Video!

Finish up with Audio project presentations

Assign Video project

Discuss Hampe

Back to looking, watching, and observing.

20 things assignment: due Monday.

iMovie tutorials on iLife


You need to buy a mini-dv tape as soon as possible. They are cheap, and you only need one.

I'll do an iMovie demo on Monday--we will also choose partners for the video project then

music files for download

file 1

file 2

archive.org is also a resource to check out for free music.

Ira Glass on storytelling

There's some really great stuff here about how writing for an audio/video program is different (and the same) as the "regular" writing process.

Part #1



Part #2



Part #3



Part #4

Creating a link for Download

In order to complete the audio project, you are going to need to know how to post an mp3 to your blog. The process for doing this isn’t difficult. Follow these steps:

1. Go to your netfiles page at UIUC (everybody has one): https://netfiles.uiuc.edu
2. Click the upload button and find your mixed and finished file and upload it to your netfiles account.
3. Once you file is uploaded, you will need to indicate that the file can be shared by other people, this action will create a unique address that will allow you to post that file on your blog.
4. Click in the box next to your file so that a check mark appears, then click on the share button in the top menu.
a. You don’t need to worry about specific users, you want it to be shared with anyone, so click next through the first screen
b. Select the circle that says public/view, then click finish
c. Once you have changed the share status of your file, it should say “everyone” in the “shared to” category in the menu.
d. Select the file again and select manage/summary in the top menu.
e. The unique link address to your file is found next to “Full URL”
5. Once you have your unique link address, you will use this html tag to post a link to your file on your blog:

<a href="http://www.address.com">link</a>

(If I were you I would get very familiar with this line of code. It comes in VERY handy in lots of situations.)
6. Your link address replaces the http://www.address.com in the line of code (make sure to keep the quotation marks!) and where the word link is, you can write what word or phrase you would like the link on your page to appear as, likely the title of your audio project.
7. On your blog, and after you have written up your post, click on the “Edit HTML” tab. You will see the same text from your post. Take your competed line of code and insert it where you would like the download link to appear.
8. That’s it! You can always go in and change your post after your link is active. I like to click back over to the "compose" tab to do my editing, but you don’t have to.
9. You can follow this same procedure to link to any file in your netfiles—.doc, .pdf, .mp3—whatever!

Audio project assignment sheet: podcast/sound essay

For this project, you will create a short (4-5 minutes) audio essay in the style of radio programs like "This American Life." In the essay, you may make creative use of sound effects, music, silence, and any other audio tools at your disposal to communicate your ideas. You are free to choose the theme of your essay, and the information can be arranged however you like. These essays should be written to be spoken first, and I will try to demo in class how you can adjust a written piece into something more "talky".

If you have any questions about your ideas, feel free to contact me. Consider the information in the McKee and Shipka readings when thinking about how to construct your essay. Make sure to reference at least one of the ideas from these scholars explicitly. Also, make sure to use the workshop time provided in class to get feedback from me and from your classmates.

On Thursday, I will demo several aspects of Garageband, though you are welcomed to use any audio editor that you feel comfortable with.

I will also talk about how to upload your final audio-essay onto your blog. In addition to the audio file, I would also like to see the written essay that you work from as well as a 500 word "process" reflective essay like the one we did for the last unit.

Audio is Awesome

W(h)am?

When we listen to a piece of produced audio, several layers of discourse to occur simultaneously to form one "seamless" message. But like any rhetorical message (and I think sound is usually produced to create some kind of response--therefore qualifying as rhetoric), what is intended to be communicated and what actually gets taken up by an audience is necessarily not perfect.

Because sound does not rely on visual cues, there can be some play with how different sounds get represented.

See the War of the Worlds stuff on one of our classmate's illustrious blogs.


Fred Newman from Prairie Home Companion:



Also, since an audio production is usually the sum of it's parts, those pieces can be pulled apart and reassembled (and mashed together with other parts) to create something completely new.

Like the appropriation of the old Wham! tune above--

or...

Black Mirror- Arcade Fire

or...



How many different pieces of discourse are being used to create this Danger Mouse mash-up?

Knowing how to use audio when we compose in the variety of new media environments becomes an important part of participating in and creating modern discourse.

Podcasts are less about pulling apart and more about cohesive messages, but learning how to compose a podcast is going to give us the tools to play we need to start messing around with audio in the ways mentioned above.

Sound Essays:  In a recent CCCs article, Cynthia Selfe recommends the sound essay as an alternative/addition to the written essay.  See her cited example here: Sonya Borton's Legacy Music

McKee examples

Jonathan Carr: Breathing/Secret of Roe

Jason Nelson: Conversation

Mark O'Neil: Winter Lyric

New York City: After the Fall

Soundpoem one