Podcast about Animated Deaths

In class, my classmates Miguel and Lauren and I decided to do a podcast over animated deaths. Yes, it’s a depressing topic, sure. Death is considered to be a very sad thing to see and talk about, especially in movies. But after talking for almost two hours over what we should talk about and looking at YouTube clips, animated deaths was the one topic that stuck with us.

The podcast focuses on the perception of death as a child versus as an adult and how that changes with time. Enjoy the podcast!

Show Notes

Introduction: :05 – :35 Miguel gives a summery for what the episode is about

How has your perception changed:

• 00:35 – 01:38 Lauren
• 01:38 – 01:51 Miguel
• 01:51 – 02:28 Dinalee

Difference between movie and cartoon deaths:

• 02:29 – 03:01 Lauren
• 03:01 – 03:39 Dinalee
• 03:39 – 04:34 Lauren/Dinalee go back and forth
• 04:34 – 04:56 Miguel talks about crying

It depends on your country:

• 04:57 – 05:56 Dinalee

Thanks for listening:

• 05:56 – 06:06 Miguel that was rude

A Talk About Anime

Jameel Roberts, a student at Midwestern State University, talks about his love for anime, AKA Japanese Animation. The interview took place in Wichita Falls, Texas, on March 2nd, 2014.

Analyzing Audio-Only Interviews

So, today, I had to listen to an audio story called “Knock Out” by Jenna Weiss-Berman. It’s a story about a female Ultimate Fighter named Kaline Medeiros, and how she decided to become an Ultimate Fighter.

The story is very interesting, because it’s an interesting topic. It’s about a woman who is participating in a sport that is generalized as masculine and barbaric; two words that aren’t used to describe women in general. And the story goes deeper into the generalizations and stereotypes about women who choose to be competitors in a male-dominant sport.

The audio starts out clear, but then it begins to have background noise of fights and crowds for a good chunk of the story. It makes sense for the story, since it’s about mixed martial arts. It goes along with the reporter’s narration, and it sets a scene for the story. There’s also a few Nat sounds, but only for the interviews with the coaches. The interview with Kaline was clear. At times, it was a little distracting, but for the most part it is effective. It practically draws you into the ring where Kaline is fighting her opponent.

There is a small disadvantage with this being an audio story. Fighting is a physical sport, where visual elements would enhance the story. The story makes a big deal to point out that Kaline has her own style of fighting. With this being an audio only story, there’s no visuals to show Kaline’s fighting style. It’s left up to the listener’s imaginations to come up with what Kaline’s style looks like.

But overall, this was an interesting story. It got me to know who this person was, personally and professionally. And it gave me some new views on a sport that I knew little about to begin with. It kept me engaged, even without showing any actual fighting.

Using Audacity

Original version of the story found here

So in my Multimedia Design class, we had to work with audio. We used a program named Audacity to shorten a podcast by 60 seconds.

Overall, Audacity is a confusing program. It took me a good while to get used to it so I could actually edit the file, and I only learned a little of the basics. But once I got the hang of it, the project was easy to do.

The things I edited out were:

• A lot of the song
• Bits of the news cast
• One part of the sponsorship

The Rationale for these cuts:

• The song took up a huge chunk of the original piece. I’d estimate about a minute of the original was just of the song. Also, there were parts where someone was laughing in the middle of the song. It’s very distracting to the story.
• There were bits of the news cast that were unnecessary. It made it seem like the person was just saying stuff to waste time.
• The sponsorship was long. It felt like it still got the point across if it was short.

The editing took a while to do, considering the transitions between the singing and the speaking. It was hard to figure out what parts of the song to keep without having the transitions sound weird.

Vampire Academy Movie

Inside Vampire Academy movie with author Richelle Mead

The focus of the story is to talk about the movie adaptation of the book series “Vampire Academy,” which premieres next month. Author Richelle Mead tells an interviewer what her thoughts are when it came to her book series becoming a motion picture.

The story primarily relied on text to tell the story. It also has pictures and video for the movie to help it further. It’s a basic online news article.

The strong points come from the visual elements, such as the pictures. It shows the author before any of the story content, which makes readers imagine her face as they read it. And the trailer gives the reader a taste of what to expect from the movie, as a trailer should do.

But the weak points are the blocks of text. The interview is squished into paragraphs, with a small font size. It’s hard to read on a computer screen. And it doesn’t even present the questions that she was asked. It just throws a few words to lead into the quote. I didn’t like that.

It was engaging for me,  because I am a fan of the book series and am interested in how the director will represent a series that I love. It also offers insight to how the transition from a book to a movie goes for the author, which is interesting to know.

Now, with Richelle Mead’s words to fall back on, I’m more excited to see the movie.