Assignment 02: Audio Storytelling

 Assignment 02 Briefing

We need to find a story, it can be from any classic story like Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast or classic novels like Alice in the Wonderland and more. We need to complete the storytelling in 3 minutes. We need to clean the recording, clear all the background noises and clarify the voices only. Then, we are to add in sound effects and music to suits the story.

Process

I choose 'Little Women' as my story. I only choose a very small part from it to present my storytelling as we have only 3 minutes. The reason I choose this part of the story is because there are some musical elements, and I like this part of the story a lot. I would like to include more of the story but due to time limit, I only include this little part of it. 

I actually edit my slide show as the first step, so I can arrange my storyline better and estimate how long the story will go. After I recorded my story, I cut out some parts again as it is still too long. Then, I started to edit the audio clips, it is not hard to reduce the noise. I have also planned the sound effects too, but it is mostly piano music as this part of the story focuses on piano. 

I didn't add much sound effects as this are more to storytelling, I want to present it as a very calm and peaceful storytelling without much dramatic effect. I hope that my product did portray the messages and the feeling this story should give. 

Original recording:

Final product:

Reflection

I have learned a lot in this assignment. It is really interesting and fun, especially when recording the story, I am able to explore on voice acting. It's my first time doing this kind of voice recording and it's really fun. I record my voices in my rented room, at midnight, to prevent any background noises from my housemates. There is still some white noise behind it, but it is not too hard to clean it. I love the process of recording as it is fun to do voice acting. 

In the editing process, I try to find the same music used in the movie 'Little Women' as I think it will be very suitable to the theme. But I only use one as there is not much space for me to add much more music in. I focus on piano music as this scene is all about piano. I added a little sound effect for handling the letter, opening the piano, touching the piano keys, walking in nature and etc. 

For the video, I just did a very simple slideshow as our project is more focus on sound. I hope that my final product is good to listen to and people can enjoy this storytelling video.