On your blog:

We’re going to work with Soundslides now, so I’d like you to do a response post on this piece from The Washington Post (click on view photos to get to the Soundslides) and this piece from the New York Times.  Describe the different approaches and the impact of the two pieces, and discuss which approach you’d most be interested in trying for your own Soundslides.

UPDATE:  If the Post piece is having sound issues, substitute this piece.

Since a few of you were ill this past Tuesday, I’m going to extend the posting deadline for the audio piece until Wed, March 4, in order to ensure everyone can get it up without a hitch. For those of you who were out and are wondering how to post the piece on your blog, it’s as simple as clicking on the musical note in the “add media” row above the post window.  If you have problems, contact Nick at nicholasfiscina@yahoo.ca.

On a flash drive

We are going to work on a preset Soundslides assignment in order to practice using the software; the following week, you’ll be working on your own Soundslides.  So you will need images and audio for a Soundslides by the 10th, but feel free to bring material on the 3rd if you have it already.  We’ll be focusing on syncing sound to audio, so if you want to shoot your Soundslides now, make sure you bring an interview clip or narration (not just music) and a collection of images (think wide, medium, tight) that you can knit together to tell a visual story. Look at the Post story especially for visual guidance.

Some of you asked in class about the relationship between the individual assignments and your final project, so I wanted to go over it here on the blog. The pedagogical goal of the individual assignments is to get you to 1.) start collecting material; and 2.) start working with the tools and information you’ll need to put the final project together; and 3.) explore the fundamentals of multiplatform thinking. All the individual assignments are also graded SEPARATELY (as noted on the syllabus) from the final project.
The final project will be assessed in terms of its ability to tell a story in an integrated way — so expect that a round of editing and shaping will happen AFTER this individual assignments are complete.

This means, in other words, that though you may decide to include the audio story you are working on now in your final project, you might also decide that you need to edit it as your story develops. Or, you might decided to re-use the audio clip for your Soundslides assignment. Or you may create a Soundslides project for the Soundslides assignment, but then decide it isn’t really integral to the final project you’re producing. Finally — and I’ve discussed this with a few of you — your final project might feature video or data graphics that aren’t produced as separate graded assignments, especially if it seems like you don’t have many inherently compelling visual or sound components to your story. Each of you will be making different choices about your project, choices guided by the material you’re working with and your approach.

Let me know if you have questions about this. If you need extra help on your audio projects during reading week, Nick will be in the Final Cut Lab and you can fetch him any time for tech support. I will be offline from this Sunday until Monday the 2nd.

How to Use Audacity

from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Audacity is a simple sound editing program that can be downloaded for free of the internet. While it is fairly easy to use some people may found it difficult to get started so here are some instuctions on creating a simple project:

Steps

1. Plug in your microphone and headphones or ensure your speakers are turned up.
2. Make sure “microphone” is selected in the top right hand corner.
3. Click on the red circle which will start recording and speak into your microphone. If it doesn’t look like anything is recording make sure that you increase the dial next to the microphone icon. Your voice will appear as a long jagged line but it may look more like a series of blue shapes.
4. Place your cursor at the beginning of the audio, click and drag towards to right to select all of the sound.
5. Go to “Effect” then Amplify to adjust the amplitude of your sound (i.e. loudness). If you click ok without adjusting anything then it will automatically make your sound as loud as possible before clipping occurs (where some sound is cut off and it will lose quality). You may not want it this loud though so you can adjust it to any volume. Setting it to a negative number will make it quieter.
6. Import some background music by going to project then Import audio and double clicking on selected music.
7. Edit the background to desired amplitude (See step 5)
8. (Optional) Select the part of the background music you want to have under your voice as it will likely be too long. Leave some extra to fade in and out. Then click the button shown in the image that will trim the out side selection.
9. Select the icon for the ‘time shift tool” (double headed arrow) which will allow you to move round your sound. Align your voice with the background music.
10. Click back on the ‘Selection Tool’ (looks like an I).
11. Select a small section at the begining of your background music.
12. showing the beginning section selected and how to fade in.]]Click on Effect then Fade in to fade in the music.
13. Select a small section at the end and then go to Effect then Fade out.
14. Experiment with other effects on the music and your voice. Continue with the steps when you are happy with what your have produced.
15. Go to file then save project as to save your work. Type in a filename and click save. This is the version you will open in order to edit your project if you wish.
16. Go to file then Export… or Export as Mp3 (Depending on the version of audacity) and save similarly to the previous step. This is a compressed version you can use on websites or other applications.

Tips

• Press CTRL + Z to undo your last change.
• Press CTRL + I as an alternative to step 6 (Importing sound)One
• Once you have completed this simple exercise then you will be able to go on and create bigger and better audacity projects. Aim high!
• Look on the internet for sound effects you can use. There are many websites that offer a large range of free ones for your use. Alternatively you can buy a CD of sound effects.
• Writing a script first will allow you to plan what your are going to say so you don’t have to go through the difficult process of editing out stutters and slip ups.

Things You’ll Need

• Audacity
• A microphone
• Speakers or headphones
• A computer
• A saved piece of music (on your hard drive or on removable hardware)

Related wikiHows

• How to Remove Unnecessary Audio with Audacity
• How to Record a CD Using Audacity and iTunes
• How to Get Higher Audio Quality when Using Audacity
• How to Record a Podcast with Audacity
• How to Make an MP3 or WAV out of a MIDI Using Audacity

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Use Audacity. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

A few of you have had questions about the assignment. Here’s some answers:

1. Yes, it’s ok to run short, as long as the piece shows that you’ve got a good command of your subject — if you write a tight, well-researched 500 words, that’s fine.  If you’ve clearly done only minimal research and the length of the story reflects that, then that’s another issue.

2. You can’t interview people, but you can quote from research, texts, web fourms, etc.  Here’s an example with quotes from a survey.

3. Yes, it’s true that some sidebars contain interviews.  But the exercise here is to try to write an engaging piece without one.  Some of you are detailing a process, others are writing about the history of a place, explaining a court case, describing a medical condition…

For Tuesday, bring headphones to class, along with an audio clip on a flash drive:

The clip should be the interview to incorporate into your audio story.  For your FINISHED audio story — which is due March 3 — you are to create a 90-second to 2-minute audio story using material from ONE interview that you do for your final piece. Make sure you schedule your interview with your subject well before Feb 17, so that you can bring the audio material to class and begin working on it during the workshop day. (Obviously, this should be a central interview for your story: don’t schedule a man-on-the-street reaction interview, for example). This audio story should be built around a script that you will post on your blog along with your audio piece. It should include, along with the interview, ambient sound, natural sound, and a voiceover. As long as you write your own script, you are free to borrow someone else to do the voiceover.  Remember – this is not only a slice of your interview! You should think of this piece as a “sidebar” to your main story, and allow yourself to explore one aspect of your story in fuller detail.  NOTE: IF YOUR INTERVIEW FALLS THROUGH, YOU WILL STILL BE REQUIRED TO WORK ON SOME PART OF THIS AUDIO STORY IN CLASS ON TUESDAY.  SO COME PREPARED WITH SOMETHING TO WORK ON — A SCRIPT TO REVISE, SOURCED/COLLECTED AMBIENT OR NATURAL SOUND, A V/O CLIP, etc.  ALSO READ MY POST ON RECORDING PHONE INTERVIEWS.  Basically, Tuesday is your time to work on the audio piece in class, so make the most of it so that you won’t have to do all of it over reading week.

You may want to look here for some overall technical tips on working with audio and getting your clip in the right format, if you’re still feeling unsure.

And don’t forget to post on your blog:

1.) Brief commentary on NewsU, Telling Stories with Sound

2.) Documents-only story: As I said in class, think of it as sidebar to your main piece (though in fact I imagine you’ll incorporate information from this story into the larger article in the end).  The purpose of this 750-word piece is to get you to focus on structuring information and figuring out how facts should flow from one point to the next logical point. It is probable that you will wind up consulting more documents than those you’ve put on your source list: make sure that you provide a citation for everything you consult (either mention the source in the story itself –  ie, ‘according to a 1961 survey by the British Herpetological Society’ – or include a source list at the end for my benefit if it doesn’t seem appropriate to cite within the piece).   Remember, this is a story, not a blog entry. It thus should follow the conventions of print journalism — an interesting lead, and an inverted pyramid structure. Pay close attention to transitions. You don’t have a lot of space, so focus on concision. The goal here is to write the most interesting story you can, given the space and information constraints. Simply turning in a summary of the facts in your documents will earn a failing grade.

So — a couple of you have contacted me regarding recording phone interviews for your audio piece.  If that’s the only way for you to do an interview for next week, go ahead.  But you’ll need to figure out a method — just using the Edirol isn’t going to do it.  This post has some great suggestions: read both the post itself and the comments about Skype.  In general, doing a Skype (your end) to phone (their end) call will be the simplest; you’ll need software like Audio Hijack Pro or some other recording software to record the call from your computer.  Note that some paid programs have free trials, so you can try them out on this call without investing in them.  You will have to buy Skype out minutes, but that’s a negligible cost.  Here’s more cheap or free technology for recording Skype calls; you can search around for more options as well.  Feel free to ask me general questions about this: I won’t be able to troubleshoot your specific setup, though, so experiment several times until you find something that works.

I’m also going to repost this link, which has great advice for audio newbies (and not so newbies).

UPDATE: Dominique also suggested the possibility of recording calls from a sound booth in the radio studio.  This might be a *great* option for those of you who want to do more interviews later in  the semester, but probably not something you’ll get to do by next Tuesday. I’ll check with Elias about availability.

Looks like the Moodle gremlins rearranged the text of the source list assignment (thanks for noticing, Stephanie).  Here is the intended text — note that I’m looking for six possible interview sources, three contacted, three uncontacted.  Not nine sources, as you might have been led to believe from the scrambled version.

**
The purpose of the source list is to get you thinking early about how you will gather information to sufficiently inform your audience.

Your final source list should include TWO kinds of sources

Secondary Sources:

1. At least three secondary-source pieces that have been published in newspapers or magazines (you may access these online, but they must be media sources, not website). These clippings should be linked to your source list. Use Factiva for research.

2. At least three primary-source documents (information that has not been digested by another reporter). An example of a primary source would be a blog entry or website concerning an issue, a political leaflet, or a research text.

Interview Sources:

1. At least three interview subjects, including contact information, and the relevant themes you plan to explore when interviewing them. These subjects must be:

• relevant to the piece
• accessible (let me know how)
• unfamiliar to you (unless you can provide a VERY GOOD justification, and let me know up front. In other words, known sources are always subject to approval.
• Note whether you’ve contacted them, whether you plan to record audio or video (and if so, why you think they are a good candidate for audio or video).

2. Additional three source ideas that you haven’t tracked down yet.

**

In other news:

This photoshop tutorial was handed out last week, for those of you who were absent.  Also, we’ll be discussing simple Quicktime video trims and uploading tomorrow, but for those of you who are playing around with Youtube right now, looking at this in advance might be helpful.

UPDATE: LINK IS FIXED! Some of you might be familiar with Ira Glass of the radio (and now television) program This American Life.  Here he is on video talking about how to craft a good story, news or otherwise.  Well worth watching.

Some of you have been asking about getting some basic video training in order to shoot video for your stories.  So I want to set up a Final Cut tutorial session (or two) outside of class time, with Nick.  Can you let me know who among you might be interested in this?  You can comment here or email me. (note: this is NOT for the quickie video assignment for next week, but for those of you who might want to do some basic editing for your final projects.)

For those of you who want to use video for your final project, remember that we have server space limitations, so we have to be creative, embedding from YouTube or Vuvox or uploading smaller clips.  I will discuss this more next week.

Also, some great online training for video — for both beginners and more advanced students, can be found here and here and here and here.  Oh, and here and  here.  And here.  I may touch on some of these sites in class, but I really encourage you to explore if you’re interested in video.

By next Tuesday, you should have posted on your blog:

1. The source list assignment (posted to Moodle), and

2. The choice of one of two response posts:

a.) a post in which you compare this piece from the Los Angeles Sun with this piece from the Dallas News.  Both are doing VERY interesting things with video, and, in the case of the Dallas News piece, perhaps slightly ethically edgy things as well.  Talk about navigation, integration with multimedia, the “stickiness” of the piece (whether you would be compelled to watch all the way through on your own)

b.) a video post which in some way furthers your semester project.  This can range from a simple 90-second video entry using a Web 2.0 videoposting site such as Seesmic, a quickie digicam video uploaded to YouTube, or anything more advanced that your heart desires (such as shooting some broll for a piece and uploading it to Youtube).  Embedding a video from YouTube or Seesmic is exactly the same as embedding Vuvox: copy the HTML code and place it in the HTML section of your post browser. Look here for a guide to free video editing software if you want to play around with video editing.

Don’t forget to complete Telling Stories with Sound over the next 2 weeks as well.  and to plan for your assignment (which means setting up an interview and getting your hands on an Edirol).

Finally, there were a fair number of absences this week.  I know the flu knocked a few of you out, but remember to give me a heads-up if you are not going to be there, and be mindful of the department attendance policy.  Also, when you are out of class during a workshop session, be prepared to make up whatever assignment was completed in class.