Final Year Project Showcase

Sound Design

Sound Design for Desa Baskoro (Industry Partner: DiDsg)

In this video, our team had sought out to collaborate with RP's interest group Gamelan Naga Kencana to record a gamelan performance which will be used for our FYP showcase, Desa Baskoro. Our project is Indonesian themed, thus we felt that incorporating a gamelan performance would create a more authentic and genuine feel to our project. For this, we had used location sound recording to record the performance.
In this video, our audience, both sighted and visually-disabled, are preparing to walk into the Blackbox while listening to our teammates from DATM acting as the characters in our project and also telling the story of Desa Baskoro. We wanted to make sure our project is as inclusive to people of all walks of life, thus we had ensured all safety regulations were followed and also making our project as creative as possible while using the other 4 senses, sound, scent, touch and taste.
This is our audience from the previous video at level 1 of TRCC listening to a briefing done by our DATM members before going to level 2 where Desa Baskoro is at the Black Box.

To see more of our project, DSA has made a video compiling all our videos into a short film about the week of our FYP showcase. We had filmed from our bump in day on Monday, all the way to our final showday on Friday.

Here is the link to view our short film!

DSA & DATM FYP 2022 - Desa Baskoro
Here is our member Sean, recording one of our DATM members who will act as the character 'S'koro' who is a tribe leader in Desa Baskoro while Ruzana directs him on how the character should sound like. We had recorded this dialogue along with some environmental sounds in the Foley Studio and then sound designed the dialogue to make it sound authoritative but also godlike.
Our team member, Ruzana, recording and live mixing the individual channels of the gamelan performance. She had recorded them in 5 channels, separating them according to highs, 2 mids, lows and drums. She had utilised a Zoom F8 field mixer and 5 condenser microphones to carry out the recording in 3 takes.
Here is our team member Sarah recording and live mixing the overheads for the gamelan performance. She had utilised a Zoom F8 field mixer to record the performance using 4 shotgun microphones to capture the overall sound of the performance with 3 takes.
Our DSA members came out of our comfort zones to assist DATM with making their props. In this picture, our team members Sean, Sarah and Ruzana is assisting in making a cobblestone pavement out of wood, cardboard and newspaper scraps with help and guidance from DATM. We had learnt a lot on what it takes to create sets and props, thus it was indeed a good experience for all of us.
Here are some of our audience who were blindfolded from the downstairs of TRCC listening to our DATM members telling the story of Desa Baskoro. The story starts from downstairs as we planned for the experience to start where they are unable to see the sets and props. We felt that it would be more immersive that way as it would create a suspenseful feeling. Having the blindfold will allow the audience to heighten their other 4 senses, it may not be something they are used to, but overall we would want them to understand, empathise and walk in the shoes of those who are visually disabled.
Here are our members, Sean, Ruzana and Amos working with our DATM member Haney closely as the show goes on. Haney is the stage manager who will then let Ruzana, our sound director, prepare for the cues. Ruzana will then direct Sean, the playback engineer, on when he should play the cues on his surround sound session on his DAW Reaper and tell him when he should fade-in, fade-out and when to monitor the volume. Amos manages the main console and makes sure nothing goes wrong on the live sound aspect of our project. Our other member Adriel, works closely with DATM and assists DSA as a technical runner.
Here is our team member, Sarah, live mixing using the application Stagemix on her iPad for the whole shows. Learning to do this was a new experience for all of us, but with the guidance from our supervisors, Mr Jackie and Mr Shyam, we were able to do it.

PROJECT INFO:

In collaboration with Dialogue in the Dark SG, we worked together with our peers from DATM to provide an immersive and interactive performance that both sighted and visually impaired people could enjoy. Our team produced all sound effects and immersive surround sound system by utilizing our knowledge in sound design/recording, location sound recording, live sound, foley/voiceovers and surround sound mixing/panning. We then worked together with DATM team's realistic sets and props to ensure that event participants were able to fully immerse themselves in the story of Desa Baskoro, via different sensations of the environment and the multiple sounds of many creatures along the way while being blindfolded.