I made a new bumper for 2.5 stars because I wanted to improve upon my first one. I tried to give it the same sort of glitchy feeling, but I also used radio static to feel more natural. This way, it’s useable for old-timey or modern shows. I felt that my first attempt layered the music awkwardly. This uses some jazz music from Red Velvet by NicolArmafi and radio static as well as glitched audio samples.

I downloaded the glitch and static, cut them down, recorded my voice a few times, and then eyeballed it. (earballed?) I used some fades in the beginning and end, along with some amplification. I condensed and normalized the static, and made sure to leave a little overlap in between the sounds. I like this bumper much better than the first one I did, I think my ear has gotten better as well. I think this will work well in The Alpaca’s radio show.

My first radio bumper I was a little apprehensive about doing this at first.  I have never really recorded my voice, I don’t even like leaving voice mail because I don’t like the sound of my voice.  After my first recording I asked my roommate to listen to it and I made adjustments according to the feedback I got.  When I realized this wasn’t working I stepped even further outside my box and did it myself.  It was so much fun and I’m so happy with the results I want to do it more. I’m practicing with other effects and can’t wait for the radio show (I’m much more prepared for it now).

This weeks assignment for digital storytelling is to explore the art of creating and manipulating sounds to express and replicate specific emotions and expressions.  Sound drives stories in many ways, though many of us may not realize how closely we attach certain noises with human emotions as triggers for our own formulated reactions.  May this be the crisp crack of opening a refrigerator door that, like the sound of Pavlov’s bell, ignites an anticipation and salivation or the clacking of a stacked heel on linoleum tile which crescendos as is draws closer to you, we associate our own experiences with sounds.  Noir, as a genre, is very distinct in many ways.  Most notably the color scheme but what may be initially overlooked is the fact that the directors utilize silence and sound more artfully than arguably any other genre of film.  The suspense, passion, anger, you name it, are all emphasized by the stark contrast, as if they were paralleling the black and white visual with sound.  This was my favorite realization from this weeks assignment.

http://freesound.org/people/pboix/sounds/155302/

http://freesound.org/people/cmusounddesign/sounds/84707/

Our next task was to produce our own radio bumper.  This took me awhile to come up with mainly because i was unsure about what exactly i should incorporate and how concise to be with my wording.  I guess when all else fails, placing some classic Bossa Nova in the background can make anyone sound smooth and polished, even me.

https://soundcloud.com/caroline-cotto-2/01-the-girl-from-ipanema

Then we were asked to create an audio story using only sounds of objects, naturally the first thing to come to my mind was to quench a thirst, since I am always drinking water.  so first came the crack of the fridge, followed by a pensive pause and then some rummaging, a liquid pour and a satisfying gulp finish off the narration of a person enjoying hydrating amenities.  Feelings everyone can relate to: craving, indulgence, and finally satisfaction.

Brainstorming radio show ideas for the upcoming project was slightly difficult because I wanted to be original in my suggestion while I could only think of programs that I had hear my local broadcasting stations do; interviewing celebrities, some kind of open pole done on the topic of a new product or current affair (in a trashy way), or interpersonal dialogues among radio DJ’s. It may be interesting to try and mix the celebrity component in with the noir character association by asking listeners to call in and suggest what modern celebrities should play the parts in classic noir films or what movies they’d like to see adapted into noir.

Getting acclimated to editing and manipulating audio recording was by far the most difficult part of this weeks assignments.  As a self proclaimed technological amateur, to put it lightly, I rely on trial and error to get me through utilizing and building my comfort with many of these platforms.  Audacity has a very user friendly introduction to their system which sifts through alot of their different functionalists, which are not unlike many desktop recording programs.  This does allow you to play with layering sounds much more, which will be interesting to play with as we progress with our radio show.  The freesound website was a bit of a mixed bag.  I liked that it acted as a conduit for almost any sound you could think of but the con was that there are many search results for common sounds which means the sorting becomes mandatory and tedious.

This is a required audio assignment for the week of 2/1 to 2/8, but it does not count for any points this week.

For my ds106 radio bumper, I put in the a bit of the score from the opening shot of Touch of Evil, and referenced a quote from the film 99 River Street- a (hopefully?) well known work of noir.

I think I’ve made my love affair with Taxi Driver pretty clear already, but here I am using it again. I instantly thought of the theme music by Bernard Hermann for the assignment. I spliced it up in a few places and I think most of them are fairly clean, though there’s one in particular I wasn’t totally able to smooth out. I had some goofy fun playing around with what I was going to say besides “DS106 Radio.” I eventually ended up with a somewhat generic little noir line, but I think it’s still fairly effective. I was really impressed with what others were able to do with this assignment. A few of them are so spot on, especially in terms of creating a real identity for the station. I’m not sure mine is quite as effective in that department, but I still think it’s a nice little piece.