my reflections over the project

So, after this assignment I do believe I have reached amateur savvies of both audacity and soundcloud, or at least I was kind of forced to. I’m starting to think blogger is just a fail really.

But changing topics over to the assignment, I think I did well with it. Considering I live in a dorm and the walls are paper thin I decided to go outside and record. And the Burnett Woods Park wasn’t exactly as empty as I was hoping, considering it was fabulously beautiful outside, but I managed to choke out the words anyways.

The only problems I had doing the actual recording, other than the sound of birds in the background, was articulating my words. I would read the page, and sort of know in my mind what was next and my tongue would get all tangled trying to jump ahead. Practice really did not help me much. My aim was to sound sincere, but at first I sounded like I was selling something, and then my next few takes I started sounding crazy. So in the end I think I sound just pretty much fake on my recording. I had the whole persuasion thing going in my head, thinking “I need this to sound convincing. I need this to make kids want to drive a beat up old Chevy.” So with that whole mantra going through my mind I ended up coming off as one of those people on those local TV commercials. The whole “SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!” sale people, who are all like “One time, and one time only!” even though they run that same add every month.

I think the one on one definitely helped a little. The feedback was good. I think if the set up was more organized and not so much as a jumble it would have been easier to give and receive critique though. Truthfully my essay pretty much stayed the same as it was when I first came to class. I think I did well with my topic, and definitely feel it is better when read, or perhaps if Morgan Freeman had narrated, or Sean Connery, or John Wayne. I definitely feel my paper would have sounded good narrated by a good country accent like John Wayne. So I would say my strength was the topic and the writing, and really the weakness would be my own narration, for lacking the skill to really sell my paper, and sound authentic doing it.

So all in all I found the experience to be different. I was forced to learn new media, which in the long run is probably best for me. I learned that my voice is too terrible over recording. I no longer sound incredibly childish, like a baby doll. I don’t think I would ever really want to record myself again, unless I really took time to prepare myself. I’m also now starting to dread the whole movie project, because I’m sure if I suck over audio recording, I’m going to suck over film.

But we will see…