Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

Due to the fact that I did a different project than everyone else, my post and audio will be different than everyone else’s. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do exactly. At first, I was hoping to get audio from wind and trees to make a compilation of nature sounds that are relaxing from various natural parks in the area. But when I went to record them it didn’t turn out so well. Then, during Thanksgiving break, my roommate and I were looking after a friend’s dog. It took her a while to get used to us so I wanted to record audio from a walk that we had where she was happier to be with us. What surprised me the most about creating this audio was that other sounds definitely picked up through the audio. Mainly, the sound of the coat I was wearing. Which, in a way, added to the sound I was going for.

For this project I really just wanted to focus on the different parts of the walk. Like getting ready and putting a coat on, heading out for a walk. It was a crisp morning so I wanted to get the sound of the crunchy surface we were walking on. Thankfully her dog tag was really loud so that can be heard within the audio. Then just the small grabbing Lola’s attention every now and then when she strayed too far. Other sounds I tried to include were cars and people passing by. It was hard to try and get some of the audio that I wanted from the raw file because it was too quiet amongst the rest of the sounds. The ending I kind of left abrupt because we came across a dog off-leash that didn’t look friendly and I wanted to get her home safely.

The whole interview went alright I would say. It was tough recording this interview with my brother in law Marco because of the personal stuff that went on during thanksgiving break. My niece, Marco’s daughter the day I left home for break, she was transported on an ambulance to Seattle Children’s Hospital because she had to have an emergency surgery. Now I broke down in tears after hearing this I could only imagine what Marco must of been feeling. At this point I wasn’t sure to still do the interview, but Marco was willing to still do it and God bless his soul because I need to do this project and not worry about my niece over break right because that’s what’s really important. Anyways that’s why in the interview you can kind of tell in Marco’s voice that he was a little out of it. Despite all these personal problems we were going through we manage to have a good conversation about technology. We talked a lot about music and how he accessed it growing up which was really interesting to learn about. It’s a shame that the interview had to be cut down so much because we had good conversations about different kinds of technology that contributed to the topic of music which we were talking about. The smartphone and how it’s used today with music was the prominent theme of conversation and the talk always went with something to do with music since my brother in law is a musician. I edited the interview to the way I did because I left the parts that actually related to the prompt and the chosen theme and cut off anything that wasn’t really relating to those areas of conversation previously mentioned. Also it’s my first time edited audio so that was interesting learning how to use the software and how that all works hopefully it’s to the liking of everyone. Overall I liked the way the interview went we had our happy moments and learned a lot of Marco’s life growing up.

In my interview, we discuss the progression of the camera and the role it has taken in history. Blake Gurney shares about his limited experience with cameras growing up, contrasting the level of technology between the time periods.

The interview process was an overall success. Both myself, as well as my interviewee, had a lot of fun discussing photographic technology and how it has become another set of eyes in our world today. We were able to conduct a fluent conversation filled with good questions and answers that resulted in a nice little piece of history. What surprised me the most about this interview was how much Blake talked about the present world of cameras versus the past. I feel as though this goes to show how prominent the technology has become in today’s age.

We contrasted the quantity and quality of cameras mentioning how nowadays everything is recorded between cell phones, security cameras, television, internet streaming, and so many more. We discussed the many advantages of this progression in terms of documenting history and maintaining safety around the world. With cameras everywhere, history is constantly being recorded making it a lot easier to document what really happened. It all becomes much more fact rather than a story someone paints for us. Blake also highlighted the disadvantages of being under constant surveillance. He pointed out the lack of freedom we have now compared to his childhood.

Another point of discussion that came up in the interview was the potential of the camera and where technologies revolving around it could take humanity. Blake gave a great idea suggesting technologies similar to virtual reality could work as an alternative for people with blindness.

I am pleased with my end result for this project. I was able to narrow down the most prominent information of the interview and work it together so that it sounded smooth and concise. I think the story I ended up with depicts the overall importance of the camera and where it could lead humanity in the future.

For my Oral History project, I interviewed my sorority house mom Margaret. I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing Margaret about her history with telephone usage. Before this project, I had only talked to Margaret a couple times in passing and didn’t know if she was the type of person to enjoy being interviewed and open up about her history with telephones. However, as soon as I started asking Margaret questions, her nervousness settled and she began diving into her history, fun stories, and opinions. I think our conversation flowed very well and it created a brief story that explained in detail her past and present usage of telephones. In our conversation, I asked Margaret if she believes that younger generations use their phones too much and her answer surprised me. She said that she doesn’t think so because what we, in younger generations, use them for is very useful however sometimes she worries for our safety when our heads are buried in our phones while we walk through the streets. I was surprised by this answer because my grandparents and a lot of elderly folks always complain about how kids use their phones too much and Margaret disagreed with that. One of the most prominent things Margaret talked about that stood out to me the most was that she prefers the older telephones more than new telephones. She explained to me that she hates how with her new cellphone people are always calling and interrupting her day because it is so easy to call using a cellphone however back in the day calling was expensive and only occurred in urgent situations. In my interview, I decided to keep my voice in the interview because I think I guided the conversation pretty well and I think the questions I asked really sparked course concept connections. I also decided to add background music to give a more fun and not so serious vibe to the project. Overall, I really enjoyed doing this project because I learned a lot about Margaret’s history with telephones and found all of her stories and opinions unique and intriguing.

When I conducted my interview for this project, I had my mom volunteer to help me with this. I decided to conduct this interview at home in my mom’s office at night that way we could get the lease amount of background noise coming into the recording. However, before I started the interview, I prepared some questions for me beforehand and practiced the interview out that way it wasn’t being all improv. I also told the interviewee what the subject was about and broad information about what I was going to ask her, that way she would have some things on the top of her head to answer with.

I believe that there was an active conversation with my subject for the project. There were plenty of questions that were able to be extended and some lengthy answers to go along with them. Nothing really surprised me about the interview. It went how I expected it to go and get the result that I wanted. The only thing I wish, was that it was more interesting because in an interview, you can not mess up once and be done with the project as a whole within a day or so.

The most important theme would have to be cellphones, timeline of cellphones, and where they are going in the future. The reason for this is because they are an important part of our world and during the interview, she said that they are a major part of our lives and we can’t live without them and they pretty much run the world with a click of a button.

I decided to turn in my project with adobe audition because I am used to the software going into the project with other classes I have taken. With this project and application software, I didn’t really need much, I only needed the trim and cut tool to make my project complete. However, I did add music edits into my interview.

This project was fun and was able to be with the family while doing this project, so it was the best project of the semester for me.