Concept Brief

Concept Brief

             When I considered about my final work and have no inspiration, I thought that maybe other students are also considering about their final work. Then through my conversation with my friends, I found my thought is true, for example, one of my friend who majored in architecture didn’t sleep for more than thirty-six hours to do his work, although it is not the final work. It curious me a lot, so I decided my final project to be about other people’s final project. I would focus on students in other majors, for example, fashion design or architecture, and record how they preparing their final project. Also, if possible, I may interview those who don’t need to do final project but have important final exams about their situation and their mood towards the final exam.

Three approaches.

1.     I could make it a serious research video: several students sit in the same sofa in the public space of my dorm and talk about their project or final exam. I can ask them totally same questions and cut each person’s talk to individual questions than gather those pieces by questions. What’s more, through the continuous change of people, my work can be very rhythmic.

2.     I could just record their Unfinished works as the video, and add their introduce to the project as background sound. No body would appear in this video and the work is simply emphasis on the projects.

3.     Then I think I can use the skill of montage, for example, combining the pictures of people with their project, the individual projects with close shots and long shots, and the video of rotating. About the background sound, I would record the sound of people’s working on their project, for example, the sound of cut the plastic board and the weak sound of putting the scissors- I noticed those sounds when I was record for my sound research, but I they are not appropriate for that piece of work, I hope they can work very well this time.

I would select the studios that my interviewee working on- the architecture studio and the warehouse- or their own dorm room to do my research after ask those interviewee for permission (I think they take charge of their own studio desk and dorm room.)

I can use interviewee’s studio lamps to make a high contrast of light and construct in order to photograph their work beautiful. Actually my friends do this before and it really makes sense (They are good photographer so I can ask them for help if I really cannot handle this, since I’m not very good at photography)

I think the biggest snag is that what I got is not what I really want, for example, every one has the same feeling about their final work and says the similar words so that my work could not interest my viewers. If that happened unfortunately, I would focus much less on people’s feeling about their final work but more on individual projects, because even if all of them feel tired and think they are really doing heavy works, they could have totally different ideas about their work.

Timeline： I am going to travel to the New York City on the first half of the thanksgiving break. And I would begin to do my interview after I come back. The interview may cost me two to three days so I still have time to work on editing by the end of the break. Then I may found some pieces don’t work or found some interesting inspiration (I guess those situations are likely to happen.) So I have to do my research again and finish them before the next class, in order to work on it with fewer problems on the next class. Finally, the last week is for me to improve the video, I may consider the details more in this week.

the reflection of the last class

In the last class, we discussed about problems that appeared in the class of Oct. 27, including a lack of cords and leaders’ lacking of time to do their own works and so on.

After that discussion, all the solutions that we picked up shows that having a good and detailed plan is very important for completing the processes smoothly. For example, when discussing about leaders’ limited time for their own work, some classmates said the leaders can get the classroom thirty minutes before other students do in order to have enough time doing their own work. However, this kind of solutions should be planed at least a week before so the professor could announce it. What’s more, as a series of processes, problems appeared in one link may influence the final completeness, so a detailed and considerable plan is even more important.

Moreover, I found that group discussion is a good way to open people’s mind and thought about more solutions. There is strength in numbers.

the experience about the game

I was in the second group. When the first group was walking around the classroom and searching for the sound, I think it is funny but I cannot understand why we need to play this game. But when I put on the blind and played the game myself, I found that this game can make me totally focus on one thing. Since I cannot see by my eyes, my ears became more sensitive to the origin of the sound. However, I got a little bit annoyed during the game because the thing that cover my eyes made me feel uncomfortable.

When I open my eyes, I was surprised as I thought maybe I had walked to the corner but actually I was in the center of the classroom! It is an strange but fantastic experience. I saw the charge was shaking slowly just as the speed I walked in before, they produced a harmony, and they made me feel like the time flew very slowly too.

something about Daniel Aguilera's talk

I agree that he said " sometimes you are not doing what you once want to do, but you can still have passion on it". For example, he thought he would attend UCLA for his undergraduate education but the thing is that he went to New Mexico, tried a lot of works and met a lot of people who are very support to him. As for me, I want to be an architect when I was young, but I chose to major in interior design since I think interior design is more suitable for me. Maybe when I graduated I will get a job that has no relationship with interior design but I think maybe I can have more passion on it. If I would have those kind of discovery, it will be really interesting.

I also very agree with his opinion of the importance of time. But I also think that inspiration is important. I am afraid that if an artist has no inspiration, he or she may just waste time and do nothing.

the journal about my sound research project

China is in the opposite side of United States. We need to take 17 hours from Shanghai to Syracuse by airplane. However, now Chinese students are the biggest group of people among all the international students in the Syracuse University.

As a Chinese student myself, I can contact with many other Chinese students. I find that because of the differences on languages, the differences on culture, and the differences on outlooks, a Chinese student’s life is different with an American student, and also different with other Chinese students. So what’s their daily life? Do they suffer from homesick? Can they understand what teachers said in the class? Are they happy here? I am interested in these questions.

Actually, the student example “assign3_rsch_Jlee_final” gives me this inspiration first. Students reported are international students. They talked about their experiences and habits in that work using their native languages. So I think I can also do a sound research about international students.

What’s more, I decided to do this research also because I have many Chinese friends here, their life and thought make up the center and the edge of the culture around me.  As a result, I chose this topic.

After decided the topic, I start to collect the information. First I went to the Slocum Hall- the hall of architecture, since I have many friends majored in architecture. They are all very hard working since they stay up all night to do their project even in Saturday night. By the way, I also collect some sounds like the sound of using scissors and the sound of cutting materials hope that they may be the background sounds of my work.

I reported many architecture students, but I found that my interviewees’ lives are too similar, so I began to report students in other majors. Then, as I supposed before, I got much more different information.

However, I meet some trouble about the research. I have no idea about whether the interviewees speak Chinese in the work is better or they speak English is better. If they speak Chinese, my sound research may seem more authentic and spontaneous. But if they speak English, my audiences would be easier to understand the content. I have also considered about use both Chinese and English, but I am afraid that if I do so, maybe the final project would be very chaotic. But I still record both the Chinese version and the English version of the report. Maybe I can figure out this problem by try both of them when editing my work.

6 questions:

1.     (In the angle of native American audiences)

Is it better for interviewees to use English to talk or use Chinese?

2.     (In the angle of all the audiences) What is the highlight of this works?

3.     (In the angle of professor) How can the work get a high grade?

4.     (In the angle of interviewees) Is it Ok if I show the interviewees’ personal information in the work?

5.     (In the angle of myself) Can I add some rhythm in it although the rhythm is nothing to do with the content?

6.     (In the angle of Chinese audiences) Could this work show the situation of most Chinese students in the Syracuse University?

Sound Research Written Analysis

24_armleder noise list (“16 Great Turn-Ons”. 1988)

1.Describe This work is simply made up by 16 turn-on sounds in our daily life, such as the turn-on sounds of TV, ice machine, weeding machine, saw, and so on.

2. Analyze The work uses 16 turn-on sounds without repeating, changing of sound tracks, fading in, fading out, and other treatments. What’s more, those turn-on sounds have no continuity and fluency. However, I found that these sounds are well organized, because the silence between each two sounds is always about 1.7 second. So audiences could feel much comfortable when listening to this work instead of being frightened or having a feeling of chaos.

3. Interpret Although I feel uncomfortable at first since the volume is suddenly increased when the machine is turned on and then is suddenly decreased, it becomes better in the latter part since the sounds appearing in the latter part are more euphonious. However, I also hold the opinion that the discomfort in the former part is not a bad thing, because those sounds veritably exist in our daily life. If the producer disposed those sounds to make it more comfortable to audiences, the work would lose its original meaning. What’s more, I think this work fit our cultural very well because all the sounds in it appear in our daily life in high frequency.

4. Evaluate The work successfully reminds me of sounds in my daily life. In my opinion, other audience may find it important also because sounds in it can be great materials for their own work if allowed.

“Corale”, “Serenata”

1.Describe This work is a choral composed by many musical instruments as well as rumbling, which sounds like the sound of old steam train. The whole work seems to be in an old opera and is a little bit chaotic. But I like the melody.

2.Analyze I am not good at instruments so I cannot pick out all the instruments that appear in the work, but I can hear orchestral instruments almost all the time and hear percussion sometimes. Those instruments combined rhythmically and continuously, however, they also change the melody with the time. The sound of percussion, maybe a triangle, is very nifty and adorns the choral. What’s more, I think the rumbling that appears several time is well fused with those instruments and reminds me of the old days.

3.Interpret I think the melody is great and the sense of chaos also interested me. However, I do not think this work is in the center of the culture, or more specificly, this work is not in the center of the contemporary culture, because it is in an old style, which can hardly been heard nowadays.

4.Evaluate Although I think this work is not located in the center of the culture, I think other audience would like it because it can remind people of the old days.

1 assign3_rsch_Jlee_final.aif

1.Describe This work is composed by the talking of students, some are international students and some have been to attend a school in other countries. They talk about their interests, their experiences and the reason they were there in Syracuse.

2.Analyze I heard many different languages in this work, such as Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan accent, Cantonese Chinese, Korean, Tai, and English, which show those speakers come from several different places. I like the way of edit, it makes some sounds overlapping, some sounds repeat, and sometimes there is just silence. The edit attach the work with a beauty of irregular.

3. Interpret I enjoy this work because the Mandarin Chinese that appeared is familiar to me. What's more, I like the feeling that people from different countries using different languages to communicate with each other. However, I don’t think this work locates in the center of western culture. Firstly, most of the speakers in it use languages in Asia so western audiences cannot understand them. Secondly, since the difference of culture and language, international students are sometimes the borderline man in the campus. However, as an international student myself, I think this work is in the center of my daily life since I have more chance to meet other international students, make friends with them and talk with them about the topics in this work.

4.Evaluate Firstly, I think this work may confuse most audiences because there are too many foreign languages here without translation. But secondly, I hold the opinion that it may also attract its audiences because it shows the life of people with different religions and different experiences.

responses of the suggestions about abstract sound

1. I agree with the suggestions that my work is a little fractured and some pieces did not get to mesh. I think if I make the beat go through all over the sound, it would be better.

2. I'm so happy that some thinks my work has a good sense of beat, which is rhythmic. What's else, some people think my work interests them by the switch of diversity sounds as well as the change of left and right track.

3. By listening to other's work, I found that the continuity of the whole work is important and can make the work more attractive, so I'd like to make the sound of the footstep in my work keep going all over the work. Also, I think make some background sound is also a good idea to make the work have a sense of space.