I feel like every week gets easier and easier, but it also takes more and more of me to complete it. This week offered a great opportunity to catch up overall and eliminate some stress. I, however, was not able to do a majority of the assignments until today, which didn’t prove to be a problem as I am completing this hours early. I did not rush through any of the assignments, and I can not tell if the course load is getting easier or if I am starting to learn the basics for this class that made it hard in the beginning. I can safely say that audio is my least favorite medium we are working with. This is the only one I don’t have some form of experience with, so even though I am learning how to use it, it is still alien to me. Everything takes more time to understand and it takes more for me to convey what I wish to. There are so many sources that we have to go on the internet for, when I like being able to do these things myself. For example, in photography we have to chose or take photos to convey our meaning, but with audio we have to use ones provided in order to do so. This makes the work not as sacred to me, and it makes it less original. I am aware that we could make our own sounds to solve this, but some sounds would either still sound the same, or we would be unable to capture them. My favorite we have done so far is writing with photography as a close second. The only thing that drops photography is the lack of opportunities to take nice photos in the winter (because it is waaaay too cold for that) and not having access to photoshop. With writing, all you need is your brain and the internet. This week was the first week to introduce our radio show. I am honestly quite nervous for this assignment, as I am still new to editing audio. I am not nervous for the work leading up to it however. I know I can provide enough information to have at least five minutes if audio time, and I know I can facilitate my ideas correctly. Our first assignment of the week was to talk about our process and progress of our radio show. As stated in the post, this has been really easy due to google docs. It is amazing to be able to put all of our ideas cohesively into one document. We also created a group chat where we can talk about our ideas before we firmly type them into the document. This eliminates any confusion regarding our show, and makes everything organized. Using a google doc and group message is honestly the best way to go about this assignment. We also had to create a radio show promo. I chose to do a poster, as this intrigued me the most. I was confused as of how I would create this poster. I even thought of doing it myself with a piece of paper and creativity (and then taking a picture of it after), but I chose to look up different ways to make a poster. I came across an app that looked promising, and it was! I actually really enjoyed this app and would use it for future assignments. It was user friendly (wow I sound like a grandmother), had everything that was needed, and it was free! I chose to do a poster that was simple, as this would not overboard the viewers, and it would leave questions that would make people tune into our show. Commenting has got me once again. I always try to comment, but it is so inconvenient to open my laptop everyday to comment on the websites for this class. Due to it being so inconvenient, I tend to forget to do it. I don’t ever forget to do any assignments either. But somehow, I also overlook daily creates, and always end up completing them. So my goal for next week is to comment as much as I can. Hopefully with this goal every week, one week I will get it. I also will set a reminder in my phone every night before bed to NOT forget to comment!! Next was assignment banks. Now normally these are my favorite, but the audio assignment banks are such a hassle to me. I can rarely find ones that interest me and have a high enough star rating to fit the stars we have to do. I found ones that interested me after some digging, and I was able to relate 2/3 assignments to our theme. I liked not relating every single assignment to the theme, because all of our other assignments were also related to the theme, and I wanted a breath of fresh air. My first assignment bank was to take a tongue twister and say it as fast as I could. I chose to do ‘sally sold sea shells by the sea shore’ because it is widely known. It said to put background music in, and I did the sound of waves crashing, but it ended up sounding like static in the background. I used the memo app on my phone to say it as fast as I could and then I uploaded it to Soundcloud. I have found that this is the easiest method for me, and it makes these audio assignments more manageable. My next assignment was to create a place with sounds. After I created the morning routine a few weeks ago, this assignment wasn’t a challenge. I went on free sound and downloaded sounds to create my place and then edited them into audacity. After that I recorded the media from my phone and uploaded them to my Soundcloud. I chose to relate this assignment to our theme in an unconventional way. Since our focus was on our radio show this week, I chose to make a radio station as my place. I chose sounds such as radio static, computer typing, and stairs to facilitate someone going to work at a radio station. I am quite pleased with how it turned out. My last assignment was the most flexible. I had one picked out and I wasn’t very happy with my choice. Once I was done with my other assignments, I decided to go back and have another look at the bank. I chose one where I had to make a tagline to be a person on The Real Housewives. I chose to incorporate my character into this, and I feel like it worked flawlessly. I used a spy tagline that means ‘always secret’ and recorded my voice as if I was her auditioning. I am very glad that I switched assignments, as I am happier with the result of this assignment bank. Daily Creates: I’ve lost the count on what week it is, but all I know is now I can finally sleep peacefully for Spring Break!! Week I don’t know is finally in the books :))
