One of my favorite assignments that we had this semester was the audio editing assignment. One of the things that I am really interested in pursuing and looking into learning more about is audio storytelling, and this assignment was the perfect opportunity to get my feet wet with more of that.
I did not use Audacity when editing the assignment because I really enjoy the Adobe creative suite, and I had Audacity as a part of that. I want to get myself acquainted with as much of the software as possible, so I decided to take a risk and edit my entire assignment using that software. It was a challenge at first, but I think I began to get the hang of editing with it as my story came together at the end. Audio editing is a really fascinating mode of communication from both the sending and receiving ends. As a creator and storyteller, it exercises a lot of skills and requires diligence in lots of areas in order to create a truly impactful piece. You have to get the interviews spot on with audio, and really make sure that things are sounding good. Otherwise, you could have the best story in the world but no one would hear the punchline or heart-wrenching climax moment due to purely auditory obstacles that could have been avoided with a little extra attention. I know that I had that issue when interviewing my friend, Jesse, and I saw that it hurt my piece when I couldn’t quite catch everything he said due to my poor practices in the interview stages.
It also takes the ability to tell a story using both clips and your own command of words. No one wants to hear an incredibly long ramble from a subject for 10 minutes, no matter how soothing their voice or interesting their tale. As the storyteller, one thing that is very important to grasp is the ability to know when to cut, when to interject, and when to let things play out. That is something that I am still learning how to do, but with this project I was able to pinpoint some of the skills I need to work on when creating things on an audio platform.
One last thing I found to be a challenge was knowing how to shape the story so that listeners could follow using nothing but their sense of sound. What parts of the story came to life in the minds of the audience so that their sense of sound transformed into a visual experience as well? I found that I really had to be judicious with what I chose to include so that every word and ever soundbite carried its weight when trying to give people a look into the haunted house my friends and I (unfortunately) inhabit.
I plan to learn more about sharing information and stories with this medium. I am really thankful for this project because of the foundation I was able to put down for the lessons that are sure to come.
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