Technical Exercise 2

TIME-BASED COMMUNICATION 2
YSDN 3013 (S) Winter Term I Academic Year 2008/2009

TECHNICAL EXERCISE 2 (sound editing)
Assigned: January 30, 2009

Length of Project: Classes 4-5.
Deadlines: Due Feb 6 (WK 5 class)
Grade breakdown: 5% of final grade.

This is a collaborative project. Students will work in pairs, with each team of two jointly responsible for producing one final result. The final piece will receive one grade, with each student receiving the same grade. Any discrepancies in  time and effort contributed will be factored into overall course participation mark.

Objectives.
The technical exercises, generally speaking, are designed to help students discover principles of time-based media that they can later apply to their own independent creative project work. They are also opportunities to further develop their technical skills with time-base media production equipment and computer applications.

The objectives of Exercise 2:

• to introduce students to the elements & principles of motion picture sound design.
• to expand students’ awarness of the expressive potential of sound in relation to moving images.
• to improve their technical knowledge and competency with sound editing tools and techniques.

The Exercise
Working in pairs, pick one of your classmates’ completed Exercise 1 sequences to work with. Making sure to save an accessible backup of the original file, create a new Final Cut Pro project, and import the Quicktime file of their Exercise 1 sequence into your new Final Cut project.

Remove the existing sync-sound tracks from the sequence. Create a new sound track for the sequence, to ironic, poetic and/or comedic effect, with the goal of changing the meaning or emotional tenor of the sequence you started with.

Give the piece a new title and credit. Export it as a Quicktime (.mov) file, and save both the original and the new Quicktime files as data files on DVD. Be prepared to present both the original and the new sequence at the beginning of class on February 6.

Procedures and Guidelines
1 You will need a (minimum 4 gig) portable storage device for transferring the media you will be working with onto your computer.
2. You can work with any kind of sound you want (effects, ambiance, voice-over, voice-off) except for uncut pre-recorded music, or synch dialogue.
3. You can work with sound you have recorded yourselves, or with found sounds, including sounds found in online resources such as the Free Sound Project, www.freesound.org. Make sure, however, that the audio file type and sampling rate is compatible with Final Cut Pro. You can work with audio ‘found’ in the original ‘Exercise 1 media file, provided you break its original synchronous relationship to the picture and/or process it beyond recognition.
4. Avoid cutting the sequence’s picture track. You can add text or effects to it if you choose, but are not expected to do so.
5. Make sure the audio levels of both your original sounds and your final piece are acceptable: what you mean to be audible should be audible. Avoid: distorted signals, extraneous unwanted sound (aka noise) including hiss, hums, pops, clicks, et al.
6. Your final piece should be exported as a (DV NTSC 48Khz) Quicktime (.mov) file. Both the original and the final sequences should be saved as data files on DVD.

Evaluation
5 points:

• 1 point for the students’ ability to meet the basic technical requirements of the exercise
• 2 points for the student’s ability to achieve the goal of creating an ironic, poetic and/or comedic effect, and changing the meaning or emotional tenor of the original sequence.
• 1 point for especially elegant sound editing technique.
• 1 point for originality of your response to the challenges of the assignment.