This is a little look into my life and my companionship with my cat. This video glimpses in to a little piece of my mornings and afternoons, I was a little uncomfortable doing this assignment but I kept it short and simple. Unfortunately I did struggled with overall quality of visual footage and audio. It was all done on my phone and Ipad and it isn’t my best work but it was done with what I had available. I honestly don’t understand how the quality kept getting worse with each step that I did. My phone and ipad are great at taking photos but for some reason I guess videos miss the mark by a long shot. I’m a little disappointed but it’s out of my control.
Category Archives: Winter 2021
P5 – The Painting Video
The Frog & The Mouse
When I started with this assignment, I had no idea what I was getting into as I had never really experimented with audio editing in the past. I began by choosing fables as the assignment topic, and after looking through a few, I chose the Frog and the mouse because I could imagine sounds happening at certain points in the story. Opening Audacity, I at first was a bit overwhelmed with all of the different options and didn’t know where to start. The only way I was able to get a feel for the program was to start experimenting with it. This turned out a lot easier than I thought, with the program being actually pretty simple to navigate. From here, I started putting the elements that I imagined in the fable over the audio of me reading it. Since the story took place at a lake with a frog, I chose to put audio of frogs at a lake in the background. This is when I experimented with the fade in and fade out effect to have the lake noises fade in and out. I also chose to include the sound of the for jumping in the water and the hawk because I thought that they were important parts of the story and wanted to highlight them. In the end, I was able to get a basic understanding of how Audacity works and different effects that can completely change the effect audio can have on the listener.
By Braden Ivey
Last of the Rail Giants
By Molly Engelman
Late April 2022, Union Pacific announced the donation of locomotive 3985 to the non-profit Railroading Heritage of Midwest America. The Challenger is the smaller sibling to the “Big Boy” 4014 featured in the photo and is one of only two (4-6-6-4 Challengers) remaining in existence. 3985 is currently part of UP’s Heritage Fleet of locomotives but will be moved to Silvis, IL later this year to begin its restoration.
My inspiration for this audio clip came from the news of 3985’s new lease on life, as well as the video “Last of the Giants” featuring Union Pacific’s Big Boy locomotives. A link to that video on YouTube is available here. The opening monologue should sound a little familiar, but the audio is my own recording of the 4014 the first time I saw it under steam in Wyoming.
P4-Audio The Lion and D Mouse
I read an Aesop fable that appeared to have a very understandable moral to it’s story as it clarifies to the readers that despite how one may look or appear in size or matter. It doesn’t change the fact of how impactful and aspiring they can be. I was trying to convey the atmosphere in which this would occur in- giving it the sounds of the jungle and even giving the animal protagonists in the story voices and sound effects. Hopefully by doing so I have been able to give the readers a visonary experience upon hearing my take on the “Lion and the Mouse”, as it has been one of my favorite fables. I do hope you all are satisfied with my reading and hope it gives you a pleasurable experience, and could possibly be used for good night stories or perhaps lullabies.
P4-Audio: Tortoise and the Hare
For this project I had a decently fun time having my mother record the audio and having a friend teach me the audio editing. The whole project only took me 30 minutes or less to create but was a fun learning experience since I could ask for my friend’s help on the editing of the audio file. In all honesty, this assignment wasn’t too hard to do, but it was a fun excuse to collaborate with my friend. He works in music making software, so he was able to give me some good pointers with audio editing. Also having the choice of not reading was nice since I thought having my mom read the moral story of the tortoise and the hair, it made me happy to ask her to read a story I heard a lot as a kid and was very nostalgic. I grabbed a lo-fi audio for the background music and found some random snoring audio for the rest of it but in all it came out great I thought and thanks to my friend I was able to get it done with little to no mistakes. The hardest part I’d say would have been having to find time where everything was quite so I could get the project done.
by, Quinn Hodges
My Audio Story
Logan Moscatelli
During this assignment I was trying to create a serene environment in which listeners can put themselves into a spa like head-space. My goal is to broadcast information about the spa’s newest addition, which is acupuncture therapy. I tried to make it fun by adding in sounds and different voices to keep the audience engaged. My project did not turn out exactly how I wanted because of the new technology I was using. After realising how difficult it was to use I am now even more happy with the product. I had a difficult time doing this assignment due to the new software that we had to use. My experience was interesting in the fact that I got to explore more online platforms to create projects, in this case audio. I really liked using this platform because I got to explore an application with audio. I think that this platform is extremely important to learn and explore for the future. You can use this software to create so many different things. I like that there are so many different features you can use to change the product. Although I experienced difficulties using the software, once I got used to it I was very happy with my final product.
Road Trip Nation – Photographer
By Molly Engelman
Kelly Williams is a Dallas based photographer. She specializes in fashion and portrait photography and has a degree from the Ohio Institute of Photography. After graduating she travelled throughout the US with her camera gear, working odd jobs and photoshoots along the way.
RoadTripNation – Kelly Williams
The Fox and the Crow – P4
For this assignment I wanted to create a narration of a short Aesop fable called “The Fox and the Crow”. I wanted to create a naturalistic ambient background to match the setting that this story would take place. To challenge myself, I decided to use my voice for the whole story. I want to feel more confident using my voice in projects going forward. In terms of equipment, I chose to use my phone for the sake of convenience for this assignment. I also worked with Audition because I am very comfortable using the software.
I had a fun time creating this project. The story was enjoyable to read and easy to create an “environment” for. Finding sound effects wasn’t too difficult for my audio. The one sound effect that I did create were the “footsteps”. I used a crumpled sheet of lined paper and moved my fists against it. In general, I am always picky when searching for a music track. I think that I need to start using other websites to search for royalty free music. Most of what I find on Incompetech makes make laugh because of where I have heard some of the music from (Super cheesy and old Youtube videos).My biggest struggle was finding the perfect balance between the narration and the music. I had to listen to my audio mix with and without headphones to ensure that everything I wanted in the audio was coming through. Most of the exports I created had the music barely audible without headphones. It was mildly annoying, but it had to be done.
By: Liah Craven
The Mastiff and the Goose
by Ellie Grover (link)
I chose this story because I absolutely adore Aesop’s Fables, and I wanted to be able to have fun with this project. I wanted to be able to use an array of animal sounds and fun, tranquil background noise that would bring the fable to life by my own doing! I wanted my storytelling to be engaging and intentional by all of my choices for the audio that I was planning on making.
Starting to make the audio was the worst part. I grabbed my giant book full of Aesop’s Fables and read several dozen trying to find one that I thought would make a good audio. My indecisiveness truly got the better of me as I sat in my living room attempting to pick one. Ultimately, I had to wait until the next morning after I let Audacity download before I could make my decision on The Mastiff and the Goose.
The actual creation of the audio was a little frustrating. The software was difficult to understand and made me a little overwhelmed. I had to re-record the audio a few times (no thanks to my lovely cat who liked to make background noise), and I had to spend a couple hours adjusting the extra sound effects.
However, ultimately, I’m very happy with how the audio as a whole turned out. I hope that my storytelling accurately portrays the life lesson that the story aims to teach: Arrogance inspires contempt.