Soundclip here

 

Artist Statement

My father works as a taxi driver. He stays in his taxi for at least 12 hours a day, 15 years, almost everyday.
I would like people to picture how taxi drivers like my father, work in their small driver seats and spend their days on the roads, and occasionally conversing with few passengers. He would sometimes have meals together with his colleagues in the same taxi company. But his life revolves very much around his taxi job after sending my siblings to school and my mother to work.
Main idea – With sounds, imagine space, time & experience
Why did I work on father? 
I want my works to have a little bit of myself, of my family. As I grow to an adult, they grow old. I want to always remember how they were like to me, I want them to see for themselves what influence they have made to me, how they are a part of me, through my work. In the previous semester, I worked with my mother in mind for 4D I Proj 2. And, it is time for my father, whom i am similar to in personality, yet we don’t connect as much. I hope to show that I appreciate them as they are involved in my production. Specifically to this project, I want to show appreciation in the sacrifice my father has done for the family.

Concept Development

Initial brainstorming

(trying different perspectives) 
  • My friend’s dog
  • My grandmother who stays at home all day
  • My father
  • My neighbour
  • Soundscape of my trip around the neighbourhood

 

 

Sounds:
recorder in the car (footsteps nearing the car)
opening the door
turning on the engine
setting up for work
seat belt on
driving off & on the roads
sounds of motor vehicles passing by
wind while winding down of windows
radio
sound of money transaction (notes & coins)
driving (fade out)
engine off
birds chirping
cricket sounds
lift
returning home
“hi daddy”

Research

I didn’t have to interview or do much research on the taxi-driver occupation. It is something I am already familiar with, I grew up with the car, and there are times when it is silent in the car and I pay attention to the environmental and mechanical sounds. With these familiar sounds, I formed an idea in my head – Journey.

 

Film/Artist references

Gentle Bones – Shifting Over

Reference from a music video!
(Okay, honestly my ambition is to shoot music videos so I find a lot of inspiration and reference from MVs)

  • How the engine starts off
  • How it includes the sounds of the vehicle + environment
  • Imagining space and journey with sounds

Challenges

The greatest difficulty of producing this sound clip is that I currently live in hall and I rarely spend time with my father and my family. It is challenging to find time for the both of us to obtain recordings of my father in the car, when he goes to work and when he ends work, considering the fact that as I process the audio I do not have the time to re-record if it fails. So, I could only work with the separately recorded sounds then mix and arrange them to make it flow as best as possible.

Another slight challenge would be using sounds to tell time (how the story flows). For example, how to tell that my dad has been driving all day… Then, I remembered to include sounds of birds chirping in the day, and the cricket sounds at night, as well as fading out to drag.