MAKE A MONSTER!

 

 King Kong’s original bellow was supposedly a mix of tiger growl and lion roar played backwards at half speed, the Rancor in Return of the Jedi was a slowed-down chihuahua, and Chewbacca was a stew of badger, bear, and walrus.

Mix together at least THREE sounds (at least one animal and one inanimate object), altering at least one (i.e. slowing it down, speeding it up, playing it backwards) to create the shriek/roar/yawp or indecipherable language of a made-up monster/species. Decide what your monster/creature looks like and try to evoke a specific picture with your final sound. Can the listener tell what your creature looks like by the noise it makes? That's the goal.

Attach your recording to a black frame and post it in the Comments section of the relevant entry on the class's FB Group page, TREE TRUNKS' ALIEN CHILDREN. (But find, too, an image that matches the sound; have it ready, but don't reveal it until the class guesses).

FREE SOUNDS

 In class you were assigned a particular sound (an explosion, a dog bark, a sword being unsheathed). Go to a free sound effects website, hunt down the assigned sound, then choose the best version available, a clean, tight sound that does what you want it to do. 

Post it in the Comments section of the appropriate heading on the class's FB page. Again, to easily post audio on FB, it needs to be attached to an image (i.e. turned into a video).

Two decent sites for free sound effects are freesound.org and https://mixkit.co/free-sound-effects/.

THE DOOR

THE DOOR is an exercise in sensation and suspense. The horror/sci-fi author William F. Nolan (Logan's Run) said, "Nothing is as scary as a closed door." That is to say, the unknown. Indeed, the thing scratching behind the door (that is, the scratching alone) will always be scarier than the thing itself (once revealed).  

Write about something behind a closed door, prioritizing senses other than sight: sound (of course!), but also smell, touch, even taste. (Your character can peek through the keyhole or lay on their belly and look through the gap. But, whatever you do, don't open the door!) Consider connecting the thing behind the door with your greatest fear (or your character's greatest fear). 

Post your response (which should run at least 250 words) in the Comments section under the appropriate heading on the class FB page.

ORDINARY OBJECT/EXTRAORDINARY SOUND

 Using your phone and an everyday object, record an ordinary sound that can stand in for something extraordinary and/or otherworldly. 

When Linda Blair’s head turns a full 180 degrees on her possessed neck in The Exorcist it's actually a wallet twisting. Sound designers hit slabs of meat for the punches in Rocky and Fight Club. Packaged liver sliding in a flat container made the sound for E.T's walk (which Spielberg described as "liquidy and friendly.") Turns out, when a bullet hits liquid metal it sounds like an empty glass being dropped into a bucket of yogurt (and when the T-1000 morphs around the jail cell bars, it's wet dog food sucked from the can with a vacuum cleaner hose). A metal endoskeleton stomping on a human skull was a pistachio shell. Spidey's comic book "thwip" was fishing line and shaving cream; Nightcrawler's "Bamf" a vintage camera flashbulb. The legs and arms of Transformers' Jefire was a creaky oven door. A porcelain lid slowly slid from a toilet tank was the opening of the Ark of the Covenant. Freddy Kreuger's glove was a combination of leather and steel, a belt twisted and a knife slid along the blade of another knife. A wafer cone crumbling was the hatching velociraptor in Jurassic Park. So, then, think nut shells, ice cream cones, watermelon, meat, cabbage, keys, toilet tanks, etc. Try to recreate one of these sounds or come up with something new.

Attach the sound to a black frame/pic (so we can't tell what it actually is). Post it in the Comments section under the relevant heading on the FB Group page, titled with what you're suggesting it is (EX: UFO, DINOSAUR, TORNADO, LASER GUN, ROBOT FOOTSTEPS, etc.)

THE GOLDEN AGE OF RADIO

Students MUST post reactions ( minimum 250 words) to the listening linked below. Students are encouraged (but not required) to additionally respond to other student reactions.

The old-time radio era, sometimes referred to as the Golden Age of Radio, refers to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until the 1950s, when television superseded radio as the medium of choice for scripted programming and radio shifted to news, sports and playing popular music. During this period, when radio was dominant and filled with a variety of formats and genres, people regularly tuned into their favorite radio programs. According to a 1947 C. E. Hooper survey, 82 out of 100 Americans were found to be radio listeners. (Wikipedia)

Click HERE and scroll down to browse the Old Time Radio archive; then select/listen to two eps from two different serials (eps are roughly 20 min). One of my favorites is Inner Sanctum.