I think it would be cool to create a show where a bunch of skeptical characters come together to create a show talking about nonsense stories related to AI. Like a panel of characters that would be very techno-pessimistic like my character Marie and the characters all sit down in a podcast like setting and review reddit stories of problems with AI and technology and put in their two cents with of course some disagreements along the way. Maybe even an inventor that is very techno-optimistic and would contribute to a good conversation and arguments for the technological side.
I think that Marie would be very anti-technologist because of how her husband passed (which is undisclosed for the moment and will be revealed at a later time). She also is a manager of a call center and corporate keeps trying to force an AI pre-screen for her customers to determine which department would best benefit them, but it will cost many workers their jobs and livelihoods. She would at the same time be open to learning more about different perspectives while holding strong to her beliefs. She is okay with technology (like the Daleks) in movies like Dr. Who but not in real life. I think her character would be very respectful of other characters point of views while adding very monotone jokes in the dialogue and provide stories that she has in her life. She may however provide some flat responses from time to time or get flustered when her point of view is proven wrong to much. I think that it will be very exciting to see how this comes to fruition in the coming weeks.
Let’s talk about it. This week forced me to get out of my comfort zone and experiment with audio storytelling. I was interested in starting my very own podcast previously but I didn’t really know where to start. This whole week was a learning experience that I did not take lightly. I am also trying a new format! Instead of trying to put together my whole week into one blog post and tell you a short creative process that leaves a lot out I am going to imbed the posts below so you can click them directly! I also added the creative process in each of the posts so you can see them individually as well as a whole. Update: I see that the posts don’t show fully, so I’ll adjust and add the creative process passage below it as a caption.
Behind the creation: I was really intimidated by this project and using a new audio editing service, but I still wanted the outcome to be something I could be proud of. I didn’t want something that sounded like it was put together in three or less seconds and then tossed to the side, and instead something that would put you in a dream-like state as we discussed earlier this week in the videos we watched. I first started by compiling a list of sounds that I would normally hear on a bus or on a train like bags rustling, the train moving, low chatter. Then I added some other sounds that would give you the since of being frightened or tense like the creepy voice, and the beating heart. I was actually hanging out with someone towards the end of my editing which admittedly was time consuming, and they said that even they got tense listening to it and compared my audio to some of the horror movie sounds. A problem that I ran into was the fact that the audios, even though they were placed properly to be cohesive, were way too long for this assignment with a cap of 90 seconds. So, I had to meticulously go through each audio and adjust it to fit right and cut out unnecessary bits. I am really proud of the product and all in all this took me about a hour and a half to complete!
Behind the Creation: I first listened to the YouTube videos and took notes and then I compared them to the audio that we had to listen to. I re-listened to the YouTube videos a couple of times because they were short but detail-packed! I then went back in and edited my post to make sure that it was short and to the point to keep my readers entertained.
Behind the creation: For this, I went in with a strong idea of what my radio show would look like if it were up to me maybe a little too confident but I hope that this idea sounds interesting to the others and some would help bring this to life. I also thought about how she would interact with other characters and gave her a little more depth as a character so she isn’t as flat. I wanted to create a good idea of what I want so others if they see it on the ds106 website wouldn’t feel as intimidated to share theirs since I got this done a little earlier.
Behind the creation: Mic checks 1…2…1…2… is this thing on? This was a really fun assignment where I created a radio bumper for ds106. For this, I briefly listened to the radio station and instantly decided on a lofi inspired background audio to match the “vibe” of the radio channel. While I wanted to focus on matching the vibe of the radio station, I wanted to make my radio bumper unique. Something that was uniquely inspired by my experiences. I started off by recording the audio bit of my voice which took three tries and thenI headed over to free audio.com and instantly searched for key words like lofi, radio bumper, Mellow beats, outro, intro, and other things of that nature. I found some hip hop type intro sounds to stack on top of each other and even took a snippet of someone else’s podcast intro and added that to the beginning of the audio. I then trimmed my voice recording and added the reverb sound effect to give it a radio feel. Then I adjusted the intro sounds accordingly and added some lofi beats to the background. I then added the outro bit which is like a power down sound and began to edit out unwanted sounds and arranging the snippets into ways that went together cohesively. After I was done I realized that something was missing. I found a bit on free audio which said “Well on this show did you expect anything else?” which I felt was a great touch to add right after my voice. Then it was radio ready so I uploaded it… also I can’t figure out how to allow downloads, so if you want to use it I’ll send you the file, just ask!
Behind the creation: For this assignment, I wanted to give you guys a little look at Marie’s life in the morning from coffee to her nap before work! I want to start by saying that this didn’t come out how I expected at all… I struggled to find sounds to use. IF I had the time, I would have recorded my own, but unfortunately, my schedule doesn’t allow for that. I will probably revisit this if I have more time later down the line. It was really fun mashing together different sounds and I enjoyed this! I have learned that with audio assignments it goes faster for me if I go through and brainstorm all the sounds that I want incorporated, search them up, and then drop them directly into Audacity. Then I start with my “starting sound(s)” and solo them so that I can only hear them, and adjust them as need be. I do this with all my sounds adding them slowly until I get the finished product!
Behind the creation: For this assignment, I had to create a story and read it. So I decided to think about a story prompt that my character would come up with and put it into an AI generator. to get an idea of a story. I then edited it to make it seem more natural and like a children’s story. I then put the final product in a text-to-voice generator and selected a feminine voice.
Behind the creator: Have you ever attended a musical production? Where there is nothing but music that tells a story. I recently attended a show like that last semester and thought that I’d take music and create a story. This assignment said to use new and old music to create a story but to avoid the SoundCloud police I used instrumentals. I copied and pasted a bunch of different sounds into audacity and created a story called broke music Box. In the beginning, the music box is playing nicely along with the music but the music box gets broken in the story and no longer functions well. I wanted to use this as symbolism for a tarnished innocence. In the back you can also hear birds that get silenced when the music box is broken. Listen down below.
Daily Creates:
Behind the creation: I always look at what others do for the TDC if I don’t know. While doing this today I noticed that people didn’t understand the prompt and I wanted to understand it so I clicked the related link and then added my response to mastodon.
Behind the creation: I just went with the flow for this one!
Behind the creation: As soon as I read the prompt I immediately thought about this lounge and magic bar hidden in a laundromat! So I submitted it.
In summary, this whole week I spent a long time figuring out what works best for me when creating audio projects. I learned that it is easier to brainstorm, compile, and then work in bits and pieces to make my life easier. While there were many upsides to this week there were also downsides, I had problems finding audio pieces that I wanted, and also scheduling out enough time to do these because of how time consuming they are. I also had problems with the software and learning how to segment play time and how to switch the orders of audio, but I quickly learned how to do so.
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BRain StoRM
Mic Check 
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