Unit 3 Reflection Post

    Three down, one more to go. That is a terrifying thought, but now is it is time to do a retrospective of Unit 3. 

    The second I was told this was going to make an audio essay, I immediately decided I was going to play fast and loose with the term "essay". Essays, at least my definition of them, are very serious and formal. I wanted my audio essay to be playful and fun. One of the first things I look into was if there was a way I could edit my voice to sound like an old-timey radio host. Luckily I found a youtube video with step-by-step instructions on how to. With this, I added a much longer introduction that is more of a comedy bit rather than a traditional essay introduction. I also cut out a few parts of my essay for timing and it felt too similar to parts of the essay that came before it. 

    First off, I know this is obvious, but I must say it: EDITING IS VERY HARD. The long hours of going through just a few minutes of audio. It felt like the raw audio would never end. But the second I got to the end, after I overlayed the background music and had all my episode clips in place, I nearly jumped out of my chair in joy. Seeing all my ideas come together is an immaculate feeling. The recording part is the second hardest part of this creative process. I learned how to keep my voice leveled and how to take purposeful breathe. I will use these to the maximum for the Unit 4 assignment. 

    This has nothing to do with "learning" anything but I really like the microphone the Digital Media lab has. I never thought that microphones used really mattered, and the DML proved me very, very wrong. I now know that if I ever hated my voice, I can now blame the microphone. 

    All and all, this assignment stood out to me because it was a lot of first for me. It was the first time I used audacity and all its features in my life, it was the first time I recorded myself in a studio, and it was the first time I overlayed multiple pieces of audio. This was a new challenge for me but that is what learning is all around. 

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