Month: December 2017

For the audio history project, I was really excited to get the ball rolling for this project. Originally I was going to interview a family member back home during the thanksgiving break, but instead I came across a very interesting older man who works at the deli at the Pullman Walmart. I got to chatting with Tom Schumacher and the conversation went on a good while almost 15-20 minutes just there at the deli. Then it occurred to me I could interview him, so I went back and asked him if he was ok with me doing that and he was really excited for it so we planned it out from there.

So after watching a few examples of interviews on the StoryCorps website I got an understanding how I wanted to go through with my interview. I wanted to keep it personal and at first ask questions about the interviewee to give listeners context and understand him and where he comes from. Then with the ready player one questions I couldn’t really ask him in depth questions due to I don’t know if he’s even read the book. So I kept my questions surrounding the topic of his experiences throughout the years with technology.

I was able to get a 20-minute interview with Tom and now I was to edit it down to 5 minutes. This was the hardest part of the project taking out a lot of valuable stuff was really hard to do. I got it down to a solid 7 minutes and I know I exceeded the required 5 minutes but I couldn’t really take out a lot without taking out a huge chunk of content. I really liked what I have with the 7 minutes It starts off with getting to know a bit about Tom and then the rest of the project is his experiences and view of technology. I used Adobe Audition and this was the first time I was using it and it was pretty explanatory after watching a few tutorials. Also added a bit of sound at the beginning and end of the project to give it a bit of the StoryCorps feel. Learned to fade in and out different sounds and that was interesting to do.

Citations

“Sky Loop”

https://freesound.org/people/FoolBoyMedia/sounds/264295/

Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0)

License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode

I got the chance to listen to Isabella’s interview and she was not feeling too confident about her interview. After giving it a few listens I ensured her that it was a really good interview that all it really needs is some edits and cutting it down to fit around the timeline. There was not pinpointed Ready Player One questions but from what I listened to she interviewed her mom and she asked her questions about cellphones and other technologies and her experiences with it back in the day and her experiences to both mediums now. Most of her questions were personal and easy questions that you would ask a family member. The interview was intimate and I could tell her mom was comfortable to answer any question that Isabella asked just like most of the StoryCorps interviews.

The interview was not really edited to its completion. Isabella told me that she got it down to 10 minutes and what I listened to was the raw 10 minutes of it. So I gave her tips and ideas on what to edit and cut out and what to keep. She has a lot of really good material in the interview and whichever way she goes with it should really be ok. I really like how casual and comfortable Isabella was with her mom having little quirks and side comments within the interview, especially at the end where her mom accidently burps during the interview and they joked around. I personally thought that was hilarious and made me smile. There was no supplementary sound on the interview but I did let her know that would be a good idea to add that way she sets the tone of the interview. There is an introduction at the beginning where she introduces her mom. Once the interview gets edited and cut down to how Isabella envisions it to be I can see it being playing on the radio or on StoryCorps, it’s a fun and intimate interview between daughter and mother about the mother’s history with her experiences with technologies.