A New Beginning

OVERVIEW

A New Beginning is a two-minute sound installation that explores a possible outcome of an alien encounter. I have always been fascinated with the idea of what would happen if aliens were to ever visit Earth. While some may want to believe that an encounter with aliens could be friendly, I find it more likely that things would not go well for humans. Prepare yourself for an out of this world experience and enjoy.

BACKGROUND

With this piece, I wanted to explore my fascination with horror to see how far it could go. The original piece is much longer and it had to be shortened to fit the allowed time. My thoughts began with the big question, “What if aliens were to come to Earth?” After visualizing what the outcome would be, I began looking for my materials. I found most of my sounds on free sounds, and my image came from the Nasa website.

DESCRIPTION

A New Beginning takes listeners on a journey from the realms of outer space to the city streets. The journey begins in the outer realms of space with a conversation between two aliens. Unable to understand what is being said it is hard to tell how things are going to turn out. The story transitions to the city streets as the aliens begin to descend into the atmosphere. Upon landing, things quickly go south leaving a young woman alone and terrified.

PURPOSE

The purpose of A New Beginning is to captivate listeners and take them on an adventure with a not so happy ending. At the same time, this is only the beginning and the end is still to come. Is mankind doomed, or does good triumph over evil? My piece leaves open the possibility of taking the story in different directions, and I hope everyone enjoys it.

INFLUENCE

The major influences behind A New Beginning is a few of my favorite childhood movies, Alien and Predator. Growing up my family spent their time together watching movies, and just my luck it usually fell within the horror genre. Even though these movies scared me I found them fascinating, and I have always wanted to take a stab at my own horror piece.

AESTHETICS

The context of this sound installation lightly touches on aesthetics of classic alien sci-fi movies. In classic alien movies, there is complete chaos, and in most cases one sole survivor. While A New Beginning only has one clear person, I wanted to eliminate the notion of a survivor. As the piece ends it leaves the eerie feeling that all hope is gone.

METHODOLOGY

A New Beginning was created using creative commons websites for sound and then brought together using Adobe Audition. Most of my sounds was collected from free sounds. It took a while to sift through the website to find the sounds needed. Most of the sounds had to be made by combing various sounds together to capture the feeling I wanted. After collecting all my sounds, I took them into Audition to piece it together. The configuring of the sounds was complicated, but in the end, I am happy with the outcome. I had originally made a longer piece without realizing it, and I had to cut the piece down, and reworking the timing was a little tricky.

OUTCOMES

This piece began as an experiment to see how realistic of a piece I can make. When I first started, I was unsure of how well things would turn out, but I feel that I captured the feeling of an alien encounter. I have plans of expanding on this piece in my spare time to see where things may lead.

REFLECTION

With A New Beginning I wanted to stimulate the mind of the listeners in a way that they would want to hear more. My main goal was to create a piece that was not only believable, but one that can be enjoyed over and over. Most of my work I enjoy myself, but I do not find myself returning to one particular piece. Since finishing A New Beginning, I have found myself returning to it wanting to build upon it and make it better. With my ability to captivate myself with my work (this never happens) leads me to believe I have successfully accomplished what I had set out to do.