Category Archives: Project Brief 4

Initiative 12

To be honest, I do not know how to write this blog, so I can only write some of my feelings in this project. What I want to express is my particular appreciation to my two group members.

At the beginning, I did not know what the project was going to do, because I know nothing except that I needed to find 4 reading materials and write 800 articles. I did not know how to reach the structure of the entire audio content. But my group members told me that we do not need to worry too much, we will come out new ideas. Afterwards, we began to decide the contents we responsible for, I just started to feel at ease. I am not a person who is good at making orders to others, but a person who likes to accept someone else’s orders and take actions. So in this project, Zane and Marie often ask me what I want to do, every time I can only answer I do not know or I can think of nothing. Zane is a particularly competent person, so I ask him on everything I cannot understand. I was assigned to responsible for interview, but because I am afraid of embarrassment or fear of being rejected, so I can never ask questions first. Zane helped me to interview two people until I had the courage to interview the two persons left. In the later recording, although Marie is responsible for the entire structure, but in fact Zane is the most busy person, and the final audio editing is charged by him, we are just give him some advice. I appreciate him so much because he led us to complete the project.

Marie is a nice person, and she often helps me. She is responsible for the organization/structure of the audio works and offers us some ideas. At the interview, she followed me and gave supplement   when necessary. Not only that, I forgot the content of a sentence I recorded, she also helped me warmly.

I reflect on what I did. I interviewed two people, put forward some views and recorded the teacher’s evaluation in the interview of the project. I know that I have done little in the project and I am somewhat disappointed about my performance. But I will learn slowly! This is the first time I have cooperated with others in the university to complete a complex project. What I can do is little, but I have known how to be a good leader in this cooperation, known how to finish my own work well, but also heard lot of different creative ideas to do the work better later. This is my greatest gains in this project!

Initiative 11

American Idol, a famous TV show in the U.S., is a specific example of popular culture. This show was originated from the British TV show “Pop Idol” that was initially launched in the U.S. in 2002. It is a competitive music program that was held once per year. This show provides a platform for many potential singers of popular music, like Kelly Clarkson. The winner of the competition will be the American Idol and will be awarded a contract releasing album for that singer. This TV show has been broadcasted 15 seasons until 2016 and was ended in 2016.

The reasons why I think that the TV show is a specific example of popular culture are as follows:

1. It is popular. Each season of American Idol always attracted the public’s attention and caused huge social repercussions and economic interests. Every year, singers were initially selected in several big cities. Through selection of the first stage, 24 singers will sing to television audiences of the whole country in the TV show. And audiences can vote through telephone or website. So, this TV show attracted lots of people’s attention at the production stage. After broadcasting on TV, it always obtained remarkable ratings. The singers and songs appeared in the show were quickly remembered and transferred. Young people were always talking about the singers they support. As a popular TV show in the U.S., it usually leads the trend of popular music, and its audience can be found in any parts of the world. Many of my Chinese friends oftentimes watched this show and learned to sing those songs in the show. Obviously, this show exerts great influences on the popular culture, especially popular music, all over the world.

2. In terms of culture, American Idol not only promotes the development of popular music but also expresses some positive social values. It shows young people’s courage, efforts and confidence in pursuing their dream. Thus, it is a positive value to encourage people to try hard in order to get what they want. Moreover, this TV show also embodies the spirit of competition and democracy. It does not care about singer’s appearance and background and provides fair opportunities for the public. Meanwhile, audiences took part in the program through democratic votes.

Workshop 11

It is not too much content in the tutorial today, mainly including two parts: recording exercises and the application of audio editing software. Each group has two or three members and use audio recording equipment (Zoom) to take the recording exercises. The audio is about 1-3 minutes and the topic is “can I have your attention please”. Except recording, we also should add the background music when we are editing. We have recorded some audio effects when we are recording the dialogues. These are helpful to finish the last audio work.

After recording, we start to edit. We apply the Adobe Audition, which comes from a same company with the Premiere Pro. When the teacher is talking, I’m not very concentrated so I have to watch some tutorial video after class. I find that the audio editing is totally different from the video editing. It’s more difficult. You have to carefully listen every material and edit the imperfect part like length, quality, volume, remove noise, consider effects and etc. But these will make the person who wants to become the professional editor benefit a lot and build solid foundation. I have no experience about these so I need a lot of exercises to try the functions in the software and familiar the relative operations. Most of people will satisfy own work but if you are in school, the teacher will tutor you and you also can get the assessment from the professional personnel in which you realize which part is good, which part needs to improve, you can gain more experience and make better.