1. Project Overview
For this project I chose to collaborate with a friend and artist from Leeds. Tallula Bell is a student at Leeds Arts university in her third year studying Visual Communication, the course isn’t restricted to one medium which gives her a lot of freedom with creative projects, she’s graded on how well ideas are conveyed and communicated. One big aspect of the course is finding employment after university. Tallula is becoming a teacher for primary aged children and has a place on a training course in Liverpool for next year. As a teacher she intends to use artistic practice as a way to educate children. Tallula was diagnosed with autism as a child and I was diagnosed with ADHD. In our collaboration we agreed that it would be interesting to use our own experiences to inform and inspire artistic decisions in the project. I wanted to use my ambient production skills and my experience in filmmaking to create something that explores the complexity of emotion. In my film “Winter” I used cinematography, colour, pacing and music to express the beauty, isolation, comfort and nostalgia felt around the cold months of the year. Since me and Tallula share a love for movies, we decided to create a short film that explores the education and neurodivergent aspect of Tallula’s work and also the emotional and musical side of my work.
After agreeing on a concept that blends our interests, we started sharing ideas for the film.
We discussed things that appealed to us as artists and also as the audience. We decided to create a mood board where we could develop our story ideas, film visuals and also share our influences with each other. After a few brainstorming sessions we had an idea for the film. We were going to create a short film aimed at children. The characters in the film were going to be puppets designed by Tallula and by the end of the film a character will have overcome a flaw or emotional conflict. We then discussed how we would split the workload between us. Tallula’s role would be to create the characters, sets and props while also writing and developing the story with me. My tasks would be filming, editing and composing music.
As the director of the film I had a lot of creative freedom when it comes to style and mood. I intended on using music and audio throughout the film not just for continuity but also as a creative tool for emotional immersion. I found some footage of wildlife at a nature reserve. The clips of birds and landscapes were quite long and had no audio of me talking so for a lot of the scenes in the film I am using a different ambience to the one that matches with the clip. Syncing the audio with the footage was easy as there was no diegetic dialogue to worry about, the only spoken part is the narration which was added in post. I used bird sounds in a lot of the outside scenes as it had a more calming effect than the sound of cars or construction from the original footage. I also used some ambience in the surreal dream sequence, fading in at one point, adding a texture to the music.
After finishing the film we intend to submit the project to a couple short film festivals. “Aesthetica film festival” in york is accepting shorts up until the 31st of may. So after my submission deadline we will be sending the film over to them. A lot of festivals won’t accept projects that have been uploaded to youtube so we will wait till we hear back before making it public.
2. Panopto Video – Final Product (10-12 Minutes)
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3. Chronological Monthly Diary
Oct
Met up with Tallula and discussed ideas. Decided on a short puppet film combining ambient music and children’s education. The film will be a tryptic with three characters split into equal parts. They each meet a phantom after finding a haunted music box who guides them through a character arc. Tallula began designing the puppets and we have been continuing to meet up to develop the story. Tallula created finger puppets and we did a photo shoot test.
Dec
Less progress has been made due to the Christmas holidays, but we still found time to meet up and create storyboards. I’ve found second hand props from charity shops as affordability is a main theme for Tallula’s assignment. Work on the first puppet Merlin (an autistic anteater) has begun.
Jan
I bought two second hand vintage bike lights as they are portable and bright. Three puppet designs have been completed and anteater is done. Storyboards and themes are becoming stronger. The second puppet was scrapped and recreated for better aesthetics and continuity.
Feb
Two complete puppets and one underway. Screen testing for their functionality and to begin music design around their characters. The final script is being written.
March
Sock puppets created. Some outdoor testing of filming equipment, lighting and further development of music, aesthetics and themes. We realised that all the work for a Triptych would be too time consuming under the restraints of deadlines, so we decided to focus on Merlins storyline as it was the most developed. Continued to make storyboards for the other two puppets while prioritising story, props and music for the first.
April
Script completed and started filming. Filmed a lot of different scenes involving the puppets to allow for freedom while editing. I undertook the roles of cinematographer and editor, directing my partner on where to hold the puppet. My partner did the majority of the puppeteering, and had a friend playing two of the sock puppets. Now I have a folder of music.
May
Edited clips together, filmed any missing parts. Recorded sound effects, added finishing touches.
4. Evidence of Planning/Process
5. Reference Material/Inspiration
Instead of just creating a score to the visuals I wanted certain story beats, visuals and characters to directly affect the sound of the music. I explored this concept in a previous project called “winter”, this project was a short experimental documentary where I stitched together video clips I had been recording over the winter months. When it came to adding music to film I synced the audio to the pattern of flashing lights, the colors that were on screen and the general mood of each shot or sequence. When making the music for the collaborative film, I used this technique to give the audience an immersive sensory experience. Since the film explores themes of neurodivergence in youth and includes a character struggling with being nonverbal. I wanted to lean into sounds that are satisfying and comforting, taking inspiration from “Björks” microbeat drums and asmr.
The term microbeats refers to a technique coined by Björk herself, the production style consists of layering complex detailed samples and percussive sounds. In the album “vestpertine” this technique can be heard throughout, however, the song that really inspired me was “cocoon”, this track begins with these melancholic but comforting chords, the sound of the synth is deep and soft, using the cutoff to remove the harsh sharper higher pitched details of the sound, there is distortion as well but it is subtle enough to just add texture to the synth. These long ghostly arpeggiated chords are paired with small but quick percussive sounds. The pairing of these two sounds has been influencing the way I make electronic music for years. What inspired me about the song was the feeling it gave me. I find myself revisiting the song often, as it is a source of comfort for me. In regards to the film, I intend to create a similar feeling in the audience, an important feature of Björk’s music for me is the detail and intricacy of the production. When designing synths I tend to learn into more dry and raw sounding noises to give them a sense of closeness and groundedness. With this project I will be using some spacious and abstract sounds while still keeping that sense of closeness by exaggerating the digital artifacts of the VST’s such as the clicking noise when a note is triggered or the hiss that can be heard when boosting 2000 Hz and higher frequencies.
A big inspiration for the film was old children’s television shows such as “Bagpuss”. Bagpuss was a british seventies TV show, it featured a cast of soft children’s toys playing out simple moral stories using stop motion. Due to the age of the show, the audio and visuals were captured using 16mm film and tape. The artifacts are more noticeable now and when watching it in a modern context it can feel eerie at times. This reminded me of television I enjoyed as a child having mysterious or even creepy moments in it and how those moments were exciting and interesting to me. In our film I wanted to embrace the eerie feeling of old media while not straying too far from the main theme of comfort.
ASMR
When preparing for this project I became interested in the use of “ASMR” in music. In the past I have produced music that could be considered ASMR adjacent but never fully utalised it intentionally. Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response is a term used to describe a specific sensation felt in response to audio stimulus. It usually is consumed in the form of videos where the creator will record the sound of them whispering, gently tapping things and generally interacting with a range of objects in a way to produce satisfying sounds. Most people will use these videos to destress or to help sleep as they create a relaxed feeling in enjoyers of ASMR. My collaborator for this project is diagnosed with autism so when creating music for the character Merlin I consulted her for advice. She showed me an album by an electronic music producer I hadn’t heard before, “Carepackage” by Galen Tipton is an experimental electronic album created with a rich and detailed layering of synths, midi and expressive automated embellishments. My partner told me that she uses the album functionally to help calm down and ground herself when feeling overwhelmed or upset. The music is playful and fun in composition but when paying attention to the production I was inspired by the level of technique and detail, Galen Tipton often uses midi instruments in a way that feels referential to casual video games from the 2000s. Recently I have been reverse engineering the synth design from the games console the Nintendo Wii, I had been using these sounds to create ambient music that appeals to my own nostalgia. When I heard a similar technique used in “Carepackage” It felt like the artist was using these familiar sounds to create a sense of familiarity and comfort, this paired with the obvious ASMR influence, inspired me greatly when creating the score.
After finishing the film we intend to submit the project to a couple short film festivals. “Aesthetica film festival” in york is accepting shorts up until the 31st of may. So after my submission deadline we will be sending the film over to them. A lot of festivals won’t accept projects that have been uploaded to youtube so we will wait till we hear back before making it public. I also Intend on adding the film to Letterboxd as a way to document the release.
6. Use of Technology
An aspect of the project that Tallula introduced was affordability and accessibility. She wanted to use cheap and easy to access materials to create the puppets. This affected my choice of technology with the project. I have used an old second hand camcorder for a couple projects in the past but for this film it matched with the low budget and homemade aesthetic. This meant that visually, it would feel nostalgic, I wanted the music I composed to reflect this feeling. Many of the sound effects in the film were made with a Korg Minilogue synth, I chose to use an analogue hardware synth as I was fairly familiar and confident with using it but also because I wanted these sound effects to be expressive and organic and playing the sounds allowed me to be more natural than programing the sounds using software and digital effects. It also helped exaggerate the down to earth amateurish feeling I wanted to embrace.
For all of the music I chose to embrace a simplistic and repetitive composition style. This helped give the music a relaxing meditative mood, I would blend in foley sounds that had been captured with the camera’s microphone to add sonic detail and texture to some scenes or sequences. All the music for the film was created and produced on my laptop using Logic pro, this allowed me to work quickly between my video editor and DAW to sync audio to footage and also create music in moments that needed it.
To capture Tallula’s voice for the narration I opted to use cassette tapes. This was a recording technique I had experience with in the past through the use of walkmans and 4 track recorders. For this project I used my “SANYO M-1119 cassette recorder/player” as it was designed to record voice notes. We also had a phone recording of the narration as a test and backup.
While the music for the film took a more minimalist approach I still wanted to experiment with the production. In one transitional part of the film I needed to create a piece of music to fill the silence. I used Logic Pro’s “Retro Synth” as well as Universal Audio’s “PolyMax” to create a four bar loop I wasn’t quite happy with the sound as it felt too fast paced and clean for the aesthetic style of the film so instead of starting again from scrap I bounced the track and stretched it to eight bars, to compensate for the audio artifacts I moved the pitch down by 12 semitones. Now I had a slowed down version of the track because it was now very deep and muddy. I dampened some of the low frequencies and boosted the really high frequencies to bring out a hissing noise texture. To combat the dryness of the track and to add a bit of width I used a reverb and finally, over the top off those effects I used a pitch shifter at 50% wetness and +7 semitones to add harmonies and bring out some of the melodic elements that were too deep to really be heard. This production style was intentional as it brought out a lot of digital artifacts and texture. I felt like this matched the nostalgic weathered feeling of the film, by embracing the flaws of the technology and using them as musical elements. I feel like it mirrors the feeling of an old damaged photo or low quality home footage.
For the character Merlin (a nonverbal, shy, autistic character) I wanted the music to be reflective of his experience and personality. I was creating some music for the film on my laptop and while I was making it, I could hear my partner and collaborator signing while tidying the flat, the song had a lullaby quality to it and it also happened to be in the same key as the music I was producing. After noticing this I set an audio channel to record from my laptop microphone and began implementing it into the track. I chose to add it to the song because I felt like it reflected the character really well. Merlin, is an isolated child who struggles to find his voice, communicate and make friends with other people. I used tremolo and autopan plug-ins on the lullaby vocals to give them the effect of slowly fading in and out on a slow but not repeating wave, this is meant to mirror the voice that Merlin longs for. The track is used at the character’s most isolated part of the story and I’ve tried to almost hide the sound of a voice within the music, at times it is barely audible what words are even being sung, however I chose to keep like this to reflect a sense of longing and disconnection.
7. Evaluation
Despite being overall proud of the end result there are still some things that I would’ve changed about this collaboration. I liked the use of a tape recorder for the narration but there were a couple issues with this technique such as an unpredictable volume level and also a high amount of background noise. For the version of the film releasing on youtube I will be rerecording the lines with a SM58 to get a clean consistent take and then afterwards running those recordings through a cassette to keep the texture and compression. For accessibility I will also be adding subtitles to this version.
Looking back I also would’ve scheduled my time better as well. With a clear weekly or monthly plan I feel like I would’ve had more control over the process of creating the film and more time to take the story to interesting places.
8. Bibliography
Reference list
Aesthetica Short Film Festival. (2022). Experimental – Aesthetica Short Film Festival. [online] Available at: https://www.asff.co.uk/experimental/.
Bagpuss, (1974). BBC.
björk (2001). Cocoon .
Edinburgh International Film Festival. (2025). Experimental Shorts – Edinburgh International Film Festival. [online] Available at: https://www.edfilmfest.org/film/experimental-shorts-2/ [Accessed 12 May 2026].
Guy, M. (2025). Tingles & Tranquility: Exploring ASMR as a supportive tool for ADHD, ASD and more. [online] Acorn&Anchor Therapy. Available at: https://www.acornandanchor.com/post/tingles-tranquility-exploring-asmr-as-a-supportive-tool-for-adhd-asd-and-more.
Hopper, J. (2015). The Invisible Woman: A Conversation With Björk. [online] Pitchfork. Available at: https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/9582-the-invisible-woman-a-conversation-with-bjork/.
Hozaki, D., Ezaki, T., Poerio, G.L. and Kondo, H.M. (2025). More relaxing than nature? The impact of ASMR content on psychological and physiological measures of parasympathetic activity. Neuroscience of consciousness, [online] 2025(1), p.niaf012. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niaf012.
Marcin, A. (2022). Sounds that Feel Good: A Guide to the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR). [online] Healthline. Available at: https://www.healthline.com/health/autonomous-sensory-meridian-response.
Tipton, G. (2020). carepackage.
Winter. (2026).
Appendices
Photos from the making of the film
Pictures of sketchbook planning and designs
