An audio assignment - Tell me your secret

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Tell me your secret
You can listen to this file better with a headphone.
I don't know why its sound is too low with my labtop speaker..

The process of an audio piece - Tell me your secret!

I worked on an audio assignment with Kristin. Initially, we wanted to make an audio piece with some sounds of the way going to school. So each of us tried to collect sounds such as sounds from footstep , wind, people's voices, treffic sounds and so on. To get some sound, I used a shot gun microphone and a regular one which is built in M audio but it was really hard to get good quality sounds from outside. So we decided to collect sounds inside, especially at ITP, to get good quality ones. Because Kristin works at ER, we could get specific sounds from empty ITP. We got a lot of sounds from doors, keyboards, floors, a tea pot etc. so it took much time to check the sounds and try to recognize which sounds are from where. As recognizing the source sounds, we had fun to guess what sound comes from where. So we changed our plan and decided to make a quiz with sounds! We were so excited about our new idea but we thought sounds from empty ITP were boring as sources for the quiz. Trying to look for interesting sources for the quiz we decided to record the voices from ITP students. Whoes voice is it? We thought this question could the most interesting question for classmate. So, we started recording ITP people's voice about answering our request; tell us your secret. We took people to the quit room and used a shot gun microphone to get a clear voice. On this process, someone did not want to record his secret and someone gave us a very interesting answer so we had a lot of fun. After getting various sounds, we started editing them but it did not take long time because we recorded their voice in the same environment. Using audacity program, we put all voices on the program and cut some noises and some sounds that were recorded unintentionally. Actually, we did not need any sound effects, because indeed voices from people were really interesting by themselves. Finally we played our audio piece in the class and it was a great contest! Chris got a best grade with13 answers among 16 questions.

Actually it was the first time for me working on the sound itself. Before this work, I was not interested in the sound so I was worried about this assignment little bit. But working on an audio, I learned a lot how to record, how to use recoder and how to edit sounds.

Internet Ecomony

Fame vs Fortune:Micropayments and Free contents by Clay Shirky
Misunderstanding Micropayments by Sccot MacCloud

It is very interesting reading articles that have totally different points of view about same phenomenon. Shirky published an article, “Fame vs Fortune: Micropayments and Free contents” about the ecology publishing power on the internet and based on this, he supposed the failure of micropayments. Scott McCloud published an article named “Misunderstanding Micropayments” to respond Shirky’s article.

I have finished these two articles, and conceive myself as an Internet contents consumer. Have I ever paid for Internet contents? The answer is No. Sometimes I find some contents that I really need but if I should pay for these, I usually start looking for other contents. So I think about what makes me think like that seriously. There are two reasons that I have for not paying for Internet contents. First, I am always sure that there are other contents that I can get without paying on the internet. As Shirky says there is a huge world of free contents. Second, whenever I get information from the internet, I used to doubt weather it is reliable or not. Sometimes I could not find where the information comes from. Because in the internet world, anyone can post everything no matter whether is true or not. And when I face the contents that I have to pay, I could not check whole contents. I should decide if I would buy them or not just depending on a little preview. But paradoxically if I could check whole contents through the preview, I would not buy them because practically I already got the information that I needed. In my case this is a huge dilemma.

After reading I was aware of my actions are related with “mental transaction cost” that Shirky mentions in his article. Because of these two reasons, I can not feel internet contents are worth buying willingly even though these are very cheep. And also, my reasons are based on internet’s distinctions which are opening to anyone and being full of open sources speaking of free contents. These distinctions make the economic situations of the online different from the one of the real world. Because of these, I consider micopayments system was failed.

On the other hand, as a creator, of course I agree with McCloud’s argument that creators should be paid for their works. But still I am wondering that the same paying system with the real economic system could be the most effective way to be compensated for their work on the web. The internet world is one of the biggest possible markets to show our works and hopefully to get compensations for them. So I hope, even though online world is changing too fast and too big to control, internet market would be getting mature to a positive side.

Understanding Media -Marshall McLuhan

Understanding Media - Marshall McLuhan

Normally medium is treated as a tool to convey contents. But McLuhan says “the medium is the message.” And according to his arguments, medium is also any extension of ourselves and it shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. (p.9) People are making media and following this people is being changed. I could understand media influence the contents. Media can change trait of the contents. For example, if we find the same articles on the web and on the newspapers, even though we would get same information, it influence the way we accept it. But if media is just a message, would this different information from the same media be the same thing? Could jean and corduroy pants deal with the same? Indeed, could the media be the message itself?

I was interested in compare hot media and cold media depending on participation by audience and amount of information. These two characters can be standards to classify media, but I think only two categories lacks explaining many different kinds of media. And I think to define the distinctions of media; we should consider not only the messages from the media but also the contents that media show us.

I totally agree that media has its own voice and it has enough power to influence us. But at the same time, the media without any contents is just media for us. In my opinion, people expect more meanings form the media than just the message form it. I mean people often pay more attention what media says than what it is by itself. People just feel notice the message from the media unconsciously, but people try to read the contents that they can notice consciously. I want to say that the message which is from the media and the contents that it has make the different dimensional messages that we can accept.

The man on the stairs - movie

Shooting and editing videos

We needed 3 categories sources for our video; footsteps on the stair, shadows and the reader.

Footsteps.
With a storyboard, we started shooting our video on the staircase. I was an actress, actually we only needed my footsteps. And Jose shot me with a camera and Daniela took many pictures of almost same shots with camera's at the same time because we need a movie and still shot as well to mix a video and a stopmoton. We tried to make a lot of footages so we repeated shooting over and over again with different angles.

Shadows.
In order to make shadows we need a special light so we installed a light(I forgot the name of this light..) with a white wall. Because of the back light I could make a big shadow on the wall and Jose and Daniela shot these shadows as a same way with shooting footsteps.

The reader.
To shoot a scene of the reader, we set up a chair and table like a living room beside of the big windows. Because of these windows, there were enough natural lights so we decided not to use extra lights but we should shoot fast to keep similar environment not being affected by quick changing of the natural lights. I took many still shots and Jose shot a video.

Sounds.
To present this story, we had decided to use a voice-over as a main sound so we did not need to care about original sounds during shooting. After getting all video sources, at first, we got rid of all sounds and started recording Daniela's voice. Because we did not notice the difference between reading with eyes and with a voice( this one takes longer time) before recording, our description was too long to fit in 3 minutes so we should revise it over and over again. Finally, we could get straight voice-over that fits in our video without any pauses. But I think we need some pauses following to the story.
And luckily we could get great music from Angelica who is Jose's wife. Personally I really like this music and it was perfect for our movie.

Editing.
Mainly we followed our storyboard, but details were changed little bit following footages. At first we put footages orderly on the timeline mixing and controlled durations to fit the flow of the story and then we trird several effects on every scene to make most efficient scene. At last we edited music, and put voice-over. It took a long time to edit the movie because all of us were very beginners of Final cut but after editing videos I am familiar with this program fairly.

The storyboard for a video

The man on the sairs.
At first we chose several scenes from the story and talked about how to present them. Developing many ideas, We decided to set up two different situations; one of them is the situation of reading as if a movie follows the contents that a reader is reading and the other one is presenting the story. So, to begin with a movie, there is a reader and a camera shoots her back. The camera gradually zooms in the book that the reader hold and a video about the story is started. So, our video repeats going in the story and going out it. At last, we are goint to mix these two situations to make veiwers experience an unexpected situation. To present this, we are going to represent shadows that is one of the elements of the story on the situation of reading.

Here is our storyboard.

The original story of our movie

I was working on a video assignment with Jose and Daniela and we decided to make a movie based on a story at the first meeting. Jose recommended July's book and we could find some short stories that were suitable for our short video. Finally,"The man on the stairs " was our last choice. Altough this story was sort of abstract to make a movie but we thought we can try many things with this.

The man on the stairs by Miranda July
It was a tiny sound but it woke me up because it was a human sound. I held my breath and it happened again, then again; it was footsteps on the stairs. I tried to whisper, There's someone coming up the stairs, but my breath was cowering, I couldn't shape it. I squeezed Kevin's wrist in pulsing units, three pulses, then two pulses, then three pulses. I was trying to invent a physical language that could enter his sleep. But after a while I realized I wasn't even squeezing his wrist, I was just pulsing the air.That's how scared I was; I was squeezing air. And still the sound continued, the man coming up the stairs. He was walking up in the slowest possible way. He had all the time in the world for this, my god did he have time. I have never taken such care with anything. That is my problem with life, I just rush through it, like I'm being chased. Even things whose whole point is slowness, like drinking relaxing tea.When I drink relaxing tea I suck it down like I'm in a contest for who can drink relaxing tea the quickest. Or if I'm in a hot tub with some other people and we're all looking up at the stars, I'll be the first to say It's so beautiful here. I only say it because I know it has to be said and I'm trying to hurry the experience along. The sooner you say It's so beautiful here the quicker you can say Wow, I'm getting overheated.

The man on the stairs was the total opposite of me, his thing was How long can I make this last? He was taking so long that I would forget the danger for whole moments at a time, and almost slip back in to sleep, only to be woken up by him shifting his weight. I was going to die and it was taking so long. I stopped trying to wake Kevin up because I was worried that he would make some sound upon waking, like he might say What. Or What honey.The man on the stairs would hear this and know how vulnerable we were. He would know my boyfriend called me Honey. He might even hear my boyfriend's slight annoyance, his exhaustion after our fight last night.We both fantasize about other people when we're having sex, but he likes to tell me who the other people are, and I don't.Why should I? It's my own private business. It's not my fault that he gets off on having me know. He likes to report it the second after he cums, like a cat presenting the gift of a dead bird. I never asked for it.

I didn't want the man on the stairs knowing these things about us. But he would know.The second he threw on the lights and pulled out his gun, or his knife, or his rope, or his heavy rock, the second he held the gun at my head, or the knife at my heart or the rope around my neck or the heavy rock over my chest, he would know. He would see it in my boyfriend's eyes: You can have her, just let me live. And in my eyes he would see the words: I never really knew true love. Would he empathize with us? Does he know what it's like? Most people do. You always feel like you are the only one in the world, like everyone else is just crazy for each other, but it's not true. Generally, people don't like each other very much. And that goes for friends too. Sometimes I lay in bed trying to decide which of my friends I really care about and I always come to the same conclusion: None of them. I thought these were just my starter friends and the real ones would come along later. But no.These are my real friends. They are people with jobs in their field of interest. My oldest friend, Marilyn, loves to sing and she is head of enrollment at a prestigious music school. It's a good job, but not as good as just opening your mouth and singing. La. I always thought I would be friends with a professional singer. A jazz singer. A best friend who is a jazz singer and a reckless but safe driver. That is more what I pictured for myself. I also imagined friends who adored me.These friends think I'm a drag. I fantasize about starting over and eliminating the thin film of dragginess that hangs over me. I think I have a handle on it now. There are three main things that make me a drag:

I never return phone calls.

I am falsely modest.

I have a disproportionate amount of guilt about these two

things and it is unpleasant to be around.

It wouldn't be so hard to return calls and be more genuinely modest, but it's too late for these friends. They wouldn't be able to see that I'm not a drag any more. I need clean new people who associate me with fun.This is my number two problem: I am never satisfied with what I have. It goes hand in hand with my number one problem: rushing. Maybe they aren't so much hand in hand, as two hands of the same beast. Maybe they are my hands; I am the beast.

I had a crush on Kevin for thirteen years before he finally started liking me back. He wasn't interested at first because I was a child. I was twelve and he was twenty-five.Then after I turned eighteen it took him seven more years to think of me as a real adult, not his student anymore. On our first date I wore a dress that I had bought when I was seventeen especially for this occasion. It was out of style but I'm superstitious so I wore it. On the way to the restaurant we stopped at a gas station. I sat in the car and watched a teenage boy clean the windshield while Kevin pumped the gas. The boy used the squeegee with a kind precision that made you know that this wasn't just his field of interest, this was exactly it, this was all he had ever wanted to do. La. As we pulled out of the gas station I stared through my perfect, clean window at the teenager and I thought: I should be with him.

The man on the stairs pauses for such incredibly long periods of time I almost wonder if he is having a problem. Like maybe he's disabled, or very old. Or maybe just really tired. Maybe he's already killed everyone else on the block and now he's all worn out. In moments I can almost see him, leaning against the banister, his eyes swimming in the darkness. My eyes are open too. Kevin's eyes are shut, he is so far away and he always will be. The silent pause stretches longer and longer and gradually I wonder if the man is there at all. The only sound is Kevin breathing. What if I spend the rest of my life in this bed, listening to Kevin breathe. But lo. A strong and certain creak issues from the stairwell and what I feel is thrilling relief. He is really there, he is on the stairs, and he is coming closer in his own breathtakingly slow way. If I lived to see daylight I would never forget this lesson in care. He was putting more care in to hunting me than I had ever put into anything in my life. And it was worth it, because he had earned my admiration. I don't think anyone has ever admired me the way I admired him. What if I were to spend this much time listening to Marilyn, what would happen? Maybe she would adore me and then I would respect her and we would both become professional jazz singers or at least reckless but safe drivers. Maybe. Maybe the man on the stairs would come in our car with us and when he looked scared by our reckless driving I would hold his head close to my lips and whisper: It's safer than walking.

I opened the covers and stepped out of bed. I was only wearing a tee shirt and I didn't put on pants because who cares. Maybe he would be halfnaked too; maybe he would be headless and covered in blood. I stood in the doorway of the stairwell, on the top step. It was darker there than in the bedroom, and I could see nothing. I stood and waited to die or for my eyes to adjust, whichever came first. Before I could see anything, I could hear him breathing. He was right in front of me. I leaned forward into the darkness; I could feel his breath. Our faces were almost together. I could smell his sourness. It wasn't good, he wasn't good, he did not have good intentions. I stood there, and he stood there, and he breathed out the bitter air that makes women doubt everything, and I breathed it in.And I expelled my dust, the powder of everything I had destroyed with doubt, and he pulled it in to his lungs. My eyes were adjusting and I saw a man, an ordinary man, a stranger. We were staring into each other's eyes and suddenly I felt angry. Go away, I whispered. Get out. Get out of my house.

After we pulled out of the gas station, we drove to a restaurant that Kevin thought I might like. But I was still thinking about the boy with the squeegee and I systematically did the opposite of everything that Kevin wanted. I didn't order desert or wine, just a little salad, which I complained about. But he did not give up; he made jokes, ridiculous jokes in the car on the way back to my apartment. I steeled myself against laughter; I would rather die than laugh. I didn't laugh, I did not laugh. But I died; I did die.