At first my reaction was to avoid this assignment and focus on other work.  In the past, anytime I was faced with learning a new software program I would always give up at the first sign of difficulty or confusion.  I’m not going to succeed in this line of work with that kind of attitude, so I stepped it up and enmeshed myself in the assignment.  It turns out that not only is Audacity an awesome program, its confusing interface and multitude of options is covered thoroughly in a way I could understand in the online manual.  The first hour of work was full of speed bumps as I developed a concept I liked and tried to get organized.  Once I finally had a solid idea and laid some foundation tracks (music, narration, etc.) I was off and running.  It was almost like being possessed.  I had such a fun time creating this project that I plan on spending more time familiarizing myself with Audacity and all of its functions.  I decided to go the “funny” direction as I often do.  I spent some time tossing around ideas and the word “Zombie” kept popping in there.

ZOMBIES! – Radio Advertisement:  

I almost went soft and did a fable but I couldn’t stand the thought of producing a half measure when I could really have some fun with it.  I decided to do a radio advertisement for a new Zombie movie being released on Halloween.  Radio ads tend to be very short so I decided to break advertising tradition and stretch it out to roughly 1 ½ minutes.  There was a multitude of zombie groans, growls, and shuffles on freesound.org at my disposal so I spent some time sampling and comparing.  I didn’t plan out the entire project before I began.  Instead I simply developed a beginning idea, then came up with more sections as I went.  I’m sure in a larger project it would be beneficial to plan all of it ahead of time, but I found shooting from the hip was stimulating to the creative process.  All in all, I downloaded 25 sound files (implementing them all), and inserted 8 tracks that I personally recorded, cutting and rearranging them into 2 different tracks.  I used several of Audacity’s effects, such as:  amplify, auto-duck, bass and treble, pitch, echo, fade out, reverb, and vocoder.  This is just a smidgeon of the effects available so I still have some exploring to do.  Though I do love the gratification from someone else enjoying my work, I can honestly say that I am very proud of myself for having done such a good job, especially for my first time working with audio.  I am very excited for what comes next.