Many things happen in Washington Square Park, located right in front of where I live. Numerous people pass by this place every day, and many sounds can be heard. Anything can happen here. Even a sudden alien invasion could occur.
This soundscape begins with the sound of MTA arriving at the ‘West 4th street’ train station, which I often use.
It is located near Washington Square Park.
As I get off the train, I can hear the sound of busking going on in Washington Square Park.
However, aliens suddenly invade and a battle breaks out.
People scream and evacuate, but they end up in great confusion.
However, dogs walking in the park defeat the aliens.
The aliens return, busking resumes, and people cheer at the end.
It was difficult to record and produce subway notification sounds at once.
This is because the sounds overlapped and could not be heard clearly.
Therefore, the sound of the subway coming in and the announcement sound were recorded separately and expressed as one sound.
Also, one sound was used as two different sounds.
People’s screams were sometimes used as human screams, but they were also expressed as alien cries by lowering the pitch and adjusting the speed.
Reverb was added to the background sound to create a sense of space, and panning was added to the footstep sound so that left and right sounds were heard alternately.
What I focused on the most was the battle sound.
Both the screaming and the gunshot were strong, high-pitched sounds, so it was difficult to combine them.
However, by adding a compressor and adjusting the EQ, I reduced the popping sounds as much as possible and ensured that the intensity remained.
The concept image (artwork) for Soundscape was generated with AI.
By image or video? Abstractly or factually?
To clearly show the boundaries between imagination and reality, the everyday scene is in color, and the alien scene is in monochromatic.
Adding animation effects using drawings or photos to videos and photos taken by myself
This Visual Narrative begins with the main character riding the subway.
The main character uses the subway to go to Washington Square Park.
Afterwards, the MTA passes through several stops and arrives at the ‘West 4th Street’ train station.
The sign at the train station entrance and the arrival sound announce visually and audibly that you have arrived at Washington Square Park.
When I passed the stairs and came out of the station and arrived at Washington Square Park, busking was in progress.
Various people play musical instruments in various places in the park.
It looks peaceful for a moment, but then a spaceship appears above the arch.
The government broadcasts an EMERGENCY ALERT.
A battle breaks out due to an alien invasion.
People scream and evacuate, but it ends up in great chaos.
But it’s always the dogs walking in the park that fend off the aliens.
The aliens run away and return to their daily lives.
It was a very interesting task to express both auditory and visual things simultaneously through Soundscape. When I was creating the soundscape, the image and result I had imagined were different, and when I actually filmed it, it progressed differently from the storyboard.
The task of visually realizing virtual abstract figures that do not exist in reality was also very challenging. I used color to materialize the visual. Yellow was used for subways and everyday scenes, green was used for scenes where aliens first appear, and red was used for battle scenes. Each color represents the emotions of each scene and also represents the color of a traffic light that symbolizes daily life in the city.
The most time-consuming part was how to do the cut transition. I thought it would be more effective to insert a blackout part or a scene that provides ventilation rather than continuing to the next video for parts where the atmosphere changes significantly. Additionally, to create a similar atmosphere, the two videos were overlaid to create a natural transition between the screens.
When expressing the soundscape I first created visually, there were some parts where the video and sound did not match, so I discarded all the videos I had already filmed or produced and produced them again.
Some scenes involving dogs, close-ups of aliens, and scenes inside the subway where the main character appears were downloaded from footage and edited to fit the purpose, while the rest of the footage, including subway scenes, scenes in the park, and busking scenes, were all filmed by myself.
