Thursday, March 31, 2016
No, this isn't a bait and switch tactic. And it's not an ad. Cross our hearts.
But we need some feedback about the 2015-2016 Meridian. All we're asking is a few questions like "How did you place your order?" or "When did you buy?" So relax. We promise not to collect any top secret information about you, only the answers that you provide.
And you CAN win a free 2016-2017 yearbook. We're going to select someone at random, and it could be you. Didn't order a yearbook this year? No biggie. You can still take the survey, and you'll still be entered.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Overcoming bumps in the podcast road: Episode 2 of Breaking the Grid
It was so much easier the first time.
When I made Episode 1 of Breaking the Grid the Podcast, titled “Becoming an Adult,” the stars seemed to align. The interviews with my girls went exactly as I pictured, the sound quality was good, and editing the content together seemed effortless. Everything I tried seemed to fit perfectly the first time, so when I was planning the second episode, I envisioned a repeat performance.
I could not have been more wrong.
Coming up with the concept was the only part of the process that was easy. Executing the idea came much harder. I wanted to tell people’s stories about small decisions or actions made that had a significant impact, and I seemed to remember a television commercial that I could use. I found it on YouTube, and I knew I had my concept. I drafted a script describing the commercial after doing a little research about the advertising agency that created it and “the snowball effect” itself.
Having some experience with Audacity, I was able to import sounds from the commercial and use the audio duck tool after I recorded my voice-over. I experimented with the envelope tool to increase and decrease the background audio so that it was not too distracting. This was a useful tool that could save my students time when they are creating a multi-layered Audacity file.
Next, it was on to my interviews. And this is where the difficulty began.
I envisioned my episode to be comprised of three to four stories of people who had a “snowball effect” experience, but finding the time and the people to interview presented a challenge.
Fourth quarter grades were due, and I had neglected the mass of papers growing in my school bag in order to concentrate my efforts to help my staffs complete and submit the yearbook and the sixth issue of the school newspaper.
I had a hard time describing what I was looking for to potential interviewees, or they had a hard time thinking of a story from their lives to tell. This brings me to the next thing I learned this week: it is not enough for me to have a clear understanding of the concept for a story or podcast; I need to be able to communicate that vision to others.
Once I had my first interview scheduled, I though my podcast was finally coming together.
I was interviewing a good friend–someone who had a fitting story to tell that would be interesting for others. We sat down, I turned on the microphone, and we did a sound check. But for some reason, even though the microphone was pointed directly to her, when we listened to the few seconds of the recording, her voice sounded like she was at the end of long tunnel. My voice, even though I was sitting to the side, was loud and clear.
She tried to project her voice more, and away we went. For 28 minutes.
When I listened back to the interview, I had two challenges in front of me: the audio of her voice was much quieter than mine, and I’d have to find a way to edit her story down to five to seven minutes at the most in order to fit it into the episode.
When I started recording voice-overs for the interview, I had the microphone pointed directly at me, and I realized my voice was quiet and sounded hollow, like Susan’s had during our interview. When I turned the mic to the side, my voice was louder and more clear.
So I also learned this week to test my equipment often and make sure I can manipulate it properly in order to obtain the best quality of product possible.
After a great deal of time editing, I had the first interview down to about 10 minutes, and I recored my second interview. But the deadline for the project was quickly approaching, and I had a lot more work to do on what I had already started. I decided I had to focus my energy on what I already had, and my second interview would have to be featured in part two of the episode.
From this, I learned that the final product will not always turn out exactly as I had imagined it, and I have to teach my students to learn to roll with the punches and allow the creative process to be fluid.
Overall, I’m happy with the final product, albeit the bumps in the road along the way.
When I made Episode 1 of Breaking the Grid the Podcast, titled “Becoming an Adult,” the stars seemed to align. The interviews with my girls went exactly as I pictured, the sound quality was good, and editing the content together seemed effortless. Everything I tried seemed to fit perfectly the first time, so when I was planning the second episode, I envisioned a repeat performance.
I could not have been more wrong.
Coming up with the concept was the only part of the process that was easy. Executing the idea came much harder. I wanted to tell people’s stories about small decisions or actions made that had a significant impact, and I seemed to remember a television commercial that I could use. I found it on YouTube, and I knew I had my concept. I drafted a script describing the commercial after doing a little research about the advertising agency that created it and “the snowball effect” itself.
Having some experience with Audacity, I was able to import sounds from the commercial and use the audio duck tool after I recorded my voice-over. I experimented with the envelope tool to increase and decrease the background audio so that it was not too distracting. This was a useful tool that could save my students time when they are creating a multi-layered Audacity file.
Next, it was on to my interviews. And this is where the difficulty began.
I envisioned my episode to be comprised of three to four stories of people who had a “snowball effect” experience, but finding the time and the people to interview presented a challenge.
Fourth quarter grades were due, and I had neglected the mass of papers growing in my school bag in order to concentrate my efforts to help my staffs complete and submit the yearbook and the sixth issue of the school newspaper.
I had a hard time describing what I was looking for to potential interviewees, or they had a hard time thinking of a story from their lives to tell. This brings me to the next thing I learned this week: it is not enough for me to have a clear understanding of the concept for a story or podcast; I need to be able to communicate that vision to others.
Once I had my first interview scheduled, I though my podcast was finally coming together.
I was interviewing a good friend–someone who had a fitting story to tell that would be interesting for others. We sat down, I turned on the microphone, and we did a sound check. But for some reason, even though the microphone was pointed directly to her, when we listened to the few seconds of the recording, her voice sounded like she was at the end of long tunnel. My voice, even though I was sitting to the side, was loud and clear.
She tried to project her voice more, and away we went. For 28 minutes.
When I listened back to the interview, I had two challenges in front of me: the audio of her voice was much quieter than mine, and I’d have to find a way to edit her story down to five to seven minutes at the most in order to fit it into the episode.
When I started recording voice-overs for the interview, I had the microphone pointed directly at me, and I realized my voice was quiet and sounded hollow, like Susan’s had during our interview. When I turned the mic to the side, my voice was louder and more clear.
So I also learned this week to test my equipment often and make sure I can manipulate it properly in order to obtain the best quality of product possible.
After a great deal of time editing, I had the first interview down to about 10 minutes, and I recored my second interview. But the deadline for the project was quickly approaching, and I had a lot more work to do on what I had already started. I decided I had to focus my energy on what I already had, and my second interview would have to be featured in part two of the episode.
From this, I learned that the final product will not always turn out exactly as I had imagined it, and I have to teach my students to learn to roll with the punches and allow the creative process to be fluid.
Overall, I’m happy with the final product, albeit the bumps in the road along the way.
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Diving back into the podcast pool
It’s just like riding a bike, except way more technical.
This week, we were assigned the task of creating a podcast to publish on our blogs; this was an assignment I was excited but also nervous about. After all, this would be my first podcast in more than five years.
What kind of story would I tell? How much has technology changed? How could I possibly contain my story to two minutes?
Needless to say, I was anxious (in both a good and bad way) to get started.
The idea for my podcast was not one that came easily, and when it did, it came at a rather unexpected time. I happened to be driving past a mail truck and had a flashback to my childhood when I had a toy mailbox. I pretended to be a mail carrier and delivered envelopes stuffed with papers to different rooms of my parents’ house.
Suddenly, it came to me. What did other people want to be when they grew up? What about my kids? What do they want to be?
Then I thought back to a comedy show my wife and I heard last week. The comedian’s standup act consisted almost entirely of jokes about how depressing it is to be an adult.
This gave my idea for a podcast an even more interesting twist. I started thinking about how my children see adulthood, and the idea for my podcast was set.
As I said earlier, I have had some experience producing a regular sports podcast for students who wished to continue practicing journalism after my school had removed the program from the curriculum.
These were really fun, bright kids who were completely self-motivated, and they came fully prepared to put together a 10-15 minute podcast that included interviews with student athletes, round-table discussions, and in-depth reporting.
When they came to me with the idea, I jumped at the chance. I went out and used my own money to buy a single microphone the four of them had to share. We hung a homemade “on air” sign outside my classroom door and made a dozen or so podcasts before they graduated.
One of the students, who is now in law school, called it his favorite thing he ever did in high school.
Creating the podcast was a re-emersion into Audacity for me, and it took some getting used to again, but I found the remembered the basics pretty quickly, and the links we discovered helped me fill in the holes of my memory and pick up a few new tricks.
Even better is that since I’ve last produced a podcast, Audioboom has come along and allowed the average joe like me to package the podcast quickly and easily with a title, photograph and description. It also gave me a quick code to copy and paste into this very blog to create a way for you all to enjoy the podcast.
So listen in. I hope you enjoy hearing it as much as I’ve enjoyed diving back into the podcast pool.
Saturday, March 5, 2016
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