When I embarked on this assignment, I knew immediately that I wanted to find a premodern manuscript image to use, because I have a background in European medieval history and love book history. Fortunately for all of us, there are thousands of digitized manuscripts online, and many of the holding institutions enter the scans into the public domain or share them under Creative Commons licenses.
While looking through the holdings of the Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland, I came across the fabulous gentleman pictured. Our bold knight is the frontispiece of a lengthy chronicle about the convocation of the Swiss Confederacy and the subsequent Burgundian Wars (1474-77). He seems paused mid-motion, as if he heard a sound, so I searched for a Creative Commons sound effect that might suit that mood. I settled on a short piece of modern music played on French horn, which is rallying and optimistic but also, to my ear, clearly excerpted from a larger work.
European medieval history is very interesting, what is it you did to have a background in this topic? I like the colors of the image you chose. It does have that aged feel and represents the period you were going for. Looking at it, one would not know that it is the visual for the convocation of the Swiss Confederacy, I’m glad you added that background for us. When playing your audio I pictured the knight walking in a goofy way instead of tall and proud. The audio made me think of being goofy rather than ready to defend. Not sure that’s what you were going for there. Also, it may have been the computer I was using at the time, but I had to click on one of the links from the copyright to go to the website and play it. The sound bar image would not play for me, but as I said, this may have been the computer I was using. I do love the picture and audio though!
The pairing of audio and visuals went very well together. The photo on its own looks as if it’s a part of a book. It reminded me of the childhood stories I used to read and the smell of old libraries. When I heard the audio paired with the photo, the Knight seemed to come alive. The crisp loud music was a fun contrast to the old book and faded colors. It would be interesting to see the image paired with an emotion-evoking sound to give insight into the feelings of the man in the photo. You could create an entirely different story to his facial expression depending on the sound you pair with it.