Audio-Essay Draft Cover Letter…
Revision:
*Didn’t include an intro, I somehow feel it wouldn’t work with this… Tell me if I’m wrong.
2nd Draft
*I’m going to add this later but, I will add in the end of the audio clip my question “what would you give if you were to give away something?” – It will make people think more about it.
First Draft
Dear readers,
The message that I’m trying to convey through this very rough audio track (music is not included yet…) is that people are generous when it comes to giving things away. A lot more people tend to care about others, especially the ones close to them, and have the potential to carry out the act of giving for the greater good of everyone. The first step I took to try and show this point was organizing the recorded replies that I attained. After listening through all the responses twice, it appeared that I got more serious answers than trivial ones on what people would give. So it made sense to me to open the audio clip up with the trivial answers then let it progress to the serious ones. I decided to end with a little boy’s response because I thought it provided a great contrast with many of the serious responders – they were older people (not teenagers, although some were). He was probably around ten, or younger, but he was already thinking seriously about making others happy while at the same time sharing that experience. I had never expected a kid to say that. Age didn’t seem to matter when it came to giving generously. Plus, I found his response to be cute. Hopefully others would too and feel a little bit more warm-hearted and generous about giving after listening.
For this project, the first Ira’s advice I kept in mind was on how difficult it would be to get an interesting story and just cut down to the best ones (Part 2, 0:00 – 1:46). I knew from the beginning that I wouldn’t get great responses immediately. I asked many people, but a lot of the things they say are boring not helpful. Some didn’t seem to think before they replied and some seemed to avoid the question by giving a general statement. Once I narrowed down to what I could use, I further took away ones that were interesting at first independently but didn’t work with other responses. But I did keep one: the first response on the audio segment because I thought a general response like that would work only to introduce the audio (0:00 – 0:06). I, however, would play around with it and maybe add in an introduction that would serve as a frame for the piece. The second advice from Ira would be to have a moment of reflection in the audio (Part 1, 3:18 – 3:34). It was near the end of NYAF that I got the little’s response. It was an amusing response, quite thoughtful of him to say that. Honestly, however, his response right now is still weak because I haven’t worked out the way I wanted to emphasize it (4:38 – 4:48). I do believe that it has the potential to be a powerful ending that would engage people in thinking about human generosity, which is exactly what I need in this eclectic audio essay.
There are many problems and many things I need to work on for this project because I am exhausted from three days of walking around in NYAF. Somehow I managed to edit and write this, but it’s very crude. The first problem would be music; I’m still not sure what sounds I should go to move the listeners emotionally. I have a few sad OSTs in mind but I didn’t have time to test it out. Editing the recordings that I got was horrible and tedious. I tried GarageBand but I didn’t really know how to use its equalizer function to reduce background noises of people talking. Then I searched around Google for noise reduction tools and found a helpful guide on noise reduction with Audacity. It was easy with the instructions but it of course didn’t eliminate all the noises. It did lower it though. The tedious part came in when all the responses were recorded around large crowds of people or on the street, and so I had to do it for all the ones I thought would be useful (over thirty… -.-). Using the Noise Removal tool though sometimes changes the recorder’s voice quality which I disliked. I tried to work around to keep the voice quality while minimizing noise – it was impractical…
And so, what I need to do now is to refine the audio sounds (with Audacity, especially on background noise reduction), reorganize some segments to have a better logical flow, and maybe try to frame the piece better (which I would probably need to introduce what I was going for in the beginning).
Sincerely,
Gen Hua Tan
3 responses so far
Great job Gen. You got a lot of great responses to your question. I like how you compiled the responses into parts. The first part of the piece included people that would do good things on a relatively small scale. I liked that part a lot and the music did a good job setting the tone for it. It was cheery enough but not too deep, I liked it. Then the second part of it was where the real ‘good’ in people showed. That one response where the woman had been ‘couponing’ so that she can stockpile goods to donate was powerful. The music for the second part was great too, it was deeper and more inspiring. It fit nicely. You compiled them well and in a logical way. The only thing I was relatively confused about was the last one. First of all what is a replica of ‘Sir Francis Drake’s Ring’ (if that’s the correct name.) And secondly, why did you put that one last? I am sure there were more powerful ones that would have fit nicely at the end. Also I would have liked to hear what you would give away if you could. Maybe that would have fit the best at the again, but thats just an idea.
So congrats on a great project, I liked it very much.
I thought I would contrast the “greater” good ones from older and more serious people with a relatively young kid who cares a lot as well. I thought that would make people ponder a bit.
On your confusion, the ring comes from, from what I’ve looked up, a special edition game that he probably purchased – maybe with his family’s help. But if you seemed to be more confused at the end because of that, I think it might do better work placing it on the first part before the song changed. I’ll switch the orders of the second part around and add in my voice in the end later as well.
Thanks for the feedback!
Hi Gen,
I agree with Joe that you got some terrific responses, so you have great material to work with. For some reason, I haven’t been able to play your latest revision from home today, but I wanted to go ahead and write my comments from my notes and memory, and if I have anything to add once I fix my technical issues, I’ll write again!
I’m especially impressed with how you finessed the ending, by playing a long stretch of music and adding the little boy’s comment at the end. It’s possible that the musical break before his comment is a teeny bit too long. What do you think?
To capitalize on the build up to that boy’s comment, think about doing the categorizing and cutting we discussed in class yesterday. I am confident that this piece will gain power once it’s shorter. If you are more concrete in putting the comments into categories that make sense to you (the ones that come to my mind are: fantasy gifts (things like money or cars that people would give away IF they had them), charity (gifts to shelters, the poor, etc), and gifts of personal items with sentimental value). The last category is the most touching, I think, the kind of gifts that one gives to the people one loves the most; it’s the kind of gift the little boy gives. So you want to focus on those gifts, or build up to those kinds of gifts. You could go from least to most personal, or least to most “generous,” and then perhaps in an intro you could discuss your thoughts on gifts and generosity, define what it means to you to be “generous.”
I wouldn’t necessarily suggest that you frame this piece with both opening and closing comments. I think what you’re doing with the ending is quite creative and original. But I would suggest that you consider adding an intro.
And cutting back on the number of comments you use. Be aggressive in killing the less impactful comments. Keep only the real winners! Keep just enough to retain the impact of having multiple voices of diverse people sharing their sense of gifting.
What a good idea you had to do this project at NYAF. You got really special comments.