In the second installment of the lecture we looked at Star War : A New Hope analysing the use of character motifs and instrumentation. We viewed the first ten minutes of the 1977 classic and took it apart bit by bit. Discussing how the music is used to both comment on the film and give clues to future events and connections.

Good fun was had by all very pleased the are turning up on time and “return in greater numbers” to quote Obi-wan.

Next week it is al about zombies, video games and the history of video game music.

We had one of our final foley recording sessions today, following on from that I took them through the basics of sound editing and showing them a few tricks I have learned over the years. Today we recorded a lot of vegtables, cabbages for alien pods opening, celery for bones snapping.

Listen to the “FoleyMedley” Mp3 below for some extacts of the nearly hundred sounds in all made and recording by the students on the video game design course at University Campus Suffolk. Mp3 include ship taking off, machine humming, door opening closing, footsteps, lasers and more.

FoleyMedley

I was asked to give a set of three lectures at Anglia Ruskin by a colleague Steven Harris who has managed to put together a very impressive video game design and programming course. The three lectures look at sound and music in video games and films, looking at several game trailers and clips from cartoons we were able to discuss some of the more common elements and assess the intended effect on the viewer.

Good fun was had by all and I can tell they are thinking about it as I am receiving emails about the talk already.

I have recently been working with the first year Video Games Design Degree students at University Campus Suffolk over the last couple of months teaching them about video game and film sound, the first four sessions we looked at Star War Clone Wars cartoon’s use of sound, Star Wars: A New Hope for its use of music, and then several video games to discuss the use of sound within them.

It has been really good seeing a change in the students understanding and appreciation of sound and its role within video games.

For the last two weeks we are recording our own sound effects for new games using classic foley techniques, allowing them to not only create the sounds but get confident in using the recording equipment themselves.  Today we made a roaring fire, lasers, screeching doors, footsteps and sounds of flying objects whizzing by.

I look forward to emails they’ll be sending in about what they want to make in next weeks workshop.