On Sunday, the 9th of March, all four of us went to Calton Hill.
We met at Alison House as we had some equipment stored in a locker in the music store. Thankfully, we just needed to book a shotgun mic, a boom pole, XLR cables, a tripod, and a camera lens, as I have a Zoom H6 recorder and a camera. This meant that we could get the equipment, as the recorder was not available for the weekend.
On Calton Hill, we discussed the project presentation location and one of the directions so we could demo it.
Zixuan and I took photos of the desired location, and Ruotong and Ruiqi focused on capturing the sound.
We were pretty productive, which allowed us to sit and admire the sunset, which was quite beautiful and foggy.
Overall, we worked and had fun. I’m really happy with our dynamic and the work we achieved on Sunday.
Zixuan：
On a topic, we went for a short visit to Calton Hill earlier today, hoping we could find pieces of the thing to help us with the project or to get inspired. The weather was gorgeous; I saw a great view at the peak, although it was quite stirring.
We took a map and went on quite a big round of the hill, noticing and taking brief notes. One of the things that stood out to me the most was how many tourists were there, from all over the world. It was an interesting experience to hear so many different languages talking all at the same time. This obvious diversity made me think that it might serve a purpose in our piece, representing humans’ connection and their continuous movement.
From the top of the hill, we could take a glance of Arthur’s Seat, Princes Street, and St. Catherine’s Cathedral as well. This resonated with an openness, with a kind of worldly peace we were surprised to experience and it gave some idea about how to make a sound design with spatial layers. This, for instance, could become the base to make sounds with reverb or multiple layers of atmospheres.
It was so nice to see, for instance, the amount of people walking around, continuing their hike with their pooches. dogs were jumping and running all around the grassy areas, and here we stopped for a while, just watching them play. The sounds that they produced, the movements they were making, and the lively energy actually played an inspirational role in conveying rhythm and giving a sense of how living things are supposed to have a sound.
Carly and I captured some photographs to be used afterwards as visual references and for the purposes of creative inspiration (for curling, some monuments, and a few cute dogs). Over on Ruiqi and Ruotong’s side, sounds were being recorded (ambient, mostly voices and steps) from the hill, all the while the crowd of visitors were milling about. This will, for sure, be the most useful content to be incorporated into our demo.
