Category: CMM 225 (Page 1 of 2)

I was really excited when I heard this prompt as I always love looking back on my old world and trying to see what themes I’ve managed to come up with. In the past writing classes I’ve taken I’ve always found that something lines up somewhere. Usually a few of my pieces have a theme even if I didn’t intend them to. That seems to just be the way it always works out. This time my theme was family (which seems to be the theme of the year for me). Once again I didn’t really intend for it to end up that way but that just seemed to be what ended up speaking to me the most. I really liked the way they all kind of meshed together. I wasn’t too sure how to tie it in with the narration so I ended up making it sort of list-like. I thought adding too much narration may take away from what each piece has on its own so I was trying to be sparse with it. I had a great time being able to go back through my work and seeing how I had managed to grow. I would definitely say I’ve become a lot more confident in working with garage band and editing. Though I kind of wish I did more voice effects like I did with the first audio that plays. I thought it was cool to edit not just music/sound effects in but make my voice the actual effect.

I thought it was very interesting to see how different people thought differently about what media literacy was. I had to cut a fair chunk of each interview out but I thought it was particularly interesting that no one had a clear definition of what media literacy was. Everyone thought it was a bit different. It was especially interesting how my medical biology major friend immediately thought of scientific articles while my soon to be english major thought of literature and my mother thought of social media. I just found it interesting that no one had a super clear definition for it which was part of the reason I was doing this. I also thought it was interesting my little sister thought that it was increasing. I had gone into this project assuming that most people would have answered that it was decreasing but she proved me wrong. I’m wondering if to Sophia’s point that’s because Hannah hasn’t made it to college yet and is a bit more sheltered that way. That’s why I thought it was important to interview different age groups though. I thought this was interesting to talk about and I like how the final edit turned out! I do think it’s a bit unfortunate that I had to cut so much as I quickly learned eight minutes is like nothing when you have three interviewees. But I think I kept the important bits. I thought this was a fun way to end the interviews!

I was a little confused on how I would make my soundscape unique and not just an outdoor audio and honestly I really did just make it about nature sounds so I’m not sure if I did. But I really like what I ended up doing. I was trying to think up good things to record and realized I should have recorded all the people hanging out on the commons during the eclipse but I didn’t end up doing that as I didn’t think of it until after the eclipse had happened as I was so engrossed in it. I really do regret it though I think it would have made for a great soundscape. I do like how mine came out though as I really enjoy birds. While I know the only actual audio of the outdoors that I captured was my footsteps I took from a list of birds I heard outside. I have an app that listens for birds and tells me what ones are in the area. So I listened before I started walking and took from the list of birds I got. The only exceptions were the house finch and the black capped chickadee as I had heard each of those a few days prior and wanted to add them. I really love birds and certain bird calls always make me feel like it’s summer time because we have so many loud birds back home. So with the weather warming up I thought it was only right to highlight one of my favorite parts of summer.

I was a little unsure of where to go with this as I don’t feel like I have a lot of interesting clothes here at my dorm as I only take the things that I need when I’m here. Had I been able to do this at my childhood room however I could’ve pulled some very interesting things from the back of my closet. So I didn’t think this was going to be anything very interesting and honestly I was a little confused on the prompt. So I listened to the other podcasts people had made. One that really stuck with me (which I think is clear by how I did my audio) was the “i’m my mom” audio. I was very heavily inspired by that one and definitely thought that was something I could do just based on the amount of clothes I have from different family members. There were definitely some pieces that I have that just didn’t get mentioned in the audio that I could have talked about. After all the interviews and soundscapes I wasn’t in the mindset of being creative until after I heard that audio so I’m definitely happy I got to hear it! I feel like a lot of my life eventually comes back to family so a lot of my writing tends to as well. So it doesn’t surprise me that some of my favorite podcasts that I have made also come back to my family ties. I really liked this one and I know there’s not much characteristic sound but I still like the way I delivered some of the lines. I’m proud of this one.

When I heard the prompt I knew I had to interview my friend Arielle as everyone in my little friend group had teased Arielle at least once about being the most well rounded out of all of us. She seems to know how to do just about anything and if someone asked me to picture an expert she’s the person who pops into my head. I know it probably wasn’t what was being looked for but she is as much of an expert to me as anyone else. I had a great time interviewing her and though the interview didn’t go super in depth I really liked how it came out. It was really fun to see her open up more and talk more about all the things she knew how to do. She kept telling me she didn’t feel like an expert but I think she’s just selling herself short. Especially because a lot of the things she does she didn’t even touch in the interview as she didn’t feel as though they were important. I had a great time doing this interview and it felt good to be able to highlight one of my friends.

March 18

I plan on interviewing my friend Arielle! She is an expert on a lot I feel like and she has a lot of things to teach people. I think expert is a pretty subjective term but I know she’s an expert in a lot and I want to be able to highlight some of these things! I plan on interviewing her on 3/20.

Here is a list of some of my questions:

Who are you?

What do you define an expert as?

What are some things you’d say you’re an expert in?
Why do you think you’re an expert in this?

What led to you learning how to do so much?
How did you become this jack of all trades?

How would you say this has helped you? Either as a practical skill or more of a mental thing?

What’s something you may want to know a bit more about?
Something you want to be an expert in?

March 25th

I have an intro and outro as well as a bit of narration/a disclaimer I guess? I just unfortunately have yet to record it. My interview is recorded and I’ve already started working on cutting it down a bit so that it’s easier to handle. Below is a screenshot of my scripts for my intro and outro.

I was really unsure of where to go with this prompt at first as I am not a commuter on campus. I thought about talking about my walk to class but that didn’t seem very interesting and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get a lot of signature sounds as I don’t really hear many on my way to and from class. I then thought about potentially doing my commute to and from work which I only do when I’m home but one again I didn’t really think there’d be a lot of interesting sound marks there as a lot of it would be me just driving. I thought maybe the sound of the pizza place I work in would be interesting to capture but unfortunately that is four hours away. I should have captured some sound over spring break. So I was really stumped on what I wanted to do. I honestly thought as a joke that I should do my commute from the dorm door to my bed as it always seems to take me forever to finally go to sleep after coming home. Aftering jokingly thinking about it I put a bit of serious thought into it and how many sound marks there might be and I realized I just had to do it. So I made a little script just describing what I do at night and just how many things are a part of my routine even though I always somehow manage to forget them. I thought it was a kind of funny way to engage with the prompt and a lot of the sounds I recorded came out a lot clearer and better than I would have thought. I kind of like this one!

When I heard the prompt I was unsure of what direction I wanted to go in. I don’t make a lot of lists in my life other than to-do lists and those usually don’t tell a story. At least not a story I want to focus on for any longer than I have to. So I was mulling it over. I thought about doing some recipe related because a recipe is like a list but I don’t do much cooking here so I wasn’t sure if that was something I’d be able to accomplish. But later that day I decided I wanted to make hot chocolate as it’s one of my favorite treats of the wintertime. And I thought about all the sounds that happen when I make hot chocolate and I thought it would be a great idea. I’m a bit of a hot chocolate snob so I thought it’d be good to share my little recipe in podcast form. I really liked being able to play around with all the characteristic sounds and the specific ones. I thought it was super interesting to hear them all as this usually isn’t a thing I pay attention to in everyday life. So it was interesting to do and listen to all the sounds that happen in my everyday life that I may not otherwise notice. I also thought it was rewarding to record it all. I recorded all the sounds and I was particularly proud of being able to get the sound of the marshmallows landing in the hot chocolate.

Below are my pictures!

• Where do you think you’ve got the best pacing and articulation in a podcast you’ve done? Where is your pacing not that good? Where could the articulation be better? Be sure to explain why! Name the assignment and ID the rough time stamp for each good and not-so-good example. Be ready to share those excerpts with the class.

I think my pacing for most of the first audio playground was good and the pauses between things weren’t too long. I think they were long enough that they helped to let my point be made and sit for a moment but it wasn’t too long that it was awkward. On the note I think for my indoor soundscape I had the opposite issue. I was unsure of where to go with my story so I just ended up talking about what happened while I was recording. I feel like I don’t have enough dialogue and the pauses between the pieces of dialogue are a bit too long. I also feel like the first bit of dialogue comes in too strong. My intro ends at 15 seconds and I don’t talk until the 42 second mark though with the fading out of the into and fade in of the sound it doesn’t feel empty to me as something is happening. But I feel like the narration at this point is a little jarring. Fro the 42 second mark to the 1:16 second mark I just feel like the narration is choppy and not good there’s too much of a pause. I was trying to go with natural soundmarks in the elements audio and I didn’t feel like I could cut that audio up to make less pauses due to the songs in the background. It would have made the cuts too obvious.

• Feeling. Find your “best” moments of feeling in a podcast project you’ve done. Explain why it works so well, as you listen to it. Name the assignment and ID the rough time stamp.

I feel like a good example of feeling was also in my Audio Playground 1 It’s definitely the spot where I think I convey a lot of feeling in my voice because I’m not just narrating a script I wrote. I also think I have okay feeling in the intro for my family interview. Due to the nature of the of the content I gave a content warning in my interview between the 0 and 15 second timemarks. I didn’t use my usual more upbeat narration voice as I didn’t think it would fit with the themes so I guess you could say I have a more solemn feeling during that period.

• In Outlining and Ad Libbing, Mike Eiman is trying to help us be a bit more critical about the value of off-the-cuff narration. Research comes into play. You’re working on your scripted story projects. Spend 15 minutes identifying the kinds of information/research you’ll need to really explore these projects and pull together a story. You don’t need the outline or all the details. Questions are enough, if you also name where you might go for answers. OK. Now, try to put some of that material in some kind of order – introducing some bits, digging deeper into details, order of some possible details, etc.

I’m really not sure what kind of research I should be doing as I don’t know the prompt for our scripted story project. I’m not sure if we’re writing our own story to tell in a podcast or if we’re supposed to chop up our previous podcasts to make into a story. I’m not sure so I’m not sure what kind of research I’d be doing. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a story on a topic in which case I’d do research on the topic or if this could be a nonfiction story in which case I’d probably write something – maybe a poem and add soundmarks during my reading of it to flesh it out. I’m very unsure.

So until I am more sure of the creative direction I might take but I do have some more technical questions I think I can ask.

I would like to better understand how to add voice effects on garageband in case I want to distort my voice.

• I think that watching some youtube tutorials or playing around with the different effects may help me understand this better.

I would also like to understand how to better edit period in garageband.

• Once again I think just going through some youtube videos may help me with this.

I’d like to try to work on the feeling in my voice and the delivery of my lines for my narration so it doesn’t sound so much like narration and instead I sound more comfortable.

• I think I just need to practice this and get more comfortable talking while being recorded.

I didn’t really have a direction I wanted to go with when I set out to interview my younger sister Hannah. I thought she’d probably be the easiest to interview as she’d have the least busy schedule and would know how to work Zoom. I also missed her and wanted an excuse to sit down and talk with her for so long. But I thought I might try to talk to her about college hunting as she’s a junior in high school and needs to be thinking about it. Just in case though I had some family/past experiences questions ready to go to try to get filler. One of my questions was, “what was an experience that shaped the way you are today?” She rolled her eyes at it and told me it was stupid then gave a kind of lackluster answer. About fifteen minutes go by and her eyes get big and she says, “I should have talked about the swatting incident as my experience that shaped who I am.” So I told her to talk about it and explain it and she did. 

I feel like this shows off who she is much better than some of the other questions I asked. She’s very well spoken and honest and her answers about the incident I think reflect that. There was so much that I’m very disappointed I didn’t get to use. We had a talk about how with her schedule when she gets a new classroom as the teacher lets them know where things are in the room they also let them know what the evacuation plan is specifically in the event of a shooter. Our highschool was also newly renovated and most of the building is made up of large glass windows. My class was the first class that got to use the new rooms and many of us were very upset by the windows as it leaves little to no place to hide in the event of a shooter. This is a concern that has continued with Hannah’s class and she actually joined a committee to get it fixed and they have. They made the school budget to get large curtains that can be closed in the event of an emergency. While in a perfect world the building would just not have the windows I think it’s very smart that Hannah and her classmates came up with a solution that didn’t include tearing half the building back down. I wish I could have used more of the conversation we had but I stuck to what I felt was the most important parts.

Below are my screenshots.