A+Short+Commenatry

A Short Commentary

I found this task both challenging and interesting. I have never used an editing program by myself before. At first I struggled, but soon found my feet and created a narration radio edit using pieces from two different recordings and included music relating to the topic and room-time. I am quite proud of the end result.  I used Audacity to edit the recordings. This program is excellent, although I needed to watch some tutorials before I felt comfortable using it freely. As audacity is a free program and readily available online, it is an excellent tool for the classroom. Teachers and/or students can download the program and use it for a vast variety of tasks. By incorporating this program with a photo displaying tool, students can create amazing and imaginative photo stories, which are excellent for the younger years.

A task like this demands some planning a preparation. For this task, I started off deciding what I wanted to do (commentary, narration or interview). I chose to make a narration as I knew the topic and could put a good story forward. I also wanted to leave the interview as that is my plan for the next task and I wanted to do something different. I then, made a mind map of possible ideas for a narration (see mind map). I chose to write about what Christmas was like for me as a child and the excitement i felt throughout the day. It was a fond memory and would hopefully capture the emotion of the story. The next step was to create a script, my draft script. After some editing and changing, I had my completed final script but before i started recording, I practiced the script and timed it, ensuring that it was within the time limit given for this task. I then re-edited, deleted and rearranged the script and practiced it again (withing timing), until i was happy with the final result and could then move to recording.
 * Planning & Preparing: **

the recording of the radio edit is very important. It needs to be organised, quiet and well rehersed. As I didn't have the tools required to record my narration, i had previously organised to borrow one from the School of Education and also downloaded Audacity to my computer. I chose to record my radio edit at home so I could ensure a quiet place with less interference. In the end, I recorded four versions, and then listened to them and deleted two. The other two were used to create the final product. The first recording was far too loud, so i moved the microphone a further distance for the second recording. This fixed the issue. The two recordings were then imported into Audacity and the editing began. I found the editing challenging, but struggled through. I found that using the online tutorials were very helpful and i would recommend them to new users of the program. I chose to incorporate music, because I thought it would add to the theme of the narration and it would be a good intro and outro to the piece. The music I chose was Jesus, Joy of Man's Desire by Kevin Macleod. I found this piece of music by searching for royalty-free Christmas music (click here to go to site). After listening to a variety of songs, I found one I felt was perfect for my radio edit.
 * Recording & Editing **

I am pleased with the final result. I thought that the story had emotion, and a beginning, middle and end and it was capturing for the audience. I would, however, have liked to have had better recording equipment and a quieter place to record, external noise was an issue as was the quality of the recording. The final product consisted of 13 tracks. Three were music (Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring), four were room-time and six were audio tracks.
 * The Final Product: **

Manny issues arose in the duration of this task and some were unexpected. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">A major issue in the quality of the final cut, was my voice. I currently am suffering from Bronchitis and my voice does not sound clear on the recording. This was frustrating, but unavoidable. I also found, after the first recording attempt, that it was difficult to make it sound realistic and not read. To improve this, I rehearsed the script and tried not to read off the script. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">As with any computer task, there are the obvious issues with ICT related problems. My first problem arose when, after editing my recordings my computer crashed and I lost all my work and was unable to retrieve it. I had to start again. My second problem became came with Audacity refusing to save my file, but I avoided this by leaving the program open until I was finished and could export it. I also saved what I had done as //wav// file as back up. A major issue I encountered was with the exporting the file as an mp3. Audacity needed the //lame_enc.dll// (LAME mp3 encoder) and I had trouble accessing and using this. In the end, I spoke to the Flinders University library staff and they helped me through this problem. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Finding royalty-free music was difficult, but after some searching, I found a site that was easy to navigate and to download a piece of royalty-free Christmas music. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Although i stumbled on many issues, i found solutions for the majority and attempted editing the other problems.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Issues: **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Overall, I am quite proud with my radio edit and would happily use this program again and even use it in the classroom.

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