I knew project three was going to be an interesting journey
when I first heard about it in class.
Immediately I began to think of a topic and all the preparation I was
going to have to do. I chose my topic
two days later and began to think of people to interview. I sent out interview emails a week before
thanksgiving and put myself on a strict deadline. I did NOT want to write the draft without
interview material. The day before I
left to Chicago, my interviewee responded and decided to interview. It was kind
of in a noisy location, but there wasn’t much I could control because of the time
crunch.
Writing the draft was easier than I thought, and before I
knew it I had over 1,000 words. However,
the way I arranged the transcript was faulty and I had to almost completely
re-write the whole thing the week the project was due. I spliced dialogue in strange places thinking
it would work, but once I got around to listening to it, I realized the
intonation was all off and needed to come up with a better way of introducing
dialogue.
Planning ahead was something I did this time, and
failed to do in the other two projects.
Usually I start off well, but end in a tangled mess of procrastination.
This time was strangely different and I managed to keep up with a moderate
workload. Thinking of interview questions
was easy for me. I over-prepared and
sent my interviewee a copy of my questions the day before the interview. This really helped things because
once she started talking, I couldn’t stop her. She was basically answering all of my
questions in one fell swoop. I kept my
mouth sealed the whole time and forced myself to not make a noise—I was proud
of how I didn’t talk.
“We’ll fix it in post” is one of the most popular terms in
the entertainment industry. It’s an
assumption that if something isn’t working out during filming/recording, that
it will all get sorted out later in
post-production. Never rely on this,
because this hopeful hypothetical situation rarely ends up working. Since I already knew this, I made sure I got
enough audio material. Two twenty-one
minute interviews, nine four minute practice hall recordings, and one 90 vocal recital later, I realized I had too much information for the allotted
time limit. One of my interviewees audio
got axed; I couldn’t condense everything into fewer than six minutes. However, I was glad I recorded the whole
recital in its entirety because only 30 seconds of a song fit with my segment,
out of the fifteen sopranos who performed.
I learned that audio editing takes longer than
expected. One day, I sat at the computer
for five hours and realized I wasn’t even half done. I also learned that transcript writing is
this interesting mix of journalism and screenwriting. I’ve done screenwriting in the past, and
writing transcripts is so much easier and straightforward.
I missed out on the ASU impact part of the argument. My argument was strong, but appealed to the NPR
audience instead of ASU. I included the
ASU community through sound bites, but it was distantly related—at best—like a cousin
you met that one time at Aunt Karen’s wedding. In the future I will hope to solidify my argument before I go into the interview.
I am almost certain I will have to edit audio of some nature
in the future with my major. It’s hard to think about a career right now, but I
enjoyed editing audio this week. I really liked the post-production process and now that I have
this acquired skill, I will try to exercise it in the future with other endeavors.
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