Reading and Writing in a Digital Age

CULT OF PERSONALITY

In the cover letter for my first draft, I blasted Ira Glass and dismissed his advice on broadcasting because I wanted to set myself apart and make a statement using my own ideas about broadcasting. But when I discovered that I still had a lot of editing to do with my draft, which my peers and Professor Smith found to be incomplete, I decided that there may indeed be something to what Ira Glass had to say about broadcasting. So I listened to his advice yet again and found two key points of advice that I tried to follow in my audio essay. The first building block of any good story is the anecdote, which follows a linear sequence of events and is told in a way so that no matter how boring it is, its own momentum carries it forward and makes it worth listening to (Ira Glass on Story Telling, Part 1, 0:38). I relied extensively on the stories that my friends told to highlight my message that academics can bring even the fiercest of rivals into a friendship. The progression of their stories mirrored the evolution of our friendships. As they talked about my competitive nature, mental images of my fist shaking were brought up in the listener’s mind. When they proceeded to talk about how we help each other out, the listen could envision me helping out my friends with school or managing stress. The power of the anecdote is indeed very real and really stresses the message that the broadcaster is trying to convey to his / her audience. Ira Glass also stresses the importance of being ruthless (Ira Glass on Story Telling, Part 2, 2:39) in order to have a good story. Many people mistake ruthlessness as being mean or cruel or evil. But ruthlessness is a means to an end; it’s about going directly from Point A to Point B through any means necessary without getting sidetracked. In the case of a radio broadcast, I think that being ruthless in storytelling means that you have to do whatever it takes to convey your message. If you have to use sound effects and music, then use them. If you have to talk in a low tone or shout in a high pitch, then you must do so. You shouldn’t have to worry too much about what or how the audience will feel as long as the listeners receive the message loud and clear. I was ruthless in my attempts to compile this audio essay. I got my music and sound effects, I got the interviews, and I combined them together in a manner that made sense to me. I wasn’t worried about what my listeners would think of my organization of the interviews or the sounds that I inserted in between segments as long as they understood that my friendships with Daniel, Anahit, and Sandra came about because of my competitive nature and evolved and mature  thanks to it.

Radio really isn’t for me…

My Audio Essay

In link form. Because I’m not fancy.

Posted 9 minutes from the deadline because I live for the adrenaline rush.

I’ve tallied the votes. Here are the top seven:
Joe (17 votes); Brian (16 votes); Nomi (16 votes); Ben (12 votes); Gen (11 votes); Damla (10 votes); Kunal (10 votes)

Together, these project drafts work out to a total of between 41-42 minutes. We’ll create an hour-long show that includes the seven projects as well as discussions with all the class members on the process of creating the audio-essays: the challenges, goals, and differences between composing for audio and writing for the page.

The show will broadcast from class on Wednesday, Oct. 24, at 3 pm on DS106 Radio.

What is ds106 Radio?

Mikhail Gershovich will produce and Luke Waltzer will moderate.

You can follow DS106 radio on Twitter: #ds106radio. Check it out before class to see what’s going on; then, if you’re on Twitter, live tweet the show–or have friends and family tune in and tweet their reactions.

If revisions turn out to be shorter than drafts, we may add another project or two. Stay tuned for announcements!

audio-essay-revision

A very rough draft. (Very.) I still need to interview more people and parse what I already have for the “gold.”

The point of my audio project is to discuss what actually happens over Pride Week and to bring new meaning to the name of Pride Week. I asked “What was the least proud thing you’ve done over pride?” and got many interesting responses. Most were expectedly scandalous, but a couple were deeper and/or more reflective. I want this project to be reflective, thought-provoking, and emotional.

The Ira Glass advice that I will emphasize for this project is (1) cutting things that don’t work (Part 2, 0:00- ~1:30) and (2) to “talk like myself” (Part 4, ~3:40). I was not sure how I wanted to form this project beyond the question I was asking, so my ability to cut what needed to go and to embrace my own input rather than just listening to my responses was in jeopardy.

The largest issue I had with drafting this project was finding a quiet place to edit that I could use for more than a short amount of time. The reason this first draft is so shoddy is that I didn’t have an isolated place to work and think about what to include and what to cut and when to put in music, etc. I need to work on music, timing, order of segments, cutting segments… a lot.

Letters Audio Project Draft

Dear Reader,

After much brainstorming and editing, my radio essay draft is finally complete. I believe that the purpose of my project is to convey a nostalgic feeling. To do this, I incorporated person anecdotes as well as different voices of family members of different ages to convey such a mood. I decided to focus on the three most memorable points in my life, and use letters I received at those momentous occasions to show how the letters added the the memorability of the occasion.

The first piece of advice from Ira Glass I employed was the use of anecdote. At the beginning of Part 1 ,(:38) Glass discusses how important it is to created a flow and momentum in your show. He stresses the importance of hooking your reader in and keeping them captivated. To achieve this, I told the story of three events in my life that shaped me and I hope that they are relatable to at least some of the listeners of my piece. I felt that by including a personal anecdote, I interested the listener and gave them a deeper understanding of who I am.

The second piece of advice from Glass employed in my essay draft was “dont use a radio voice.” In Part 4, Glass emphasizes the importance of sounding natural on the radio thus creating a momentum in your piece. Being that I do  not speak in public often and I strongly dislike how my voice (very powerful Brooklyn accented voice) sounds, this was a big challenge for me. At first I chose to leave my voice out of the project, but in the end decided to share some ideas with my listeners to add a more personal touch.

As for editing, on the technical side I still have more work ahead of me. I am unsure if the second song I used, “We are Family” follows the overall tone of the piece. I also need to work on the volume of my tracks and editing out backround noise. As for the content of my radio essay draft, I am unsure if the piece seems disjointed. I can see how to the listener, the point may not be clear enough although I feel that the purpose is clearly depicted.

English Audio Essay

Here is a soundcloud link if the other one doesn’t work: http://soundcloud.com/chris1cw/english-audio-essay

At first, I didn’t really know what I wanted my message to be. All I knew was that I wanted to tell something about New York City and how positive it was in my life. After interviewing my dad, I knew that I wanted to avoid clichés and make the Audio-Essay personal to my life. In the end, I chose the point that even though the city can be big and intimidating, it can be as small as your backyard and be used to foster family and friendships if you put in the effort. To show this point, I use the interview with my dad to show how the city has benefitted my family. His anecdotes along with my speech to reinforce what he’s saying both bring the message to the listener. The effect I tried to have on listeners is a reflective one. I want them to look at New York City, Manhattan specifically, and think about how it has helped them in their family life. I want the listener to reflect on all that they have done in Manhattan with family and friends and realize that as distant as a big city may seem, it was very close and personal to them.

Two pieces of Ira Glass’ advice that I tried to follow were the anecdote (0:38 Part 1) and the being tough on myself (2:42 Part 2). Both of these are very important but in different ways. The anecdote is important because it is a good way to keep a listener interested. Personal stories always attract good attention and I tried to follow this by including my dad’s personal stories in the interview. The being tough on myself advice is applied all throughout the draft. I recorded myself over and over again until I sounded decent and kept cutting and editing so that the draft sounded acceptable to me. Being tough made it much more work, but made for a better draft.

Some of the problems I had were with the editing and finding a point. I’m not too familiar with garage band but I’m glad I managed to make my draft sound decent. Finding a point at first was hard but my dad’s interview really helped guide me along the way. Finding a song too was challenging, but in the end I settled with the instrumental from a song “A Song for Mama” by Boyz II Men. The song was a personal family song to them so that fit my theme and the instrumental I think carries my story along well. As I further edit, I think I could improve on transitions between my dad’s interview and my speech between his. I think that by strengthening transitions, the audio essay will be much better.