People do this for a living?
What an extremely tiring process that was. Phew* Here’s the finished product 😛
I knew this project was going to be hard, but I didn’t expect it to be sooooo hard. I tried my best to make everything flow as best as I could but in the end there were still too many choppy parts. My purpose or point to this project was to show people how important words are in controlling different situations. Although It might have taken a while to get there, I think I was able to make my point clear. Regretfully, some parts do not flow into each other as well as they could and that leaves some parts of the project quite empty and I will fix them.
Two pieces of advice I followed from Ira glass was to kill parts that didn’t make sense in part 2 and to say it like a story in part 1. I cannot begin to count how many things i cut out from my audio essay. I feel like I made two different essays just by the sheer amount of stuff I had in total but I did manage to cut things out and make sense of most of my pieces. I also tried my best to make it sound like a succession of events that lead to one another but I feel like that part was lacking somehow. In my revision I will try to make the flow better. I tried to make my voice more exciting in order to tell it like a story and I hoped that worked a little. These two pieces of advice were important to me because I felt like they are what makes a story come together and makes the story flow so that it is easy for a listener to enjoy.
The most difficult part of drafting my audio essay was coming up with the project itself. I couldn’t quite get the wording right even though my project was ironically about words. It took a really long time just to get my first lines recorded and even more time to edit them. Another difficult part was figuring out how to save the files so that they could be uploaded. I’m not particularly tech savvy so I probably spent around 30 minutes just trying to get it uploaded onto soundcloud.
This was definitely a challenging project and it really left me in awe of people who do this everyday.
4 responses so far
Hi Jackie– that was me who embedded your audio file in your post like that. Testing out a new feature… now you can just paste the url of your Soundcloud file into a new line and it will automatically embed.
Good job! I’ll be visiting your class later today-
I really enjoyed listening to your segment in class. When I heard your proposal I was intrigued, but I couldn’t imagine how you would get it to flow so nicely. But you did! It’s really awesome. I can tell you put a lot of attention into the editing, especially with the sound effects. Like we said in class, I think you could scale down the sound effects a bit, though, because they are choppy in some parts. You piece is definitely very exciting and fun to listen to. And I can sympathize with you about the editing difficulties, because we had the same problems. Good luck on your final revision!
Jackie-I’m so impressed. At first, I was a bit unsure of how your proposal would turn out as a radio show; I loved the idea as an essay topic but was a bit apprehensive when it came to your audio project however, I was blown away. Great use of sound effects and music-some editing can be done to make the piece flow more and have a smoother momentum but great job! You have a great radio voice which captivated me and you were very enjoyable to listen to. I feel that maybe instead of focusing on the importance and words, maybe nix the words aspect and just emphasize the importance of tone-it may create a more organized essay. Otherwise, great job and I can’t wait to hear the finished product!
I love the opening music and the great way you’re playing with stopping and starting and changing up the music, and using sound effects. There’s terrific creative energy behind this piece. Your voice is lovely, too. So it’s totally fun to listen to. I feel the effort and thought you put into thinking through how to make this piece work as an AUDIO essay, and I love and appreciate that effort (and the effect, which is great). All the sound effects break up what can be monotonous in listening to one person talk for 5 minutes. And they add terrific entertainment value (as well as contribute to the message and point).
I would encourage you to think about how to build in spaces for listeners to pause and think/catch up/engage with your ideas.
I would still encourage you to consider how you might work in more impact in the delivery of your message. You offer these different types of messages that are changed based on how they are delivered: comforting messages, wanting to get someone to do something, apologizing, attacking. And it’s at the end that you start to say some interesting things about how words work and when we don’t need them, and why. I like what you have to say about how words are what fill in the spaces between feeling (is that what you say? I have to re-listen but I don’t want to stop typing at the moment!), and then you say something about how with words, we can handle anything (no situation is too much of a situation, something to that effect). I’ve listened to your piece 4 times now, though, and I feel like I should have more of a grasp on the message? I think it’s almost there. But is there some way you can sell it more, get it across more clearly. Perhaps you’re saying something about how words help us come to terms with and understand our feelings, the feelings and actions of others, etc. Words are our method of categorizing, naming, and understanding the world what happens. This is what your piece leaves me thinking, but how does tone fit into this scenario that you’re outlining at the end?