Workbook week 1

On Monday 2nd November, we started the second module of the Journalism course . The whole week was focusing on audio : recording, reporting, researching, editing with Audition.

02/11/2020 : This lesson was about the use of natural sound in audios and the use of the narrative voice. A good audio has usually 3 voices : narrative, “witnesses” and “experts”, should include natural sounds and sometimes music or sound effects to be more dynamic and engaging. Task 2 was recording natural sounds and my own voice to describe the house. I didn’t have too much issues with this, it was easy. I recorded my dining room, living room, kitchen and garden and simply explained the house’s history very quickly for the narrative voice

03/11/2020 : I learned how to find and use archive sounds and using copyrighted content fairly and respectfully without infringing but also how to do a montage and structure it. The task was finding 5 archive sounds on Youtube about COVID-19 in my area (France) and to record them through Audition to do a montage later. No issues with this, it was easy.

04/11/2020 : I was absent during 1 hour and a half because I had an important appointment but I caught up later on Moodle. For the time I was there we listened to audios, podcasts to have examples of how to use music and make the montage more dynamic. The task was to create an audiogram on Headliner about the virus trying to create an emotion that listeners would be able to feel or understand what this is about. I had several issues with the headliner website, partly due to my computer but I couldn’t figure out how to edit directly on the website. On Audition I edited parts of Emmanuel Macron lockdown speech with sound of protests found on Youtube but didn’t include any music or sound effects except fading because I felt like the montage without the audio already conveyed an emotion and didn’t need music. Since we needed to it about my local covid, I only include french voices so I had to write subtitles, I was concerned it wouldn’t look or sound good for non-French speakers but I suppose it turned out really well. I posted my audiogram on Instagram , Twitter and here on WordPress.

06/11/2020 : Today was the Workshop to learn more on how to use Audition and the tools. It was really good and I learned a lot of things. I have worked with Audacity in the past and I felt like it was pretty similar. We learned a lot of things including how to fade sounds, to use sound effects over voices, to change the volume of sounds or about the types of channels for audios. I used the natural sounds recorded on Monday to try to use effects on them.