661841 - Immersive Design

Now that I had the visual aspects of the video done, I could turn my attention to the audio I needed. This would require a mix of ambient sounds I can find online through a service such as Freeshound.org but also voice recorded lines. You can see the references for the audio clips I sourced at the end of the finished video (in my ‘Project Retrospective’ post).

:: Creating my Audio ::

The audio clips were the only thing I had to direct the viewer around the scene, so it was important they did a good job at this. I did want to explore using an ai generator tool to create different unique voices however there were a few issues with this. Firstly I didn’t know if using ai tools was allowed for university assignment work, (I believe it would be so long as referenced like a tool) but most importantly the ai voice generators capable of producing voices which sound authentic all cost for their services. The only free options were the kind of voices that you know immediately are from an ai generator stitched together which would have massively detracted from the experience I was trying to create.

I ended up just using my own voice, which was disappointing to me as I really wanted to use a identifiably feminine voice to help enforce the theme of women’s expectations at the time. I did however find a very useful article ’10 timeless ‘Alice in Wonderland’ quotes to celebrate the 150th anniversary’ (abc7.com, 2015). Which allowed me to create voice lines from the book which I could slightly tweak to fit my scene.

‘Children who don’t think, shouldn’t talk!’
‘What use is a book without pictures or conversation?’
‘its no use going back to yesterday, you were a different person then.’
‘You’re a dreadfully ugly child, but you’d make for a rather handsome pig’
‘The door doesn’t work silly, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place.’

See above the voice lines I created by tweaking some of the quotes mentioned in the above article. These will then be set to one side of an audio track or the other, this will hopefully allow me to predict where the viewer is looking in order for them to progress as I intend them to be.

:: Implementing Audio ::

I followed the below video (Big Vic Media, 2020) which showed me how to set the audio track from a clip to come out of one side of a channel or the other. I am aware that the idea of using the audio to direct where the player looks using the audio only really works if the player is not already looking in the direction, I want them too (This is further explained in my retrospective post)

Big Vic Media (2020) – A very quick useful video that just showed me how you set the audio of a clip to come from one direction or the other in Premiere Pro

Overall I am happy with the audio of the production, I think it adds to the creepy feeling I get when reading the source material and really breaths life into what visually could be a fairly lifeless scene. I don’t like that I had to use my own voice, and do feel like using a young girls voice would have fit the theme and atmosphere better, but I am still overall happy with what I created.

:: Visual Elements in Premiere Pro ::

Lastly, I wanted to add some kind of visual effects to the production. This would help show an understanding of how text can be implemented into a VR production, Sadly I couldn’t find a tutorial for creating curved text (such as the text described in my ‘Exploring VR’ post) but I did find the below tutorial (Best360, 2019) which showed how to add text which didn’t distort when viewed in VR, all be it in a flat method.

Best360 (2019) – The video i followed which allowed me to add text which played nicely with VR dimensions.

I did ponder adding some kind of visual indicator for when an action takes place, such as when the viewer stands up from the chair or walks towards the various figures, however when I included a shape on the screen that shape would distort. Give time I imagine I would have been able to sort this using the same method as the above video describes with the text, however I feel the final video good enough even without this final touch.

:: Summary ::

In this post I have described how I went about adding the audio to my production video as well as including the tutorial video I followed to include text on screen. My next and final post will be showing the final video in its cinematic form without commentary; and a video breaking down my thoughts and feelings about the video in a separate video upload.

:: References ::

Abc7.com (2015) ‘10 timeless ‘Alice in Wonderland’ quotes to celebrate the 150th anniversary’ (Online Article) available online: https://abc7.com/alice-in-wonderland/1099131/ [Accessed 18/06/2023]

Best360 (2019) ‘How To Add Text To 360 Video Premiere Pro Tutorial’ [YouTube Video] Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPDBUeXYX1k&ab_channel=Best360 [Accessed 18/06/2023]

Big Vic Media (2020) ‘How to make your AUDIO come from a specific DIRECTION | Adobe Premiere Tutorial’ [YouTube Video] Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tar8TXCvH3c&ab_channel=BigVicMedia [Accessed 18/06/2023]