Monologue recorded

Over the past 2 weeks I’ve had correspondence with Beth Mayoh, a voice actor I contacted to do the monologue piece for my project. She was pretty keen to do this and so after some initial set-backs, finally got it recorded. The added bonus with her being a professional, she has her own recording studio, so she was able to work from home and e-mail the piece.  At first i got a small demo of the character she developed for it;

I was extremely impressed with this, and so gave a go ahead for the full piece. Separated into 4 parts, it makes it a bit easier to manage the files when it comes to the spectrograph. And, the result, Digital Divinity;

Personally, i’m pleased with the outcome. It’s come together close to how i imagined it, with the delivery and tone. I’ve just got a run it through an audio program to alter it a bit. I talked to Mike Cosgrave, and he suggested a subtle vocoder. Only having Adobe Soundbooth (as opposed to FL Studio) I’ve removed some pops and clicks, and added a subtle robot voice filter to part one. Done a spectrograph animation, and so an example;

So yeah, that’s the audio production side of it near-enough done. Extreme gratitude to Beth for her help!

Related Articles

• Visualizing the monologue… (philandrewsbadmp.wordpress.com)
• Monologue draft (philandrewsbadmp.wordpress.com)
• Ambient audio (philandrewsbadmp.wordpress.com)

Ambient audio

As the installation isn’t entirely about the visuals, particularly now i’ve got the monologue (in which i’m in the process of getting it recorded by a professional voice actor). Along side the narration, it’s important to add a sense of other auditory space to it. Music is usually with traditional video pieces to compliment the images etc, so i’m working on that similar level, and sorting out an ambient track.

Over the summer, via social networks i found out about a remix of a Justin Bieber song ‘Baby’, but slowed down by 800%. The effect it had genuinely amazed me, turning this pop track into some ambient piece, with sea sounds and reminiscent of the soundtrack to Bladerunner. And that was done with a free piece of software called Paul’s Time Stretch - http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/ . You can slow sound down by a ridiculous level… here’s one example i did with Danse Macabre

so that’s a million million years for a note, or something like that….

Anyway, having a go with this, and thinking back to my Performance Video days from the Fda, i got round to experimenting with Public Domain music. Essentially, music that’s out of copyright, which typically is a lot of classical music. This aspect also works well with the narrative i’ve built, a future where all information that ever was, is and will be is shared, and everything is seen as public domain. So, searching for a classical piece with that has that familiarity, and a odd uplifting nature, I went for Ave Maria by Franz Schubert. Specifically by Franz Schubert, as there’s another version that sounds different by Bach/Gounod…

The lyrics themselves reflect on a latin prayer to the Virgin Mary, so there’s a biblical context associated with it as well as innocence, themes which perhaps run concurrently with my narrative.

So, a pass through Paul’s Time Stretch, slowed down by 800%, and I’ve got this to share with the world…

I’ve done a test to hear what it sounds like with a bit of speech, specifically with the Voice Actor I’ve in contact with. Her name’s Beth Mayoh, and I found her from voicespro (via castingcallpro.com). Her profile - http://www.uk.voicespro.com/view.php?uid=174865 . To test it a bit, to get a feeling of how it could work, I’ve listened to ‘Nun Audition’, mostly because it’s her delivery of that that has impressed me so much, the monologue would sound fantastic if it was done near-enough like that. Feel free to do a test yourself of course…

And yes, I’m genuinely excited about the audio.

Visualizing the monologue…

Although not the actual monologue piece for the project, i’ve got a piece from the film No Country For Old Men, which i nabbed from soundcloud.com.

After seeing the spectrographs from Martin’s project, that visual representation of sound clued me into one of the visuals i want for my piece. And so, off to find some way to replicate that. With a demo of some software called Photosounder (which as well as turning audio to spectrographs, can actually turn normal pictures into sounds).  http://photosounder.com/ . With that, i was able to produce this spectrograph. Click to view better.

So, rotating that 90 degrees clockwise, mirroring it, i got this. Again, click for better view.

Now, taken into After Effects, and put a solid over the compostion to make a mask, so it’ll only reveal a thin line in the middle. then a simple movement moving it up, and syncing it with audio. And add a glow effect. And result…

Marvelous. The aim was to represent the speech as if it’s coming through an interface for the installation. As a basic experiment for a process, this works great, however… I’ve perhaps already improved to make it have a more science aesthetic. It does actually remind me of the Large Hadron Collider

 

Progress!

Monologue draft

The monologue of the narrative is pretty much done. I’m fairly keen on it and i know it’s going to need a bit of work done, but it gives me a good idea of where to get started with producing visual content. So, it’s all about getting a bit of feedback now, and deciding if it’ll work best if it’s a male or female voice. It’s taken on a great dystopian and theological aspect too, hence the title of the monologue is now Digital Divinity. Give it a read in a non-copy+pasteable .pdf format! Click.

digital_divinity

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