Audio Piece Reflections & Video Storyboarding

Reflections:

Making this audio piece was a great experience — I feel lucky to have been working with Becca and Mary, because we all settled in on an idea without much trouble and worked quite well in concert. I’ve been mostly working on projects by myself for the last three years, so adjusting to working with others was definitely a learning experience, but a positive one. I think we all did a good job of being vocal about what we wanted without any single one of us trying to dominate the project. We also did a great job of coordinating work remotely when we weren’t able to meet in person. I did rediscover something I’m not a big fan of about myself — I’m extremely impatient and like to quickly define goals/a plan, which isn’t always good during a slow, creative brainstorming process where everything may be subjective to change.

I learned a good bit about audio editing — I’d never touched Audition before — and I think my biggest takeaway was that my initial urge in editing a “chaotic” sequence, to make everything as loud as possible, was incorrect. Mary revisited my section before we published and by toying with volume levels was able to make it much more effective. I also think next time I’d like to start with a clearly defined plot before collecting sounds and editing — while I feel like everything worked out pretty well for us, I think not having multiple changes to our plan after the recording process could have made it even more effective.

Storyboarding:

This was another positive group experience: we all managed to settle on an idea and rough outline for the film literally within minutes. ITP people are pretty great, in general!

Here’s our one-paragraph summary: Our idea is to create a video about wellness resources at NYU, using satirical methods to document the various reasons grad students might need them. We want to start with a number of horror movie shot homages detailing various stressors and unpleasant parts of being at ITP/at NYU grad school in general. Using a horror movie voiceover, talk about feeling trapped (long zoom shot of someone looking terrified in the 12th floor hallway, constant sleeping (shakycam catching someone sleeping on the floor), insomnia (vertigo-style closeup of somebody terrified in bed), constant distraction (shot of the back of someone’s head in front of a screen, using sonic cues to show distraction, then cut to a clock moving rapidly), overeating (violent closeup of someone chowing down on a slice of pizza), fidgeting (sped up shot of someone’s eye twitching, general fidgeting), culminating in being cold (shot of someone on the floor frozen like Jack in the Shining). We then cut to the wellness center — warmly lit, peaceful music, and list its services and benefits in a peaceful voice (mindfulness, therapy, etc.).

You can check out our storyboards on my google drive.