From Raquel's blog:
How do you feel about documentaries that are are re-created, what do you think gets lost in not capturing the real moment?
My response:
Considering that the situation might not have allowed for it to be properly documented (time period, etc.), or that an important event could not have been anticipated by a potential documentarian (sudden catastrophe, etc.), I think that re-enactments can be beneficial, for sure, but that there will inevitably be some problems with it. This isn't to say that the project would be doomed from the start, but there will almost definitely be different interpretations of the event(s) and possibly very important aspects of the event(s) that would be lost due to the re-creation of it. Actors and miniatures can only accomplish so much. To reference some of the earlier readings, the "immediacy" of original footage would likely be lost and the media itself would probably be more apparent as a result.
Monday, July 13, 2009
20 things
1. three nearly identical clouds in sequence
2. arboretum - two rows of trees aiming at a vanishing point
3. arboretum - a tree with knots making it looks strangely human-ish
4. by the quad - two rows of flowers that would make a nice foreground/background for a picture
5-10. Krannert Center - very symmetrical scenery
11. a huge cloud that looks like two sides of a canyon caving in on itself
12. the (strange) quotes on Lincoln Hall showing through the leaves of the trees on the quad
13. juxtaposition of the sorority house across the street and the piles of dirt surrounding it from the construction being done
14. sad-looking plastic bag hanging from a tree that has been there (I know) for almost a year now
15. the beautiful collection of craft beer bottles lining my desk
16-20. assorted images from the death metal show on friday (mosh pit, stage, etc.)
2. arboretum - two rows of trees aiming at a vanishing point
3. arboretum - a tree with knots making it looks strangely human-ish
4. by the quad - two rows of flowers that would make a nice foreground/background for a picture
5-10. Krannert Center - very symmetrical scenery
11. a huge cloud that looks like two sides of a canyon caving in on itself
12. the (strange) quotes on Lincoln Hall showing through the leaves of the trees on the quad
13. juxtaposition of the sorority house across the street and the piles of dirt surrounding it from the construction being done
14. sad-looking plastic bag hanging from a tree that has been there (I know) for almost a year now
15. the beautiful collection of craft beer bottles lining my desk
16-20. assorted images from the death metal show on friday (mosh pit, stage, etc.)
Hampe Questions
1. Hampe makes the point that you cannot show a concept of "lack" through pictures. I have trouble believing this. Do you agree?
2. Considering what we read of Hampe's work, do you think it would be at all possible to make a meaningful audio-only documentary?
3. Hampe mentions the situation where he is documenting the Good Mother and Bad Mother. In cases like this, do you think it's a documentarian's duty to "accurately" portray individuals, or do you think it's ethically allowable to falsely portray people in order to get across the point of the documentary?
2. Considering what we read of Hampe's work, do you think it would be at all possible to make a meaningful audio-only documentary?
3. Hampe mentions the situation where he is documenting the Good Mother and Bad Mother. In cases like this, do you think it's a documentarian's duty to "accurately" portray individuals, or do you think it's ethically allowable to falsely portray people in order to get across the point of the documentary?
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Audio Project: Leproso Interview
Have a listen.
I began this project with little to no idea of what to do. I don’t particularly like writing stories, or even telling them for that matter. So I came to class on Tuesday with only a vague idea of reading some philosophy and altering it a bit to make it more understandable, more entertaining, or preferably, both. On Tuesday though, someone mentioned doing an interview. I have a friend in a metal band who’s good at talking, so I thought this would be a perfect idea. Unfortunately, it just so happens that I was ignoring the actual assignment. As a result of the positive feedback I got with the interview idea, I forgot to check the rubric to see that the entire thing was supposed to be a pre-written essay and instead wrote down only my part of the interview. The initial idea I had for this assignment was that we were supposed to be experimenting with sound to change the nature of a message, so the impromptu interview seemed fine to me at the time. I planned to add some of the band’s demo cd to the mix to give a podcast vibe, but both meeting up with the guy and getting the music proved time-consuming. After getting the interview done and realizing that tweaking a half hour of audio down to 5 minutes was neither fast nor easy, I came to the sad conclusion that my part of the audio was nearly indecipherable. I re-recorded my part of the talk and changed some words around to fit what I thought were the most important parts of the dialogue.
I always had the intention of using Garage Band’s fade tool in the interview to allow music to come in and out of the conversation as in the actual “All Songs Considered” podcast (which I mimicked), but since I was going to add my voice in later to make up for the lousy quality provided by the directional mic on my mp3 player (as well as my own frantic ramblings), I thought it would also be appropriate to use it when my questions and comments came into the audio and kind of smooth out that transition. And, since that was already happening, I decided to tweak the style of the original show to make my part of the audio more separate from my friend in the band by backing my voice (which would now be lacking the background noise of Neil Street outside of the Blind Pig) with music from their demo cd. I thought this would allow the listener to be more involved with the topic, especially if they don’t have much of a background in death metal music, and also to prevent the interview from becoming boring. After hearing the music in the background, it seemed to work for the entire thing, so I left it in and changed the volume where it seemed necessary. And by layering the elements of vocal delivery and music, as in the McKee reading, I was hoping to allow people to make a positive association with the music that was playing as they heard what Erik had to say about it. Sound effects and silence seemed out of place to me, given the background noise and the nature of the music.
With the “impromptu interview” idea, I got some the little funny parts and background noise that give it the feel of immediacy and “there-ness” that I like so much about it. This is apparently not the intent of the assignment, but as far as learning about sound within messages, I have a far better understanding of the work that goes into such projects.
Looking back, my voice was far too quiet and I should have enunciated better and I should have recorded my voice where there wasn’t a computer fan whirring loudly in the background.
I began this project with little to no idea of what to do. I don’t particularly like writing stories, or even telling them for that matter. So I came to class on Tuesday with only a vague idea of reading some philosophy and altering it a bit to make it more understandable, more entertaining, or preferably, both. On Tuesday though, someone mentioned doing an interview. I have a friend in a metal band who’s good at talking, so I thought this would be a perfect idea. Unfortunately, it just so happens that I was ignoring the actual assignment. As a result of the positive feedback I got with the interview idea, I forgot to check the rubric to see that the entire thing was supposed to be a pre-written essay and instead wrote down only my part of the interview. The initial idea I had for this assignment was that we were supposed to be experimenting with sound to change the nature of a message, so the impromptu interview seemed fine to me at the time. I planned to add some of the band’s demo cd to the mix to give a podcast vibe, but both meeting up with the guy and getting the music proved time-consuming. After getting the interview done and realizing that tweaking a half hour of audio down to 5 minutes was neither fast nor easy, I came to the sad conclusion that my part of the audio was nearly indecipherable. I re-recorded my part of the talk and changed some words around to fit what I thought were the most important parts of the dialogue.
I always had the intention of using Garage Band’s fade tool in the interview to allow music to come in and out of the conversation as in the actual “All Songs Considered” podcast (which I mimicked), but since I was going to add my voice in later to make up for the lousy quality provided by the directional mic on my mp3 player (as well as my own frantic ramblings), I thought it would also be appropriate to use it when my questions and comments came into the audio and kind of smooth out that transition. And, since that was already happening, I decided to tweak the style of the original show to make my part of the audio more separate from my friend in the band by backing my voice (which would now be lacking the background noise of Neil Street outside of the Blind Pig) with music from their demo cd. I thought this would allow the listener to be more involved with the topic, especially if they don’t have much of a background in death metal music, and also to prevent the interview from becoming boring. After hearing the music in the background, it seemed to work for the entire thing, so I left it in and changed the volume where it seemed necessary. And by layering the elements of vocal delivery and music, as in the McKee reading, I was hoping to allow people to make a positive association with the music that was playing as they heard what Erik had to say about it. Sound effects and silence seemed out of place to me, given the background noise and the nature of the music.
With the “impromptu interview” idea, I got some the little funny parts and background noise that give it the feel of immediacy and “there-ness” that I like so much about it. This is apparently not the intent of the assignment, but as far as learning about sound within messages, I have a far better understanding of the work that goes into such projects.
Looking back, my voice was far too quiet and I should have enunciated better and I should have recorded my voice where there wasn’t a computer fan whirring loudly in the background.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Response to Shipka questions
From Nick's blog:
1. Shipka talks about how the choice of particular words/ideas affects what is produced. How do you change your style of writing when you're putting a post on your blog?
My response:
This question brings up other interesting questions, like how a person defines themselves in different situations. I personally try to be fairly consistent in the way I speak and write, but the writing that goes into my blog does tend to be more casual than what goes into something like a 6-page paper that makes up half of my grade. I always like to use concise, descriptive words to make my point as clear as possible, but I don't spend as much time trying to get the perfect word as I would in a more "important" assignment. And since this is more about initial impressions than final conclusions, it allows the content to be more spontaneous, so that's what you'll see in my blog.
1. Shipka talks about how the choice of particular words/ideas affects what is produced. How do you change your style of writing when you're putting a post on your blog?
My response:
This question brings up other interesting questions, like how a person defines themselves in different situations. I personally try to be fairly consistent in the way I speak and write, but the writing that goes into my blog does tend to be more casual than what goes into something like a 6-page paper that makes up half of my grade. I always like to use concise, descriptive words to make my point as clear as possible, but I don't spend as much time trying to get the perfect word as I would in a more "important" assignment. And since this is more about initial impressions than final conclusions, it allows the content to be more spontaneous, so that's what you'll see in my blog.
Shipka questions
1. Can you think of some other ways that Shipka's theory on sound could be applied?
2. Would you have liked to have an Oblivious Ed-style band for your classes? Do you think it would have the same benefits for other subjects?
3. Have you employed Shipka's idea of soundness in paper-writing before reading about it? Was your reasoning different from Shipka's?
2. Would you have liked to have an Oblivious Ed-style band for your classes? Do you think it would have the same benefits for other subjects?
3. Have you employed Shipka's idea of soundness in paper-writing before reading about it? Was your reasoning different from Shipka's?
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Talking more about the image project
Crystal -
My first thought was that it started off with the minor inconveniences that we in Champaign have to deal with and then was followed by instances of real hardship in other cultures, but when the images that looked school-related came up, I couldn't make sense of it, unless it a return to the "Champaign life".
Dan -
Random set - I'm getting a claustrophobic feeling from the images of the stacks in the dark. The addition of the random pages and Dan searching the shelves makes it seem like there's supposed to be a narrative.
Ordered set - Looks more like a narrative. The lights going on and off seem to be following a pattern(?). And Dan only shows up somewhere in the second half, so it looks like the isles light up before he gets there, but in a kind of creepy way that makes it look like there wasn't a person planning it, or that it was almost frantic/haphazard/etc.
HK -
I couldn't quite pick out what was going on in this one. I saw some contrasting images, but I couldn't tell what topic they were arguing over. The holocaust victims did happen before some anorexic girls, but the rest had what looked like government protests of some kind, but I couldn't see what they were rallying around.
My first thought was that it started off with the minor inconveniences that we in Champaign have to deal with and then was followed by instances of real hardship in other cultures, but when the images that looked school-related came up, I couldn't make sense of it, unless it a return to the "Champaign life".
Dan -
Random set - I'm getting a claustrophobic feeling from the images of the stacks in the dark. The addition of the random pages and Dan searching the shelves makes it seem like there's supposed to be a narrative.
Ordered set - Looks more like a narrative. The lights going on and off seem to be following a pattern(?). And Dan only shows up somewhere in the second half, so it looks like the isles light up before he gets there, but in a kind of creepy way that makes it look like there wasn't a person planning it, or that it was almost frantic/haphazard/etc.
HK -
I couldn't quite pick out what was going on in this one. I saw some contrasting images, but I couldn't tell what topic they were arguing over. The holocaust victims did happen before some anorexic girls, but the rest had what looked like government protests of some kind, but I couldn't see what they were rallying around.
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