Relay Audio Commentary

For the final assignment in Advertising and Imagery, we were asked to split into groups to work on an advertising campaign that could possibly be used for next year's relay for life. I am part of the audio group, and I am in charge of a possible superhero theme. The final product of my work is a superhero-related radio spot that raises awareness and advertises Relay.

In the Public Service Advertising reading, it is mentioned that in order for a PSA to be sponsored by the Ad Council, the issue must be about health and safety, education, or community. Technically, Relay for Life meets the criteria of being about health, so our individual advertisements could too. In addition, the Relay advertisements and radio spots also serve a similar value to the campaigns sponsored by the Ad Council. For example, Bill Clinton is quoted to have spoken highly of how the Ad Council helped with speaking to children about gun safety and drug usage. In a similar manner, our own advertisements also speak to viewers in a similar way and help raise awareness about the Relay event, while encouraging people to join in.

I would say that the main strength of the finished superhero radio spot is definitely the message and presentation of the message. Plenty of work went into writing and re-writing the scripts in order to create and improve the message being sent. I mentioned the presentation of the message because I recorded my own voice in a way that sounds sort of like a super-hero announcer and put in background audio that reminded me of superheroes.

At the same time, I feel that the main weakness of the finished product was the fact that I had to record it with my own voice. I believe that a voice actor or even someone more popular than I would attract more attention to the listeners. However, I used superhero-sounding background music to help attract listeners.

Capstone Research / Progress (2nd Week of April)

This week I just focused on audio editing all of the sound effects and recordings together to create my final podcasts. I also did some research on the technical aspects of creating a podcast, since I have not actually done it before. It took a long time for me to figure it out, but I finally found a website that allows for audio and video posting and gives a rss feed that can easily be used by iTunes.

I did not do any heavy research this week. Really, it seemed unnecessary since I already have prior experience with audio editing. All of the work was hands-on. However, this does not mean that prior research failed to drive through my mind while in the process of doing the work. For example, the whole time while in the editing process, I continuously thought back to all of the podcasts that I listened to at the beginning of the semester. They all had their differences. Some had background music most of the time, while others had just speaking. Also, some used many sound effects to create a scene, and others failed to do that. However, I feel that my podcasts are somewhere in between. They utilize useful and entertaining sound effects and music, while also using plain speech and many interview sound bytes. Overall, I feel that I have reached my goal of creating relevant news-based podcasts for a mostly student audience that can be played alongside many other podcasts.

Capstone Research / Progress (1st week of April)

I have set this week and next week aside just for editing purposes. At the end of last week, I re-recorded my audio to make it sound more like how a normal person would speak, instead of like an English paper. In doing so, I feel that I have finally created quality recordings that are capable of used in a podcast. Many of the edits that I did were to make myself sound less "robotic" and a little less scholarly (which some people may see as being "snobby").

In addition, I am attempting to follow the suggestions from Jonathan Kern's book Sound Reporting as closely as possible. One thing that is helping me conform to audio broadcast standards from Sound Reporting is a section that explains not using "confusing identifications" and "unidentified actualities" (109). In order to avoid confusion with my sound bytes, I have clear identifications set just before the sections that I plan on adding the sound bytes to, and I never mention another name right after a sound byte from someone else. In a way, an identification for everything may seem a little formal, but it is necessary for avoiding confusion.

At the same time, I have been encouraged to be a little more experimental with some of my sound bytes. I am thinking about doing so, but, in a way, I am also trying to weigh that suggestion against my research and my opinion on whether or not an average listener would understand what was going on the first time. The last thing that I want to do is suddenly create something that could be potentially confusing, especially since I have already followed so much advice on not making a confusing audio broadcast. However, during the editing process, I do plan on experimenting some just to see if I can make the suggestion work.

One other thing that I completed last week and early this week was the creation of sound effects. I now have a definite theme song for the podcast and some sound effects to help stimulate the minds of the viewers. Hopefully, the sound effects work to attract the attention of the audience and strengthen the stories. From this point on, I just have to focus on the proper usage and placement of sound.