Storytelling through sound - In a cactus way
"Storytelling through sound" was an elective course I joined in the University of Twente, which was also one of the most interesting courses I have taken until now. It not only taught me various recording techniques, how to edit and process sounds, but also made me have a deeper understanding and greater appreciation of sound.
Before the course, my understanding of sound was just a medium of communication. During the course, I gradually experienced the impact of well-designed sound, and by thinking about audio in a creative way and experimenting with its ability to express moods and settings, I can finalize my own narrative audio and be able to make better use of sound in other media disciplines. Even more important, storytelling through the modality of audio has been adding extra value to my work.
In a cactus way
The final assignment of the course was to create an audio story. First I had to work on a story structure, then discussed how to translate it to audio, I also wrote a full script for that. With the story script, I started looking for audio actors and doing recording. Finally, mixing the materials all together, is my audio story: In a Cactus Way.
In a cactus way is a road audio story which I took inspiration from the concept of "road movie". It tells the story of a photographer who wants to look for the owner of a dead cactus. Rowan is a photographer who only takes photos for dead plants and their owners. She seldom raises plants, except for a cactus, which was taken and left by her grandma. When she found the cactus seemed to be dying, she decided to find the owner. The only clues she got were from lyrics of a ballad and a call with her father. She set off the journey of looking for the owner. Until by the sea, she noticed a cactus raised by a cafe owner. She was not sure if the old man is also the owner of her cactus, but she took the first photo of an alive plant. Rowan may not have found her answer, or she no longer cares what the answer is, she started to care about the existence alive in her life.
Here you can listen my story on SoundCloud:
This may be a story without too many waves, climax, and even be a bit flat, but that is what I want to convey through an audio story. About the music in my story, “ Those Flowers” is a pop song in Chinese. I picked a version of harmonica since I think the quality is more consistent with the affection I want to convey. And the ballad “Grandma’s PengHu Bay” is a real song in China, especially the lyrics “sunshine, beach, wave, cacti and an old captain” that has been popular in recent 40 years. The song “Sans Toi” is a French song, which I picked from a song list of my French friend and she shared the playlist with me on the train to Zandvoort. Although I don’t understand the lyrics actually, I was attracted by the tune deeply and decided to insert it in my story, in the piece “train to Zandvoort”.
About the plots, a fantasy element is the breath of plants. I used the sound of twisting branches and nori, water in the throat, and playing the cactus in a pot. The sound of the old man was recorded by ZoomH4n, because it was hard to invite him to the recording room. I also recorded a lot of sounds on the train, and that actually took some trouble for my editing work because I have to pick a limited amount of pieces in such a bunch of materials. And I also did some recordings in the Zandvoort beach, but most of the sounds cannot be used because the wind beats cannot be reduced and ignored, even with the wind screen on the recorder.
The production of the whole work was actually a lonely journey, just as the story I want to express my thoughts to the audience in a relatively peaceful and narrator way. Most of the ambience sounds were gathered in Enschede and Zandvoort beach. During the weeks when I made the recordings, I took the recorder with me all the time on the street and train and didn’t want to miss every wonderful moment. All in all, I enjoyed the journey very much. It allowed me to explore the tranquility in so many unexpected things, to find unexpected surprises in the journey, and to feel the endless charm of sound.
