'meat factory ear worms'

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/the-curious-ear-doconone-meat-factory-ear-worms.html

When being introduced to different audio styles, we were played 'Meat Factory Ear Worms' by Richie Beirne. This is a documentary style audio piece following the experiences of the author. He talks about the time he worked in a meat factory "on the killing line". He goes onto introduces us to the 'musical ear worms' he uses to get through the "tough work". 

The contrast between the music and the violent atmospheric sounds of the meat factory creates a brilliant audio piece. I personally really enjoyed this piece, and therefore decided to use it as style inspiration for my own piece.

first trip to Bramall Lane.

Tonight I went over to Bramall Lane, the home of Sheffield United FC. I wanted to try and record some sound for our project. I managed to get some rough audio, just so we had some sound to play around with, and also to see what the quality would be as we were unable to get permission to record inside the ground, and therefore had to do all of our recording from outside. 

As it was only a rough piece, I used the sound recording software installed on my phone to record various parts of the match. I manage to get some chants from the home team as well as general football atmos. This has given us a starting point, and the change to plan in more detail what we would like to have recorded for next time.

listener - seatbelt hands.

'Listener' is an American 'talk-music' band made up of  Dan Smith and Christin Nelson. I find myself inspired by this band, mainly because of the way they seem to see the world. Not only is the music good, the subject of each of their songs, and the content in the lyrics is always so moving. They talk about things such as the vulnerability of life, the damage words can do and other stuff as well. 

When listening to any of their songs I always find myself imagining them as a short film. I watched an online documentary with Dan Smith once and the way he talked about his songs showed the passion behind them, and he explained about some of the amazing stories behind them as well.

'sense of place' final idea.

After some consideration of various different ideas, we decided to focus on Sport, due to the fact that we have two fairly big teams in Sheffield - Sheffield United, and Sheffield Wednesday. We decided that as we have the chance and the opportunity to collect our own material and learn more about the community, we will focus on Sheffield United.

We are going to try and produce a documentary style piece of audio, following the experimental style of personal view. This way we can collect interview style sound clips of fans explaining their fondness of the team, and the sport in general. We will use 'match-day sounds' as our underlining audio track, and incorporate the interview questions within this.

'sense of place' ideas.

Industrial.

We felt that it would be a good idea to utilize Sheffield's industrial connections and recreate a similar style to 'Meat Factory Ear Worms'. With this as inspiration we thought we could create an audio piece focusing on the contrast between city life and life inside a factory. We also thought that because Sheffield is known for it's factories, they would be accessible and easy to include.

Nature.

In contrast to Sheffield's famous factories, it is also known for it's beautiful peak district. The contrast between factories and country side was also an idea. Or in fact the contrast between city and countryside.

Student Life.

As we are students we thought this would be an easy topic to explore. We had many ideas associated with student life. We thought we could show the nightlife side of university, as well as the studying side. We thought about doing audio recordings of the library, and then a standard night out to show the different sides of student life. However, we thought this idea may be too easy and not challenging enough.

Home/Family.

We thought we would involve the importance of family, maybe using an interview style, having students recount their fond memories of home. We also thought we would incorporate travelling, mainly focussing on the train station. This will highlight the fact that we're students and that the majority of us are living away from home and away from our families.

Sport.

Focussing on football, we thought we would show the patriotic side of sport. We would talk to fans of the local team, Sheffield United, and get them to recount fond memories of their team. This would highlights loyalty, which is a positive aspect of sport. This idea came from the lack of positive coverage that football gets within the media. We felt it was too easy to put a negative spin on the sport, and address issues such as hooliganism. 

'sense of place' ideas.

a photograph.

CLICK ME.

I found this photograph on 'StumbleUpon' which is a website which takes you through random webpages on the internet. 

Growing up in a tiny village in the south of England has given me a facination of big cities. This picture highlights this. I love the complexities behind cities. Everyone has somewhere to be, and people to see. It is never still, or quiet. The beauty of this picture is that it highlights this, even really early in the morning, or really late at night, there is still lights of the cars going past, the lights in the buildings are still on, people are still living their lives, they never stop.

On top of that, it is just a generally beautiful image, I love that the cursor acts as the sun, and we get to experience the city at each step of the day.