- Sounds and images are elements of everyday life that we experience continuously, but how much does one pay attention to the connection between the two? How would one view their world if the sounds suddenly did not match what was being seen?
For my thesis project, I plan to challenge the connection between what we see versus what we hear. I will be creating a video installation combining stop-motion elements and video footage showcasing various scenes from nature, urban and staged environments with a juxtaposing sound track that viewers would not expect to hear while viewing the scenes, but that still match the rhythm of movement in the scene.
Fourth year Multimedia students at McMaster are required to complete a Senior Thesis Project that demonstrates their knowledge of skills learned throughout the program. This also gives the opportunity to create a significant work using any medium and theme that students choose.
I chose to create a video installation piece that combines seemingly ordinary, day-to-day events that are paired with conflicting or different sounds that one might not expect to be produced by the images they are seeing. I came up with this idea when I remembered a second year project that I worked on with one of my colleagues where we had a similar task of pairing video with audio that was not the original sound, but still worked with the movement within the scene. After that project, I enjoyed the effect of this juxtaposition that I wanted to create a larger project that incorporated more scenes.
- All my footage was shot between August 2011 and March 2012 using my Canon T3 DSLR camera. I chose to shoot in a variety of locations that included the whirlpool in Niagara Falls, ON, McMaster Campus, Spencer Smith Park in Burlington and both my home in Niagara Falls as well as my Hamilton student house.
- Footage was edited using Adobe Premier Pro CS5.5. For the audio, I tried to record as much on my own as I could using the H4n ZOOM handheld recorder, audio that I was unable to record myself, I had to visit freesound.org. Soundtrack creation and editing was done in the McMaster ESP studio using Cubase 5 to produce a multichannel soundtrack.
I chose to create a multichannel soundtrack for this project so that audiences may be fully surrounded by the intended audio for each segment.
- I edited my footage using Adobe Premier Pro CS5.5. For my audio, I tried to record as much on my own as I could using the H4n ZOOM handheld recorder. For audio that I was unable to record myself, I had to visit freesound.org. Soundtrack creation and editing was done in the McMaster ESP studio using Cubase 5 to produce a multichannel soundtrack.
I chose to create a multichannel soundtrack for this project so that audiences may be fully surrounded by the intended audio for each segment and become more engaged in the environment being displayed.
- Below you can view the final cut of my senior thesis project, Aural Juxtapositions. I suggest that you view it with a surround sound system, if available to you.