This was the final podcast assignment for Topics in Digital Storytelling. Basically, we were asked to select five podcasts that we created throughout the semester and use those to make one final podcast. The idea was to look back and recapture special moments from the semester, review projects that you were either proud or ashamed of, and to simply reflect on your learning and any new skills that were developed.
My approach to this assignment was simple: find projects that you were proud of from the semester. As you noticed in my podcast, I chose two audio playground assignments, the family and expert interview assignments, and the scripted story podcast that I came out with recently. I could list off the reasons that I discuss in the podcast as to why I chose these specific episodes, but I fail to see the value in that. So, enjoy the podcast!
This podcast was one of the more difficult ones that I have put together. It involved interviewing three people about a particular topic, in this case what the public opinion on voting is as a young person in college, writing a script, and binding all of the information together to tell a story. I thought that my interviewees gave thoughtful and insightful answers to the questions that were posed, it really brought this episode to life.
For this episode, our class was asked to record an outdoor soundscape and make a story out of it, touching on the different specific soundmarks of the environment. Initially, I wanted to record the soundscape of the storm that we got recently, I believe a few days ago. When this plan fell through, I was a little concerned that I would not be able to come up with an idea for a different environment. After hope seemed completely lost, I spontaneously came up with the idea to head down the road to Sea Star Market, our local gas station and convenience store located at the edge of our campus.
The next challenge was finding the proper soundmarks from the environment. I’ll be honest, I really only focused on the noise of cars passing by and the birds chirping in the trees around the parking lot. Because of this, I had to create a script that would tell a good enough story to drown out the lack of sound from the actual environment. As usual, I would love to know what you all think! Please feel free to leave a comment with any critiques or suggestions that could help me for next time.
For this assignment, we were asked to make an audio self-portrait of a costume that we would assemble from around our respective houses. Initially, I had no idea what direction I wanted to take. I had three ideas: try and make something funny, try to make a serious episode, or make something completely random. I ended up choosing the third option. As you will notice, there isn’t a deep meaning or much substance at all, but I think it makes some kind of sense after hearing many different podcasts on the same topic.
To be honest, I do not have Goofy slippers, a pirate’s hat, or a set of bagpipes, that was all made up. If you want, let me know below if that was funny at all, I’m trying to better understand people’s humor.
Initially, I planned to interview the owner of the farm that I am working at for my internship this semester, but because of timing, I was unable to meet with her. Instead, I chose to interview my friend, Ben, who also goes to this school. Ben is currently in the masters program for athletic training here at the University of New England, and plans to finish his education here over the next two years. I thought that it would be a great idea to interview Ben for two reasons: the first is that I was in this major during my freshman year at this school, actually it was the reason I came to this school in the first place, and second, he is a very professional person and he is heavily invested in his studies. I believe that Ben proved to be the best candidate after considering all of my options.
It was a bit difficult to draft questions that aligned with the rubric of this assignment in that the whole “expert” part of the assignment seemed a little too open-ended. I think that I fit the criteria regardless. But, since my interviewee is not a certified expert in his field, it was challenging to dance around that with the quesitons. The solution that I came up with was to tell as much of his story as I could without going over the time limit. Again, I believe that I did that well enough.
The podcast above was made to highlight the short commute that I take everyday to school. The prompt for this assignment was to make a podcast for your current commute, which I decided to follow almost exactly. UNE is on the same road as my house, so coming up with a substantial amount of genuine audio during the short trip was a challenge. I did my best to include a couple of relatable and comedic moments in this episode, but it is definitely up to the audience to see if those bits land or not. I hope you enjoy this short episode!
For this interview assignment, I thought that I could interview the owner of Blackrock Farm about the company’s sustainability and eco-conscious practices and how important that is. I have heard the staff at Blackrock talk about various specific efforts around the farm with regard to sustainability, so I think that I would start there for my pre-research.
As a second option, I was thinking of interviewing my grandfather. He is what I would call an expert craftsman and carpenter. I think that it might be interesting to learn more from him about common mistakes people make, safety procedures that are commonly overlooked, and things of that sort. The internet would be the best place to get this kind of information before I conduct the interview.
UPDATE: I decided to interview my friend Ben from UNE. He is enrolled in the athletic training program here and he is what I would consider a professional, even without a certification. The conversation will mostly be about the life of an athletic training student, but also an athletic trainer as well because he has that level of expertise already. In my freshman year at UNE, I was enrolled in the athletic training program, so I had a lot of prior knowledge going into the interview, which means that I did not have to conduct extensive research.
Interview date/time: March 24- 3:30pm (COMPLETE)
Interview Questions:
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
What is the most satisfying aspect of being an athletic training student?
What is the biggest struggle or pain in your studies?
Why and how did you get into athletic training?
Do you prefer the field work you do at sports games and other events over the learning side of things?
When did you first become interested in this field?
Is there a particular case or injury that stands out from the rest that you can remember?
What kind of role have mentors played in your education overall progress in your field?
What is the next big step you need to take on your way to becoming a certified athletic trainer?
Could you describe the community of aspiring athletic trainers?
For this project, my classmates and I were asked to tell a story in the form of a list that would ideally last around one minute. It did not take me long to figure out what avenue I wanted to pursue. I am constantly making lists to do all sorts of different tasks, so brainstorming on this one was rather easy. The idea was to take the audience through what my routine would be if I were to be applying for a job. In fact, I have done what I said in this podcast almost exactly a couple of times before.
As I wrote the script on a classroom chalkboard, I found that I was getting a little bored with the material that I came up with. Because of this, I decided to toss in a couple of lines that could be funny, an effort to make the episode less boring. As always, enjoy!
As I write this post, my family interview project sits unfinished in Garage Band at about nineteen minutes of total run time. Since I recorded the initial audio and conducted the interview I have been very busy, so there has not been a lot of time to sit down and edit this interview down to at least thirteen minutes. The audio that I need to complete the editing is all there, but I may need to record some additional narration clips once I start chopping up the existing tracks.
There have not been any troubles so far in editing. A story is beginning to emerge as I listen to the interview a second time. I have decided that the goal of this project is to tell my dad’s story as best as I can while trying to shine light on the lessons and advice that he provided in our conversation. This episode of my podcast could serve as a piece of advice for people around our age entering the professional world.
To get to this final product, a whole lot more work needs to be done. The things that I have mentioned already like recording additional narration clips and refining the story properly are the biggest parts at this time. Obviously, I will need to cut out all of the dead space, the “ums and uhs,” and any other unnecessary information that lies in between the information I want to present. The problem is deciding which information is best to present and what is best to leave out. So, that’s where I am at currently!
At this point I have conducted the interview with my Dad over Zoom. Since he lives in Massachusetts, we thought that this medium would be the most like an in-person conversation. We recorded the Zoom call for the audio, but we also decided to record each of the audios locally at our respective houses in an attempt to achieve higher quality sound. All of this went smoothly and the audio is safe and sound in my files!
During the conversation with my dad, I was able to ask him all of the questions that I came up with (these can be seen in my earlier blog post of this project). The challenge at this point will be narrowing down the almost forty minute conversation into a story that is both interesting and concise. Be sure to check out the final page once I am done!
