APD Week 2 - Play and Object

Watch here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgJ0hpaQ97E&ab_channel=PeterMavro


Context

In week two, the theme was between the relationship of play and object. I especially wanted to use the sounds of objects and play with them to see what would happen if I put them in a completely different context. I created this video while being new to the program. I made a big effort to create something interesting. Wilberg (2018) questioned the possibility of interconnecting unique perspectives and approaches to see if that affects interaction design in any form. I opted to consider this in my video which shifted the overall project in its direction. I also approached known sounds that were wild and wacky to really make a static object have life. I constantly asked myself questions such as, why is it important to have things sounding the way they do? What happens if the sound does not make sense anymore? Torre, L. (2017, p4) argue “objects are fundamentally full of complexities and uncertainties – and it is because of this pre-existing condition that objects are capable of presenting and assuming a wide-range of alternate personas” (as cited in Experimental Animation: From Analogue to Digital 2019). I was able to take these learnings and completely reimagine the sounds of objects.

Method

I collected a bunch of real-life objects that I had around me and recorded small clips on my phone. Then I moved them to my computer and imported them into my video editing program, Hitfilm Express. I sought out SFXs and found a cool website where I downloaded all of them. The website is called Zapsplat.com. I searched for text-to-speech robots and found a nice sounding and usable one for my work at https://wideo.co/text-to-speech/though .I then chose a speaker that I liked the most and made a script of what I wanted it to say. Afterward, I combined the sound SFX and robot voice with the videos I recorded to make this video.

Response

The focus of this project was to create an interesting video that relates to play and object. The aspect of an object I was mostly playing with was its sound. I got this idea from our class on Microsoft teams and really decided to pursue it in an interesting way in my work. In this video, the robot decides to market his new product that makes the user interpret and hear sounds differently. The sounds in the video are wacky and out of the blue, such as when spraying hand sanitiser, it makes car crash sounds.
 

Reflection

I did my best to be out of the box and creative with this, I still believe I can improve a lot; however, this is a stepping stone in the right direction for my goal to create more interesting projects in APD. I felt good after I completed this project but a little embarrassed to share it, as I thought it was silly. I feel as I gained a lot of progress in video editing in such a short time. At the time of making this, I have only had Hitfilm Express for 5 days.

Sounds from:

Sound FX

Zapsplat.com

Robot voice
https://wideo.co/text-to-speech/