This assignment was challenging! As you may already know, the purpose of my blog is to give you all a behind-the-scenes look at live entertainment. This time, I was tasked to do so in audio story form.
As I spent several days pondering what I was going to do for this project, my number one challenge was how to capture the excitement of live entertainment without being able to use music recorded from a show. I debated doing another interview with Tad, the Entertainment and Events Manager at the Gala Showroom. However, I felt like that would be a bit more procedural and technical – yes, we could cover what we do during a show, but it wouldn’t capture the excitement!
When I think about working in live entertainment, I often think about my very first day on the job and how fun it was. From a young age, I was an avid concert-goer and I’ve always loved live music. When I was given the opportunity to get my foot in the door of the live entertainment industry, I jumped at the chance! It was like a dream come true, and I’ve had so many interesting experiences along the way, but I still think back to that very first day….
That’s when I decided that I wanted to take you with me back to my first day on the job! I wanted to focus on feelings and emotions rather than the complicated technical functions that go into everyday work as a live entertainment or AV (Audio Visual) technician. What better way to capture that excitement than going back to when everything was new?
Once I had my idea, I had to figure out how to execute it. I planned out some bullet points that I wanted to cover and sounds I wanted to capture, then I set out to record. I went to the Gala Showroom to record different ambient sounds, including the segment where I’m walking up the stairs. So far, that is the only ambient sound used in my draft. I then recorded myself at home with my smartphone. It was difficult to condense my story into a beginning, middle, and end, because I’m still a working technician! However, I did my best to stick to the high points of that first day at work and discuss how it motivated me to pick live entertainment as my work of choice. Even though I primarily work in the marketing profession, live entertainment is where my heart is, and that’s the day my journey started.
So far, the editing process in Audition was pretty straightforward. I have my project saved as a multi-track project with my story narration file and the sound of me walking up the spiral staircase into the sound booth. In my final draft, I would love to add more ambient sound, and possibly some musical elements.
I look forward to your feedback on this project! It’s been a lot of fun so far.
Assignment 3: Audio Story
Amy Mirai Dillon 
Amy, thank you for sharing your experience and first memories and feelings when starting in this industry. Not only do I think this showcases how positive the experience can be when starting in the AV tech field but can show how much good can come from it when referencing where you are now in your career. I really like the amount of detail and heart you put into this recording, and the editing you did to make the transitions less apparent and as though it was a continuous idea/thought.
A change I would make is introducing yourself at the start of the audio, such as your name and maybe what you do currently. This being the first time I am seeing your blog, it would be nice to know a little more background, even if this was captured in previous projects or parts of your blog. Another suggestion I have for you is to incorporate some additional sounds to your piece. Perhaps some live entertainment sounds (maybe from one of the creative commons sites?), or music that starts at the forefront of the audio clip and is maybe used at the end as well. This would add more layers to your piece, and while the most important part is you speaking and sharing of your experience, additional audio might make it more interesting. That being said, I loved hearing all the positives of working where you did and how you stumbled into this creative career!
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Hi Amy! It was fun listening to your story as I could hear the excitement in your voice. It’s awesome that you’ve found your calling and are enjoying the work you do. For feedback, I agree with you that adding some additional ambient sounds and musical elements would be helpful here. You could angle this as a podcast episode where you have a fun intro and outro to bring everything together. This would also aid in creating a clear beginning, middle, and end. In listening to your story, I was noticing that I could distinguish the difference between the different clips because the volume and clarity of your voice changed slightly throughout. Balancing the volume of each clip and perhaps doing all the voice recordings in one spot, devoid of unwanted background sounds could help with this. Overall, great job!!
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Hey Amy!
I love to hear someone so excited about their work. Many moons ago I did some work with A/V, but never took it to the level that you are working at. But I understand why you are so passionate! I was always the only girl around 😉
You have a great voice, especially for narration. Very strong and clear, for sure. It was just very difficult to get into the story without use of other ambient noise. I was just anticipating it is all.
I know that you are polishing your work still. I would also add a pause between narration just after you say, “….after my first day on the job” . Also a dead second or two at the beginning as well.
Looking forward to listening to your final project!
Hannah
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Thank you to everyone who commented on my post! I really enjoyed reading all of your feedback and suggestions.
It feels like forever since I posted this draft! Spring Break really gave me some rest and distance from all of my school projects, including this one. I agree with many of the suggestions here. Even from the beginning of this assignment, I knew I’d want to add more ambient noise than I’d be able to do with the draft. I had some work scheduling restraints that lessened my available editing time.
I’m looking forward to adding music of some sort, either as an intro/outro or as a general music bed. I had to record my voice-over in multiple parts in the draft, and I would like to record it again in one long take. I feel like that would help maintain consistency with the narration. Overall, I want to make my final draft a bit more lively and give it a richer soundscape. I look forward to sharing it with all of you!
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