Nothing Left - Final Video

Here is what I ended up with: a combination of still imagery containing partial words and garbage-related things, videos of fences and garbage, and sounds coming from animals, faint conversations, and some machinery.

Rough Sketch 3

This rough sketch was an idea that I basically came up with randomly on the spot. I saw this hole in the garbage can and thought i would be cool to zoom in to it. It ended up as a really nice ending for the film, I think.

Rough Sketch 2

This is a part that is fully used in the final project. This clip comes from near the end of the video. This came from a long shot of walking down a sidewalk near campus that was littered with garbage cans(no pun intended).

Rough Sketch 1

This clip comes from the beginning of the final project. I took this static clip of a discarded cup being slightly blown by the wind, not really knowing what I was going to do with it. It serves as a nice way of starting off the video.

Production Strategies

For Drift 3 I ended up looking for images of garbage or things related to garbage. For sounds, I was looking for either sounds of faint conversations/laughing or animals sounds such as birds chirping.

10 Questions

1. Do I want to stray further away from campus on this Drift?

2. Should I hit ONLY residential or industrial areas in Drift 3?

3. What strategies should I use for sound/imagery?

4. Do I need more stills this time or videos?

5. Where can I go to try to get away from the constant drone of traffic?

6. Do I know anyone who lives close who could suggest a path?

7. How much more material do I need to create a successful sound film?

8. Are there places on campus where I could capture faint voices?

9. Are there places on campus where I could capture interesting imagery/video?

10. Where can I go to get machinery sounds and or natural sounds(like birds/animals)?

Assessment 4

I would have to say that my favorite experience from the first two Drifts was finding my first interesting sound so quickly after starting. I ate at Jimmy John's on Oakland just before I started out, and just a few blocks south is where i found my first sound. I saw an old beat-down looking alleyway and decided to investigate. I found a very rusty mailbox that was nearly covered in icicles. I was excited to check out what was possible with the mics we made, and using odd placement to retrieve unusual sound. I had one mic in the mailbox, and one hanging down facing the ground. Unfortunately I had the mics picking up too much when I started kicking the icicles below, so this sound was unusable.

Assessment 3

One thing that surprised me right away on Drift 1 was how it was virtually impossible to avoid the sound of constant traffic. I know that it is a big city, and I was usually out on my drifts around 3pm or so, but I was walking through residential areas along with the industrial/retail ones. The traffic followed me everywhere.

Another thing from Drift 1 that surprised me was random loud sounds. These sounds, such as doors closing or cars beeping their horns, were obviously amplified by having headphones on, listening for interesting sounds. It was also a bit strange that, even though I had 2 mics, and most of the time they were facing different ways, I sometimes couldn't tell which direction things were coming from.

On Drift 2, I was a little surprised that people that i passed by weren't asking me what i was doing. I passed a lot of people while taking pictures and videos of some really random and strange things, but no one seemed to be so curious to ask. I got weird looks, but no questions.

Assessment 2

For starters, I felt at ease after just a few minutes of walking after stressing out about how my first Drift was going to go. I kept hearing that we would be able to find interesting sounds all over the place, but i was skeptical. The mics that we made were very sensitive and amplified what I could normally hear by at least 2 times. Even though traffic was everywhere, I could hear many things clearly that I'm sure i wouldn't have been able to otherwise.

I felt unusually peaceful on my second Drift. It was getting cold when the sun started started to set, but I felt alright walking around alone after starting to recognize places in the city. Prior to my moving down here for school, I was a bit wary about wandering around in the city, but that is essentially what the class promotes. I'm glad that i have experienced it.

Assessment 1

The one thing that bothered me right away when I started out on my first Drift was the fact that traffic was pretty much everywhere. It's hard to get a lot of quality sounds when theres traffic all around making tons of noise. I think that i probably went out at a bad time (around 3 in the afternoon), but I didn't really have a better time to go out so I had to deal with it. As soon as i got over by the lake it wasn't as bad...but THAT leads to...

When I was over by Lake Michigan, I expected to be hearing all sorts of cool things. I didn't take a single sound from my long walk along the lake front. It probably didn't help that there was still 4-6 inches of snow on the ground at the time, but I didn't manage to take a single specific sound from out there. The only ones i took were the ones where it was suggested that if you don't hear anything interesting for around 15 minutes, you should stop and record anyway. I don't think that I used any of these sounds in my videos or sound clips for any of the Drifts.