In this blog I am to give some reason on why I decided to do this as one of my portfolio pieces. One of the main reasons why would be that I am very keen to work on sound for screen post univeristy. Wether that is being a sound intern on sets, working in game sound, film composing, foley ect. I have a big passion for both screen and sound and feel my practise can be tailored to work in that field. Having 2 sound librarys already made by the end of year 3 will start a nice portfolio of professional work displaying my abilites as a composer and sound artist.
When discussing my project idea with Milo, he started talking to me about the entrepreneurial aspect of creating your own sound libraries. There is a plethora of sound library websites in which you can upload your albums too, you can set your own price and guidlines such as how you are credited if someone uses your sounds. Though not a full time job, it could be a good side hustle alongside other work, it is also a good way to continuesly be composing and trying to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. Sound Libraries give the composer a lot of freedom, as there is no video attached so you can either work to a brief set by a company or create your own brief and work to that. I decided to work with drones and lofi ambient music, these are 2 areas of work I am quite familiar with and what to push my artistic boundaries with working to my own brief and creating something that is purely my own work and idea.
I originally was going to rescore old avant garde short films, which is something I have done in the past. I decided to do the Sound Libraries because it is my own work. Rescoring someone elses film is a fun practise, and a good way to practise and test ideas and techniques. But as a portfolio piece, I was not comfortable with the idea of completely reworking someone else’s work. During a meeting with Milo we were discussing how rescoring a film with no sound is intentionally moving the meaning and context of that artwork. For example, if a short film has no sound, that is intentional from the director. So if I put my own score over a film that was meant to be silent, am I changing the meaning and context? I would say so. I felt that recording a collection of Sound Libraries gave me more creative freedom, to create something of my own, and not attaching myself to someone else’s previously existing work.