We were given a collection of CD’s with different sounds on them. We had to pick which sounds we thought we would need and take them and put them on our hard drives for future use.We needed to take a lot more sounds than i thought we would and I could not find some of the sounds I thought I would need on any of the CD’s so I could either try and make them myself on ProTools or record them in one of the sound booths.
We were shown the Lara Croft project that we’d be working on for our final project. I was intimidated by how long the clip was as we had never done anything like this before but I looked forward to doing it. I looked up a video on YouTube of a similar level being completed and had a listen to the ambiance and other noises in the game.I found that they use a very simple backing track which consists of one or two notes played over and over again. Any movements the character made had an echo to it and it was kept very basic. This calmed me as I had played Lara Croft games in the past and the audio was quite different.
Watched this video on Walter Murch. I previously did not know who he was, so to find out the scale of the big movies he has worked on was amazing. He is a film editor and sound designer who has won many awards for what hes done. He talks about surround sound in Final Cut Pro in this interview which as I said in previous blogs amazed me. I did not understand how sound designers used surround sound to their advantage in movies.
I watched this video on the sound editing in Saving Private Ryan as it interested me a lot during the writing of my essay. It has lots of interviews with the Sound Designer of the movie Gary Rydstrom which i found interesting. He goes into detail about the choices they made when designing the score for the movie. He also talks about scenes with no music and why they chose to do that. I previously didnt know the influence music can have on a scene and thought it was worth learning.
We had to write an essay on sound in a film or game. I chose Saving Private Ryan. I found that to record the sounds for the beach scene they got actual guns from the era and recorded them firing so that they could be correct. They also left sound out of some scenes as it makes the scenes more tense than they would be with sound. I also learned that sound editors can use surround sound to their advantage. In scenes where a plane would fly over head they would have it start loud on one side and finish loud on the other so to immerse the audience into the scene.
In this class we focused on getting up to date with ProTools again. I found this very useful as I was not strong at it at all last year. I was shown how to manipulate sounds and add effects so thats what I focused mainly on in this class. I started by making my own basic sounds using the keyboard then added basic effects to them like reverb. Once I got the hang of it I found it quite easy and tried some of the other effects.
We watched a video in class about how sound design started. The video showed how people used to manipulate actual tape on different machines to make the sounds they wanted. Also showed how they would record sounds using different objects to make weird unusual sounds. This was a completely new craft for the time and had never been used before in film or music. Now it is almost expected that films or music will have some sort of sound design aspect to it. I was amazed at how much work these people had to put in to create sounds and how loyal they were to their craft to even attempt it.
In our tutorial today we learned how a makey makey device works. A makey makey is connected to the computer using a USB. The device can act as a mouse and keyboard and can be connected to other substances using a wire. We connected the device to a like a banana or our fingers. It was a great demonstration showing us how we can make different object turn into button or keys using the right equipment. We used our fingers as certain keys. We also found out how our body is used as an electrical substance.
Dreams about Public Relations carrier
I worked in Lithuania in the field of Public Relations for about 10 years. At first it was Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, although in there my work has been closely associated with the work of journalists. One step was to maintain close ties with traditional media, social media as a decade ago, has not yet been as popular as it is now. It took the organization of conferences, organize exhibitions, and organize press conferences, as well as to participate in international project SIP (Sweden International project). This project was supported by Swedish Government after the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The purpose of this international project was not only to help to Lithuania guarantee safety INPP but also to achieve that information on what is done in power plant reach to the society not only in Lithuania, but also in the world.
When Lithuania and the European Commission decided to close the Ignalina nuclear power plant, I started to look for another job and I got an opportunity to work in Ministry of Transport and Communication of the Republic of Lithuania in Public Relations Department.
It was a slightly different job, but it was very interesting work, although sometimes was not easy.
This year, we began to study Public Relations course in DKIT and I noticed that Ireland is slightly different emphasis on PR activities. Maybe now Lithuania is the same, these I do not know, because I live in Ireland for seven years, but at that time, when I started this job, in Lithuania, this area was defined as communication, which aims to engage with the public and media. For example, in Ireland, more attention is being paid to public or audience, it is important to establish a relationship with the organization relevant audiences and maintain them regularly. It is also a strong focus on reputation, but here I have not seen any differences from PR Lithuania.
Where can PR specialist work? Public Relations professionals need where necessary to maintain regular and good contacts with large audiences. Here stand the specific needs of professional activity, for example – contacts with the media.
What are the prospects for PR? There is no easy answer to this question, because most of the technological invasion of communication moved to the virtual space. But stable, mature organizations always invest in public relations. New running in companies usually starts from marketing solutions, sometimes forgetting to dialogue with the public’s importance. However, all companies realize the importance and perception of PR when faced with a crisis. Then comes the awareness of how important it is to build your reputation, social capital, and that it should be done regularly.
Upon completion of my studies I would like to try my expertise in the field of PR in Ireland and industry, but I think that in order to implement this dream, half year PR course in DKIT is not enough to make this happen.
At this moment I am not yet decided what I will do in future because now my biggest dream is to graduate the third year course in DKIT.
Design CM DkIT 