For my capstone, I would like to create an audio-only story that juggles the moral and ethical implications of audio appropriation and editing in various forms of sound art, including installations, music, and audio journalism.  My story will feature numerous sources, which will be a mixes [...]]]> The Power of Sound:  An Appropriator’s Take [Tentative Title]

For my capstone, I would like to create an audio-only story that juggles the moral and ethical implications of audio appropriation and editing in various forms of sound art, including installations, music, and audio journalism.  My story will feature numerous sources, which will be a mixes of multiple people that I actually interview.  Generally, my project will provide a creative commentary of appropriation while presenting it in a heavily appropriated way.

My project will be presented as an issue story, but given the creative jurisdiction I will give myself, it will actually be a fictional story that is themed around an issue.  Within journalism, an issue story takes an in-depth look at a certain topic by providing historical context, introducing both sides and mentioning how the issue affects the public.  Through narration and scholarly references, I will provide context to my topic and talk about how it affects us.  However, the implementation of the source I create will dictate the direction in which the story will go.  My project will also utilize some mixing of natural and ambient sounds in order to create scenes and settings to the story that I think will be fitting for what I am going for.

What I plan to do is interview a large number of people in order to provide the voices for the sources I am creating.  I want my sources to be a combination of about 4-5 people; ideally, the voices I use for one source will not cross over to another.  However, before I fully flesh out my sources, I will create a rough storyline for my project.  Preferably, I would introduce my “issue story” with an anecdote from one of my sources.  Of course, the anecdote I create will depend on the type of responses I get from my interviews.

Another critical stage of my capstone is conceptualizing the sources I plan to create in order to make the editing process easier.  Determining the general characteristics of the sources before getting deep into the recording process will make it much easier to determine what type of sounds I need and what kind of questions I need to ask in my interviews.  My story will be in the form of a waveform audio file, but I am not sure how I am going to present my capstone beyond that.  I want this story to be versatile in terms of presentation; it can be something you listen to with large speakers, headphones, or through your computer speakers.  Of course, I want my sound quality to be clean and pleasant sounding with minimal to no clipping.

Though this project has a lot of creativity ingrained into it, reporting and sound recording are two things needed to conduct it properly.  The journalism classes I have taken in the past have given me the necessary skills to do these things, and the digital sound course I took last semester gave experience with Audacity and other audio editing technology.  I currently have a Tascam DR-05 recorder, but I will probably need more sound recording equipment, which is something I have access to with both the journalism school and DCC.

Title: Second Wind: A Year in Review for Andrew Valmon

Thesis: For my project, I aim to do an audio only feature story that profiles Andrew Valmon.  Valmon is the head coach of the Maryland men’s track and field team and the United States track and field team during the 2012 Olympics.  Through [...]]]>  

Title: Second Wind: A Year in Review for Andrew Valmon

Thesis: For my project, I aim to do an audio only feature story that profiles Andrew Valmon.  Valmon is the head coach of the Maryland men’s track and field team and the United States track and field team during the 2012 Olympics.  Through a combination of natural and ambient sounds, interviews and voiceover narration, I would like to profile Valmon and the year he has had planning for the Olympics as well as dealing with affairs at Maryland.

Format: As I stated earlier, my project will be fully presented in sound, similar to the way NPR does their feature stories.  In my DCC 208E seminar as well as in my JOUR 203 class, we talk about how prominent sound can help tell a story.  I would like the story to be roughly 10 minutes.  Interviews and voiceover narration will be a very important part of the project, as it will help progress the story, but natural and ambient sounds will add an artistic dimension to it.

Before fully getting into the recording process, I plan to conduct large amount of pre-reporting in the making of my project.  What this means is that I will speak to the people involved within the team and the overall issue in order to get an idea of what to expect when actually reporting.  This will assist me in creating a plot within the story as well as figuring out who specifically will be the best sources to format my story around.

Description of Project: What I would like to do with my project is conduct a feature story on Valmon, who was tasked with two daunting challenges this past year.  The first was to make sure the Maryland men’s track field team stays afloat, since it was one of the eight teams that were no longer receiving funding from the athletic department (this is all before the move to the Big Ten saved the team).  The second challenge was preparing the US track and field team for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.  The team was deemed a disappointment in the 2008 Olympics and it was under pressure to perform well this year.  Hopefully this project will properly capture and review how his life has been over the past year.

The first thing that I will need to do is contact the people necessary in order to conduct the project. This is obviously the most important part of the project, since I won’t be able to do the project if I am not able to speak to Valmon.  As I stated within the format, I am going to present this as a mixture of a feature and profile story.  As journalism major, I feel like it would be fitting to present the project in this fashion – plus, it possibly gives me something that I could send to future employers if I want to.  My project will be edited by using Final Cut Express.  Although I have been using Audacity in my DCC seminar, I have had more experience with Final Cut through journalism and I believe that it is a more welcoming interface when it comes to sound editing.

I am not sure what format I am going to use to physically – or should I say, digitally – represent my project.  I am planning to export my whole story as a waveform file to ensure that the sound is of its best quality. I could also have the file on a wordpress site for easier access, but that is a minor design aspect that I can deal with in the future.

Skills and Tools: I have been taught many of the reporting skills needed to conduct this project in my JOUR 203 class (i.e. the ability to conduct interviews, recording natural and ambient sounds, editing, etc.).  However, I will most likely need more equipment than I have now to do this project the way I want to.  At the moment, I have a Tascam DR-05 audio recorder; it is a small, portable audio recorder that will be useful in conducting interviews and doing voiceovers.  What I think I will need is equipment that will be better suited for recording natural and ambient sounds.  I know that I would have access to two condenser microphones through DCC as well as other audio equipment that has been used in our seminar.  In general, having a variety of microphones would help make the recording process faster and more efficient.  Condenser microphones would be very useful when it comes to close mic’ing and siphoning off any white noise.  If I end up using condenser microphones, then Audacity will be playing a role within my project.  Personally, I would like to limit my spending as much as I can.

I will also need to have access to a computer with Final Cut Express.  Fortunately, there are iMacs in the journalism school that are equipped with the software, so I could take advantage of that if the DCC equipment cannot accomplish my needs.  I will probably need to get more experience editing with Final Cut, something that I am sure that I will get while I continue in my JOUR 203 class for the remainder of this semester.

Anything Else Relevant to Project: One of the issues that I may run into when doing this project is finding the appropriate power sources for my recording equipment.  Though the products that I have run on batteries, if I were to use the condenser microphones, I would have to have phantom power.  I can do this with my computer, but there is a limited amount of power that the computer can supply; also, I have a few reservations about leaving my laptop out unsupervised during an outdoor track practice due to the risks associated with it.   It addition, some feature stories come in with a certain angle, meaning that the reporter will focus on a person or certain topic within an issue in order to highlight the larger picture within a story.  For this project, that could mean focusing on a coach or player on the team or someone deeply involved with the team.  This is something that I will think about doing during the pre-reporting process