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Here, in case people are interested:

http://people.csail.mit.edu/mrub/VisualMic/

I saw a talk on this recently by Prof. Bill Freeman, a co-author of the above work. The visual mic idea is based on a general technique for amplifying small motions; the motions here are the tiny movements of the bag.

The more generic idea is here: http://people.csail.mit.edu/nwadhwa/phase-video/

It seems like it could have applications to lots of areas.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8131785 - item and discussion from early August about the MIT research

that an old trick by bouncing laser of the objects near the source of the sound.

I think OP was referring to a recent demo that uses only video. No special equipment required.

I'm curious if anybody has ever had any real success with this concept as a personal project. (record audio with light) My results were lackluster to say the least.

Laser microphones are an old trick, using high speed camera video of ordinary objects is a decidedly new trick.