Portfolio and video evidence FAW23084571 (SHR6E032F~002)

SHR6E032F~002 FAW23084571 Portfolio and video evidence

1. Project Overview

For my collaborative project, I worked alongside the Leeds RAG (Raise and Give) Fashion Show, a student led, fundraising focused collaboration between the universities in Leeds. The chosen charities for this year were: British Red Cross, Behind Closed Doors and MAP (Music & Arts Production). Each year a theme is selected and the entire show, alongside other events, is tailored to this theme – this years being “Gaia: An Earthly Soul” (Fig A). Gaia is a Greek Goddess who “represented the bounty of the earth itself” (Claus, 2026). Within this title hid four sub-themes that represent the four sections that the show comprised of – Ancestral Whispers, Bodies of Water, Ghost in the Machine and Threads of Life (Fig B, C, D and E). Each quarter would comprise of different lighting, costumes, makeup and music that the main team worked on themselves. I was approached (Fig F) to produce 10 to 12 minutes of music for two separate sections of the project – the launch video prior to the show, alongside a dance routine within the actual runway.

The aim for the launch video was to create a 4 minute video that would be used at the theme launch party to announce the overall theme alongside the four sub-themes. It would be separated into four 1 minute segments that transitioned between themselves with different audio and visual features to express all the elements that would make up the show.

The dance routine was a transition in the actual show between Ancestral Whispers and Bodies of Water. It is a 6 minute, original routine set to my track that would be split halfway between the two themes whilst still including aspects from the final two themes.

Ambient electronic was chosen as the genre I worked in but not limited to, due to it’s very freeing nature whilst also linking to my background in music production. Barring myself, I predominantly worked alongside two collaborators closely to achieve this final product.

Fig A

Fig B

Sam Fawcett (Myself) – Producer

Sam Fawcett is a 21 year old Producer, DJ and Multi-instrumentalist from North Yorkshire who focuses his craft around the underground electronic scene within the UK. Whilst coming from a classical background playing the violin and cello, he has found a love for djing and all things dance music. His productions often take inspiration from artists like Fred Again and Kyle Starkey.

Example Production –

Nia Southworth – Creative Director

Nia is a final year fashion marketing student at Leeds Arts University. She is a multi-disciplinary creative with a love for creative direction and producing. Her work is often film based and within the fashion show she leads the overall creative vision, with a say in all aspects of its production.

Saskia Roy – Choreographer

Saskia is a very talented choreographer, movement director, dancer, model, performer and artist, who brings a focus and intention to her art. She leads her own arts company called Rattery who perform nationwide. Saskia is in her final year at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and within this project she choreographed all the movement in both projects.

Nia and Saskia were the only collaborators who I had direct contact with in the process of production, however there was a massive team of creatives alongside us (led by Nia) who brought the project into fruition.

2. Panopto Video – Final Product (10-12 Minutes)

Upload your video to Panopto and then embed it in the block below

3. Chronological Monthly Diary

A diary was kept between October 2025 and February 2026 noting the events of this collaborative process. Alongside this there is a gantt chart (Fig G) used to keep on track during this process. Expanded in Fig I.

OCTOBER

Approached by Nia
First meeting with Nia
Group chat made with Nia and Saskia (Fig J to O)
Video planning
Initial demo production

NOVEMBER

Video filming and editing
Feedback on demos
6 demos made
Mixing and mastering
Pairing track with video

DECEMBER

Theme launch party
Trio meeting for dance
Initial dance demo

JANUARY

Choreography work starts
Work on demos

FEBRUARY

Mixing and Mastering
Final rehearsals
The fashion show takes place

4. Evidence of Planning/Process

Utilising the 5 phases of project management allowed me to focus on each individual section at a time and separate the process out well.

INITIATION –

To start out the project I actually contacted my sister (Fig H) who is an environmental artist based in Glasgow. She has a strong back catalogue including protest art against redevelopment of green forest areas and also pieces regarding saving bees. Through ideation, we came up with an idea to create a documentary surrounding the world of bees and their importance to the world. The music would consist of location recordings of bee hives and their frequencies which have “been found to promote relaxation and healing within the body” (Villa, 2026). This initial idea actually ended up being my contingency plan as the day after, I was presented with the concept of the fashion show project. Due to the brief Nia provided me fitting perfectly to the assignment brief, and also the fact that it was already in development, led me to move forward with it.

Fig H

As mentioned prior, I met with Nia to discuss the ideas for the project, including sound design elements, references, themes and video elements. She provided me with her ideas whilst I explained how I was going to achieve it. This was also when initial contact to Saskia was made just to touch base. We discussed majorly on the launch video, with some discussion the dance routine taking place. This was mainly just a brief on it being 6 to 10 minutes long and based on Ancestral Whispers and Bodies of Water.

PLANNING –

The Gantt Chart (Fig 7) showcases the initial planned timeline I created for myself once I learnt of the deadlines for the two sections – 2nd December for the launch video and 27th February for the Dance routine. This outlined different aspects including meetings, mixing periods and filming periods. From discussions with Nia, I realised that barring the two final deadlines, I was allowed to set out my own timeline. Nia focused her efforts on planning the story for the launch video, whilst Saskia focused on planning the choreography.

EXECUTION –

For the execution of this project, the filming and music production were kept separate for the first project – whilst in the second project all the visuals stemmed from the music I provided. The first method was not favourable due to the fact that I didn’t have much concept of what I was producing music to. The visuals and the music only got put together once both were completed, which was extremely risky, however it did pay off. The second method worked a lot better as I was able to produce a track based off my own ideas and then have Saskia choreograph to that track.

For both tracks I focused on synthesis, sampling and foley recording for the sounds used. I used a Zoom H5 location recorder (Fig P) to capture a lot of natural sounds such as breathing, water and forest-scapes. This allowed me to “record studio-quality audio anywhere” (McClean, 2024). This process took a few weeks to get to a good level and quality but really enhanced my process.

Putting the work together was completely overseen by both Nia and Saskia for each project. Nia worked alongside an editor to create the video, whilst Saskia put the music together with her dancers. I received both final products after sending off my own work.

MONITORING –

For the monitoring of this project, I kept looking back at the initial plans I had set out for myself with the viability study. The timeline I presented for this project was maintained pretty well throughout, mainly due to the fact that I was running off of their deadlines for the show and not my own ones for this assignment. The actual music needed to be completed for them before it needed to be for myself – enabling me to work quicker to complete it.

The second part of monitoring that is looked at with collaborative projects is with the budget. I did make a hypothetical budget (Fig U) for this project, however that was not followed as it was for charity. A budget for the entire show was present but it didn’t affect this project with all labour being free and any tools used in the process already being owned.

Another form of monitoring came within the communication as I was trying to maintain good and consistent discussions throughout the project. At times this wasn’t the best as it would even go weeks without proper communications or responses to messages. Meetings in person were the best time for actual talks but these did not occur often due to everyone’s busy schedules.

CLOSING –

At the end of the project, I was able to see both final products and receive feedback on my own work. This helped reassure myself that it was what I wanted to submit for this project. Also, due to both products being complete by the 27th February, it gave me plenty of time to make any additional changes that I wanted to improve for my own submissions, and leeway incase I decided to work on a different project.

5. Reference Material/Inspiration

The inspiration for the production in both tracks comes from a wide variety music, predominantly situating in the ambient genre. These tracks in the playlist were sequentially sent to me by Nia and Saskia for the specific sounds they wanted from both tracks. Due to each section relying on their own motifs and themes, the inspirations for each come from different sounds – a big part of ambient music being it “emphasizes tone and mood” (Haven, 2025). For example, Going Home by Alice Coltrane was my main influence for the sound of Threads of Life section and Mothra by Leon Vynehall was a big influence for the atempo aspect of the dance routine – I wanted a “fluid gesture” (Lochhead, 2016) within this track. Due to it being a genre I have never really worked with before, I did also look into seminal artists such as Brian Eno to get a grasp of the sound of ambience and his “conceptual art” (Lysaker, 2018) that is his music.

There was also inspiration when it came to the visuals in both projects, which was provided to me to also influence the sounds of each section. Some examples of this are shown below.

6. Use of Technology

The use of technology across both tracks production was pretty similar. In terms of DAWs I used FL Studio as it is the one I have used for the longest time and am most proficient with its features. The sounds for the track predominantly came from synthesisers and sample manipulation with a heavy feature of location recordings utilising the ZOOM H5 handheld recorder. Figure V includes ten different sounds from techniques used in the track.

My chosen synthesisers for this project included Sytrus (Fig S) – a powerful FL synth that allowed me to create amazing pads, arpeggios and basses – IndustrialMaxx (Fig R) – a drum machine that featured heavily in the Ghost in the Machine section to add to this lack of mother nature as they are “rhythmically too rigid” (Tidemann, 2007) – and Sakura (Fig Q) – used in the dance track to emulate a flowy flute sounding melody that worked right into multiple themes of the show. This project really helped me work on my synthesis sound design as I was able to create sounds that I wanted using all aspects of the synthesizers alongside using tools like drum machines that I previously had never used.

The sample manipulation came in the form of chopping up drum sounds, taking one shots like the bubble hit and fitting it in with the Bodies of Water theme and atmospheric enhancement to buildup soundscapes. These often came from ideas I had that I did not know how to record i.e. a heartbeat. This can create “a nice or disturbing atmosphere” (Power, 2023).

Hand-in-hand came the location recording to buildup the soundscapes. One point that Nia had stressed a lot to me was that she did not want the music to be seen as a track but more like giant soundscapes. This was achieved with the recording of natural aspects like breathing, water streams, whispers, rope movements etc. Notable soundscapes include the whispers for Ancestral whispers, the water for Bodies of Water, twigs snapping for Threads of Life and the one I’m most proud of being the big uncomfortable soundscape in Ghost in the Machine. Here I layered up recordings that created discomfort to pair to visuals of suffocation to really make the viewer understand what is going on and almost not want to look.

For the mixing I wanted to achieve similar sounds to my reference tracks whilst maintaining my own sound and skills I have gained through my career so far in production. I have learnt to use a lot of FL stock plugins to a high level alongside a few additional plugins I have bought myself. The stock plugins include stock EQs, saturation, compression and delay and the main bought plugins come from the Valhalla suite. “Automation is key in ambient music” (Johncy, 2025) – a prime example is the automated filter in the Ghost in the Machine section to simulate the sound of suffocation and lack there of sound.

I approached both tracks mastering at different times which preceded to create two different approach due to more knowledge being gained. My main factor with this came in the form of wanting it to compare to other professional ambient electronic tracks and also wanting to sound good when played at the actual fashion show.

7. Evaluation

The Process –

Overall, the entire process of the project worked rather smoothly. I have been able to work in a collaborative space (something I hadn’t done before), and met both Nia and Saskia who I would love to work with in the future. The main issue with the process was the lack of communication mentioned previously which did scare me. However this ended up not being a problem as it improved over time. Another issue is the fact that in the presentation of the launch video, my name did not feature in the credits so I received no praise or exposure from that work. This is something I will make sure to use in the future and is just one of many learning curves this process has provided me. The project has featured a lot of our own time and passion and is something we are all extremely proud of.

The Product –

The finished product is something that I am extremely proud of. I have been able to prove myself in a space and genre that I have never been in before and come out with multiple pieces of music that I really love. I wanted to create a professional level piece of music to accompany two sets of visuals, also of professional quality – something I feel like has been achieved.

Feedback (Fig T) from the product has really enhanced my feelings towards the piece as the reaction to both live events was immense and seeing the in class feedback really strengthens my thoughts on it. This is definitely a line of work that I would love to explore in the future and the product is something I would love to continue to showcase and adapt from. I have received contact from potential future collaborators who have seen this work and want to stay in contact.

In conclusion, both the product and the process are something that I am extremely proud to say I have been a part of and have been executed to a quality that I am happy with. For the future I want to be exploring spaces like this more and now have the capability to show that I can do.

8. Bibliography

Claus, P. (2026). The Greek Goddess Gaia and Her Connection to Earth Day – GreekReporter.com. [online] GreekReporter.com. Available at: https://greekreporter.com/2026/04/22/greek-goddess-gaia-earth-day/ [Accessed 29 Apr. 2026].

Haven, S. (2025). What is Ambient Music? Everything You Need to Know in 5min. [online] EDMProd. Available at: https://www.edmprod.com/what-is-ambient-music/.

Johncy, J. (2025). How to Create Rich, Layered Textures in Ambient Music –. [online] pointblank Music School’s Blog. Available at: https://www.pointblankmusicschool.com/blog/how-to-create-rich-layered-textures-in-ambient-music/.

Lochhead, J. (2016). Review-Essay on Suzannah Clark and Alexander Rehding, eds., Music in Time: Phenomenology, Perception, Performance (Harvard University Press, 2016). Music Theory Online, [online] 25(4). Available at: https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.19.25.4/mto.19.25.4.lochhead.html [Accessed 29 Apr. 2026].

Lysaker, J.T. (2018). Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports. Oxford University Press eBooks. Oxford University Press. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190497293.001.0001.

McLean, M. (2024). Zoom H5 Review: The Ultimate Podcast & Audio Recording Tool? [online] The Podcast Host. Available at: https://www.thepodcasthost.com/equipment/zoom-h5-review-for-podcasting/.

Power, T. (2023). Creative Sound Work – Sample Based Ambient: Blog 1 – Theo Power’s Blog. [online] Arts.ac.uk. Available at: https://theopower.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2023/04/22/creative-sound-work-1-sample-based-ambient/ [Accessed 29 Apr. 2026].

Tidemann, A. and Yiannis Demiris (2007). Imitating the groove: Making drum machines more human. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228977360_Imitating_the_groove_Making_drum_machines_more_human [Accessed 29 Apr. 2026].

VILLA, S. (2026). SYLVIA VILLA. [online] SYLVIA VILLA. Available at: https://www.sylviavillamusic.com/blog/bee-frequency.