Audio Final: Snapchats of Photogs

This project was really engaging for me. I had never used Adobe Audition before this assignment, and I like learning new things. I have experiemented with garageband, but it was mostly making music. I was suprised by the similarities between the two.

I decided to create a monologue from an interview focusing on one of my friends who is a portrait photographer. It relates to my topic because it highlights why someone would want to be a portrait photographer, and reflects my own ideas about why portrait photography is such an amazing thing.

I listen to a lot of podcasts. Radiolab, in particular, is one of my favorites. I like how the host’s voice-over narration every once in a while, but mostly just let their guests talk. I wanted to focus on what Noah had to say rather than the questions that I had. I listened to a bunch of Radiolab before making my own audio story.

I wanted to put as much of Noah’s voice in the project as I could. I edited down the footage to make it sound more like a monologue than an interview. I also edited out a few of the pauses. I wanted to make it feel snappy and fast-paced.

I wanted to start off the story with a short audio clip to get the listener to pay attention. I did this by putting the camera sound at the front, and then I recorded some narration audio of myself. After that, I added the full interview with Noah and my voices. I then cut out the audio of myself speaking. I then used the cut tool to delete some of the less relevant bits when Noah spoke.

I recorded all of the audio for the first draft on my phone except for the camera sound. I found it a free sound website, here. 

For the final draft, I added some music. I found it here.

When I constructed my project, I used only the cut tool and the zoom in and out tool for more focused editing.

I actually redid this assignment several times. I was using the computers in the dimensions lab at Holland libraries, and it would randomly crash and delete my progress. I ended up coming back a different day to retry it. I’m not sure what was wrong with it, but the computer that I used the second time worked fine.

I read the feedback for my first draft, and I learned two things. The audio sounded empty, and it ended abruptly. For my final draft, I took this feedback into consideration. I found some music that matched the feeling of the interview, and I put it softly in the background of the interview.

I also put a fade in and out of the background music. It helped to make it feel less abrupt at the end, because I made the music go longer than the audio.  To help the abruptness, I also added Noah saying goodbye. I also faded out the laughing at the very end.