Making the Soundscape

Working on the soundscape project with Kevin Smith was a good experience; it reinforced the process of creative editing for me. I had already made a soundscape in Andre’s 201 class in the Spring 2014 semester, so I was able to get off to an even better start this time around due to my prior knowledge of what was preferable to do and what wasn’t. The structure of the project was also better this time around; in Andre’s class, we recorded our sounds as a group of four, like in F302. But in Andre’s class we found out that we were supposed to make two different soundscapes, each created by one of the group’s halves, at the last minute.

             This time, we were manually assigned a partner outside of our sound recording group. Therefore, the fact that I was only working with one other person allowed for a very beneficial focus to our creative process.

            One of the most important things I was reminded of, and even improved on, was the shared creative editing process. I have years of experience as an editor with video editing software, and I’ve always found it to largely (and preferably) be a one-person job.  It’s tricky to be properly communicative about an idea you have when you’re not in front of the computer and keyboard, manually demonstrating your idea yourself. If not, you have to take the reins of the mouse and keyboard from your partner, thus risking the appearance of being a control freak, not liking what the other person is doing, etc. Such socially/artistically clashing barriers are hindrances.  

            However, Kevin was great to work with; he was agreeable and creative, and most importantly, he cared about the project about as much as I did. He had adequate editing experience, and we worked well together. In addition, he and I both agreed to take the project home and work on our own parts of the soundscape by ourselves; this proved to be a very beneficial tactic, and we simply put our sections together when we met up and modified them to be more cohesive.