Students create soundscapes for three different ghosts. These soundscapes should be haunting in specific ways that relate to the cultural and personal history of the Ghost. Each of the three Ghosts must be distinctive and each haunting soundscape needs to draw us through a moment, they should not be static atmospheres but should tell a story.
Activity Objectives
Artistic Expression: Graduates will apply a diverse set of artistic techniques in creating sound designs. They will:
- apply foundational elements and principles of design and structure in creating sound in varied media
- demonstrate foundational applied skills and techniques in sound and audio
- present the body of their design and technical work in an organized and artistic manner
- demonstrate the ability to modify their work after external and self-evaluation.
Description
Students create soundscapes for three different ghosts. These soundscapes should be haunting in specific ways that relate to the cultural and personal history of the Ghost. Each of the three Ghosts must be distinctive and each haunting soundscape needs to draw us through a moment, they should not be static atmospheres but should tell a story.
Students present their ghosts to the class for collaborative critique and in that process students must explain:
- Who the Ghost is: time period of life, location of life, cultural background
- How the Ghost died
- Why the Ghost haunts
The answers to these questions should be apparent in the soundscape.
Students will turn in descriptions of their ghosts with their sound files.
Time Length
Students should spend several hours writing the backgrounds of each of their ghosts and then creating appropriate soundscapes.
Required Materials
Sound production studio.
Evaluation
Evaluation for this assignment is done in a public critique of their presentation. Students present their work to the class and the class discusses how the project developed and how the descriptions of the ghosts are represented in the soundscapes. Students then receive a grade and written evaluation from the professor. As part of the creative lab small projects students are encouraged to take risks and thus the grading is fairly easy and not as clearly defined. Students generally get a check plus for great work a check for good work and a check minus for work that has significant issues, and of course the zero when necessary.
Christopher Plummer, Michigan Technological University