Author: Aparna Sivaramakrishnan

After going through the process of multiple iteration of the concept and recognising the lack of narration to explain the main concept, because I wanted to include the idea of meal together among family but most of my topics were either complicated or wasn’t appealing for me. Later, during of my final tutorial we found the idea of applying the most basic topic “cycle of life” and connecting it to meals together while adding interesting twists into it. Though a meal is a part of human it is not necessarily the directly give. concrete concept to explain why a baby growing around food is not a regular concept and it can be interesting while I try to explain to my tutor.

During my research I found that life of parents are not highlighted as much as it should be. Therefore, I wanted to try bringing the audio in the perspective of parents with the sounds in relation to the child as a part go it. The life cycle starts as a couple/ dates later, in long term it gradually changes to a family where a child’s growth begins. The most common stages in the growth of a child to an adult is divided into five stages as shown below:

Theses stages were found in a journal, from which I selected toddler, childhood and Adulthood as the stages I wanted to represent through y work. though these stages were selected, it doesn’t mean that at all stages the child has to be present, an example being in adulthood the parents might be in the stage of empty nester with their kids moving out in many situations.

With these thoughts, the next step was to find different occasions where a family can have meal together, some of the ideas as shown below. Most of the scenarios can be a good one but I had to think about the bringing uniqueness and variety along with a continuous storyline.

_{Thought process of deciding the final four scenarios}

its these ideas of scenarios which can be used for different stages, I was able to design a cycle where the couple starts as a date in a restaurant and then ends at the restaurant once when their kids become and adult and moves out. The cycle is as shown below:

Each of the locations were chosen due to the difference from each other, where I will be able to develop my skills with ambience in multiple styles.

Ideation for the miniature:

The idea is to have all scenarios on the same circular plane but at different altitude, similar to architectural miniature models of an upcoming city, but this will contain different parts of the world including wildlife and city. All of them will be made using the scale of 1:25 which is a common scale for miniature with more detailing. this will be a better option since the other scales can be comparatively smaller making it nearly impossible to do as much detailing as I would like to, in the given time period.

They will be interconnected by the gradual change in the nature and through a pound as the centrepiece since water connects all parts of land together. The placement/ order of the structures will be according to the cycle of scenarios.

At a later date, I was still not able to convince myself with the idea of the roof or the rooms being completely present, since it would block the view and the interconnection between all four of them. While mind storming different methods which can be used, the idea of completely avoiding the roof and walls emerged to the surface. This doesn’t mean there won’t be any walls present but will avoid any unnecessary tall walls and will implement more dome shaped windows into structure. This will help in completing the structure without the need of a wall and will keep everything open from all directions.

At a later point the whole stallion will be made touch or pressure sensitive to activate small lights such as campfire or the tiny lick std in the kitchen along with the audio track for each of them. In case of this not being possible, then the lights and speakers will be synced together.

References

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK567767

since I am interested in underwater sounds I started with it , something I am more familiar with rather than a complete new concept to start trying out. I knew if I want any movement of the nature underwater it should be away from London. This lead me to Strout river and the river side walk. It is a 2 hour walk on a sunny day but die to my poor planning and unexpected weather it was raining and impossible to walk by. But I did manage to get some great recording especially some phenomenal one when the rain started to pour. I will be able to use it as my base layer, as part of my transition.

The walking route I chose

The experience of using Sound Device interface along with hydrophone was interesting was interesting. It was my first time to use the combination outdoor while on a track. I did have back up of Zoom H5, which was useful when my plan one stopped recording midway.

As a trial to get access to deeper part of the river, I used a Boom and to fling the hydrophone as a fishing hook.

I mixed audio from different places and countries because there is no specific place set for the project. It is an ideal place where the opportunity for people to be be together is a possible scenario. In our world many times slightest matters can trigger issues leading to distance between people who are meant to stick together. Similarly, this place and the concept of the different scenes together is fiction and hopefully possible in this world.

Some of the other recording done from Kashmir, India are as shown as below. It doesn’t have enough clarity therefore it has to cleaned up as much as possible and can only be used as a layer in the background

A concept which occurred during one of my tutorial is to play a radio in the background and for one of the character to hum along with it. This was a suggestion because I wanted to have human interactions such as talking as part of daily chores in the kitchen, but it seems not possible with the time contrail. I wanted to have human interaction through the sound because there won’t be any evidence of human in the physical miniature other than certain remains, such as pan on the kitchen counter top with fried eggs on it or other detailing.

As part of it I did try humming along with the sound but wasn’t successful, and don’t think I can use it, but I would like to give it a better try afterwards while I am doing my whole project in detail.

Reference:

https://www.walkinginthewild.co.uk/long-distance-trails/stour-valley-path

https://www.countryfile.com/go-outdoors/walks/walk-river-stour-suffolk

Session % with Cathy Kane was an a session which helped me to reflect on the real reason for me to work on the topic I did chose previously. Though I knew I am interested in the topics of sound for motion media, I didn’t know how will I be able to connect my future to my current project idea.

What I recognised from the session was that ambience of any place is important in the field of entertainment regardless of what kind. It can vary from theatre to movies to games, it will always remain important, therefore getting expertises in the field is a key point for my future career.

This lead me to understand that I will have to work with different scenarios with different characteristics, otherwise I automatically stay in my comfort zone and neglect the vast variety audience are interested in or I can explore.

Though it made me recognise that I will have to explore more reference and styles, I do want to work with my go to or most preferred feel ‘underwater’ along with the project. Another part of the session was when we were discussion our project with our course mates and us trying to guess the keywords, I felt my idea was clear and understandable but I do need to work more on it to make it extraordinary.

The spark of concept was while going through a showcase of David Hockey works at a gallery in Bond Street. It was also right after I visited my family for the Summer break and I was going through my homesickness. This brought me to the idea of narration in relation to around the table at different places, since it would give me opportunity to work with areas which are both loud and quite with specification of the spaces.

_{Tylor Dining Room by David Hockney (Tate, no date)}

Some of the around the table scenarios were:

>Meeting/ office conference- for the silence and detailing

>Camp site- nature

>Kitchen table- the clutter of cooking and the warmth of a family

>Gambling- very loud place with extreme scattered layering

>Hospital Room- patient care with the sounds of the beeping and distant chaos

The concept is to place the scenarios in a cycle where all of them are connected to each other through the nature though all of them are different. They will have a common connection in the centre using a lake or a waterbody. I prefer to give some kind of connection to underwater since I want to improve my techniques of working with hydrophone.

Iteration to the concept:

my concept evolved from different spaces around a table back to family meals and their variations. One of the reason being concentrating on family meals or having meal with loved ones and their emotional impact on us. Some of my researched lead me to understand the decline of family meals per week in UK. The reasons varying from having meals in front of a screen to the discomfort of being with their own family due to multiple reasons (‘Why Aren’t Families Eating Together? Too Much Work’, 2022). According to the data collected from a group in 2022, some of the reasons for avoiding family dinners being discomfort with family, concern with eating habits of others on the table or concern about their own eating habits (‘Why Aren’t Families Eating Together? Too Much Work’, 2022).

The reason to promote meals with loved ones were explored by a group of scientists and some of the

Some of the benefits found during my research (‘We’re Better Together – Benefits of Eating Meals Together | First Coast YMCA’, no date)

Reference:

Tate (no date) ‘Tyler Dining Room‘, David Hockney, 1984, Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hockney-tyler-dining-room-p20122 (Accessed: 11 January 2025).

‘We’re Better Together – Benefits of Eating Meals Together | First Coast YMCA’ (no date). Available at: https://fcymca.org/your-stories/blog/were-better-together-benefits-of-eating-meals-together/ (Accessed: 11 January 2025).

‘Why Aren’t Families Eating Together? Too Much Work’ (2022), 23 November. Available at: https://ccpulse.org/2022/11/23/why-arent-families-eating-together-too-much-work/ (Accessed: 11 January 2025).

The process started with listing downing all the possible ideas which can be expanded into a much more elaborate projects. They are as shown in the picture below.

_{Picture of the list}

Some of them were eliminated during the personal tutorial due to them being over used methods or it potentially not being practical due to the need of excessive time and voice actors (radio drama). The ideas were not as appealing as the ambience through a miniature world. Therefore the most ideal main project is to present a scenario in a miniature world with voices and ambience design. An option was to include a bit of scientific research since I have a backup future plan to enter research based post grad for design but can’t decide about it until I have a fixed concept to work with.

The second potential idea is to collaborate with an animation group, since I am still in the process of understanding live recording and working with dialogue editing for the post production. Though I will be using foley for the production for the animation, I want to work with something which needs loads of different skills rather than one particular aspect.

In case of not being able to find a collaboration I will have to expand my search to different kinds of entertainment and screen courses. As a backup idea or the third option is to work with materials and experiment its transfer through them, I would like to work with water as main subject since its been one of my main interest in my recent projects. though I have used underwater sounds from different resources, this time I would like to include more hydrophone recording while trying to find the differences between different sources and the area. Though they might be the differences might be detailed and will need more reproach, as well as learning to differentiate them, but this might be an opportunity for developing personal skills.

As part of portfolio I have to do two project but I have selected my options according to the career option I would like to choose. The first one is a combination of both my first year in theatre design and sound design. I would like to showcase the skills I attained during my first year such as miniature model making with extreme precision. It consists of planning the structure and understating the space in respect to its measurements. They will be useful for understanding the volume of the room and visualising the possible reflective surfaces for the sound.

Along with the miniature making I will be using my skills of storytelling, to explain the concepts using the different scenarios through the audio for each miniature set. It is considered as my main project since I am interested in sound installation and ambience design for screen.

_{My previous project: miniature structure}

The option for my second work is to concentrate on sound effects for screen or theatre. One of the option being collaboration with other UAL courses, radio drama, novel game design or in case of an impossibility of a collaboration is to make an experimental material based sound installation. As a start, I have reached out to other courses, mainly BA Animation through the course leader. Hopefully it will be a stepping stone for bigger projects.

_{Link for my previous foley work}

Another option I would like to keep as a backup project is to work with materials while manipulating them according to the sound produced by each of them.it will be a continuation of my previous project, where I was trying to work with string. This time it will be much more well researched with better

_{Picture of the instrument}

Link for the performance