For this assignment, the task was to take a five minute interview and turn it into a two minute edited podcast-type audio. Due to the limited amount of people I get to see during COVID-19 quarantine, I decided to interview my little brother, Chase Nylander.
During my five minute interview with him, Chase describes how the coronavirus outbreak has affected his high school play. The raw, five minute audio is embedded below.
During the interview, I could tell Chase was nervous. We spent several minutes in a pre-interview as I made him aware of all of the questions I was going to ask him. However, during the interview he stuttered throughout the five minutes with “ands,” “uhs,” and “ums.”
We recorded the audio inside of my vehicle. In my apartment, everything is loud. The plumbing, heater, dishwasher, washer and dryer rattle the house. However, my car was nice and quiet. The only noise you could hear in the recording was our voices.
Using an audio recorder was natural for me. I have been conducting interviews for several years now and I have always used an audio recorder.
The edited version of the interview is embedded below.
My audio experience took me about 20 minutes to edit the five minutes down to two. I was apart of a dance team in high school that asked me to cut our music for each dance. I have used programs including Audacity and Garage Band before, so the interview editing did not take me long. I always enjoy audio editing, especially in Garage Band. I enjoy listening back to the new product.
This portrait photo was extremely easy for me to achieve. At the time of the interview, Chase was still calling in with his cast mates and director to practice the play before they begun recording. He called in on Zoom from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. each weekday. As he was practicing, I explained I was taking a picture and to carry on as usual.
The one thing that surprised me about this assignment was how well the audio came out after recording the interview in my car. The only noise picked up in the recording was Chase and I’s voices.
I wouldn’t do anything different in this assignment. The programs I used including Garage Band, Zamzar, and Soundcloud worked smoothly throughout the process. I do wish I didn’t have to edit out as many “ums” as I did, but that did help me bring the interview down to two minutes.
I believe I will use audio stories in the future. For me, I like to listen to audiobooks as I read physical books. At times, I struggle to attain information after reading a long body of text. I would like to work on a project that included audio and writing with the same content so viewers could listen along to what they were reading.
McKenna Nylander Media 