer......or at least until the charge bar is in the green!

[Image captured from JDF: http://www.jdf.or.jp/idc/dw/index.php?md=Detail_Work&id=116&ln=2]

Sound Effects

I often tell my video production students about a documentary I saw that had a short segment describing how they got the sound effects for Star Wars. Essentially some guys went out and recorded various sounds in the world and then used them as the basis for the effects in the film. The one I always remember is a man with headphones and a recorder hitting the guy wire for a structure. That sound eventually became the laser blast sound you hear in the movie. I encourage them to be creative in their projects and not just use the same canned sounds that everyone else uses.

My enthusiasm falls on deaf ears. If I'm not going to grade them on it, assign it or twist their little adolescent arms and walk them on their tiptoes over to the sound equipment, it's not going to happen. The other video teacher and I have been talking a lot lately about how our students are doing great with the visual aspect of their projects but tend to ignore the sound. So, I've been thinking about ways I can get them to start listening. Paying attention to the sound levels. Maybe build an assignment around creating sound effects as the first step towards building an audio awareness of their work.

So, I was pleased to see this Guide to Sound Effects. It will be a part of my new improved lessons on sound next year.

[Update: Found this site about the man who did those star wars effects, Ben Burtt]

[via Make]

[Image: "Headphones, glasses, smile": Flickr: Uploaded on June 10, 2007 by allaboutgeorge: http://www.flickr.com/photos/allaboutgeorge/540043362/: Creative Commons]

Hiding a Lav Mic

My students don't like to use the lav mics when videotaping. The main reason given to me is that they don't like how they look with that ugly "black thing" hanging on their clothing. The second reason is they don't want to take the time to set up a secondary mic. In regards to taking the time, I can usually win them over after they have had to re-shoot footage several times because of bad sound. In regards to the first reason, I am going to show them this video from Videomaker that describes several ways of hiding a mic. I like the clever idea of hiding a lav mic inside a pen that then sticks up out of your pocket. I am also going to be adding some medical tape (attaching mic to skin) and some moleskin (lessens the effect of cloth rubbing against mic) to our video tool kit.



[Image: "Sony ECM-CS10 Tie-Clip-Style Omnidirectional Business Microphone": Captured from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-ECM-CS10-Tie-Clip-Style-Omnidirectional-Microphone/dp/B000246SKU/ref=tag_tdp_sv_edpp_i]

Editing to Music

One last idea from the Videomaker Conference I recently attended. This technique was discussed in a session on Editing the first day and then we got a chance to try it out during the Premiere workshop the following day.

Most folks who edit have edited something to match the beat of a song. Determine the count of the music and then time your cuts to that rhythm. I teach this to my students usually in reference to creating a music video. What the conference showed me is that you can use a music selection to create the rhythm of your video but it does not have to be the music you use in your final production.

I didn't really see how this might work until I tried it. I cut a short piece to match the beat on "Moonlight Sonata". Then I experimented with changing the background music. Some songs were a faster tempo. Some slower. Some about the same. It didn't seem to matter. The edited video flowed nicely with any of the selections. Even when the cuts didn't fall on any particular beat, the two tempos just seemed to meld. Fascinating.

The presenters did warn us that if the tempo changed drastically it might not fit. (But even then, sometimes it does.) I'm excited to try this out with my students.

[Image: "Feel Music": Flickr: Uploaded on May 5, 2006 by XŤЯΣΛМ i: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xtream_i/140875083/]

Record some Ambient Noise

Another useful idea I got from the Videomaker conference.

When filming on location record 30-60 seconds of the ambient noise. If it's a room full of people, have them sit quietly for that time period. This little bit of static noise is great for when you have a sound glitch in the editing room and have to cut it out. If you leave that sound hole it will be noticeable when you play it back as even the quietest location has some kind of ambient noise.

In the past, I have cut out bits of quiet background from other parts of the video to cover this kind of glitch. Having this band aid bit of background noise makes so much more sense. I'll be adding this to the list of things my students need to do when they are filming on location.

[Original Image: Flickr: "Listening during a TA development Session": Uploaded on July 11, 2008 by k. erickson: http://www.flickr.com/photos/iskr/2658978480/: Modified by Al Gunn]