Category Archives: Assignment Bank

Terms and Conditions Apply – Radio Commercial

Today, I worked on a Radio Commerical for Ravioli Radio! I don’t think we will end up using it, but it was fun to make regardless!

The Assignment in the Assignment Bank that I followed as this one, which stated,

When you are driving in the car and a radio commercial comes on you might start to tune the radio out. But, if you were the person selling what the commercial was offering would you want people tuning it out or listening intently? Well, I would want people paying attention to my commercial! So, for this audio assignment pick a product or business you would like to promote and sell! Use a audio recording software such as soundcloud to record your commercial. Add in background music, edits, and provide full information of the business/product/services you are advertising. Try to create a radio commercial that grabs and maintains the audiences’ attention. On the side, write why you chose the object or business you are promoting and the process you used to create your commercial.

Part of Dr. Ravioli‘s whole story is that he rides a moped, he gives away mopeds at his Radio show, and they are just apart of his identity. We already have a Moped Commerical that we will be using, but this is just another if we need to throw one in for more time or anything! So, everyone gets a free moped (terms and conditions do apply)

I used FreeSound to find a commercial-sounding audio that was a little upbeat and motivational. Get you inspired, make sure you want that free moped and you will go get that free moped. So, I used this audio for that tone and mood.

I ended up using ChatGPT and my brain to come up with a fun, inspiring script to follow, and then used the ElevenLabs voice Jessie for the voice. I like this voice, I think it’s pretty funny. Originally, I was gonna voice it myself, but this one is just so funny, and it actually added character to some of the words instead of just reading them boringly.

I put this all together in Audacity, but I really feel like some of the voice audio’s could have been closer together, but I didn’t feel like it fit with that part of the song, so I don’t know. Regardless, it was fun to put together! Really easy stuff, mostly just twiddling with the spacing, making one audio quieter and the other louder, and then adding a fade out at the end.

But yeah! This was fun! You get a free moped! (not from Dr. Ravioli… so no guarnatee that it works… this is real sketchy).

weird product ad meets 80s radio show

Create a 30-45 second radio commercial for a product from the 80’s. Add in some background music and/or sound effects to make it sound like a real radio commercial.

80’s Product Radio Commercial

For this assignment, I decided to venture into the realm of nonsense to come up with the most bizarre ad I could think of. Meet the Jetpack Jammies.

After painstakingly putting that vague vision into words, I used Voicemaker to create the narrator’s voice. I then used Audacity to create the old-timey radio effect on the voice and to speed up the disclaimer.

I got my music and the jetpack sound here. I used the same radio effect on both. Finally, I used Lexica to make the weird image you see now.

good morning aggressors!

For my first audio assignment this week, I choose to do the Good Morning Message for The Village. I of course had a lot of fun making more ominous brainwashing content for this company and I hope other people do too!

It is always such a wonderful thing to hear a bright cheery voice delivering the Good Morning Message in The Village. Why don’t you bring some joy to the day and to your fellow Residents by creating and recording a wonderful message of community and cheer. Share your audio via Soundcloud and tag it appropriately. 

Good Morning Message for The Village

Making this assignment was pretty simple since we’ve had time to get used to the various tools available.

First I used this text-to-speech tool to generate that cheery voice I knew this message needed. I then found that classic morning I needed music here. After getting both of those I did some quick editing using DaVinci Resolve’s Fairlight. And I know that that tool is generally used for far more complicated projects but I had been using it so much recently that it was where my cursor led me.

Finally, at the end of this assignment when I was about to upload it to SoundCloud, I felt that it was missing a photo for that final touch. So I generated one on Lexica and then edited the text on Photopea.

Assignment Bank: 80’s Product Radio Commercial – Definitely Not the 80’s but Close Enough?

https://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/80s-product-radio-commercial/

Create a 30-45 second radio commercial for a product from the 80’s. Add in some background music and/or sound effects to make it sound like a real radio commercial.

I made a commercial fitting for my character, Hwei. He is attempting to sell AI powered prosthetic body augments with the promise of alleviating pain and enhancing performance. I think something like this is how Hwei would first introduce his inventions to the market, but not necessarily for monetary gain. This type of advertisement, if successful, would slowly introduce his inventions to society, and eventually making all of society accustom to getting this procedure done.

Most of the lines I chose were not sales tactics that you’d normally see in advertisements other than the intro that poses a question and then a solution. That is what makes Hwei’s commercial unique; no upselling, no monetary value mentioned. This also definitely isn’t from the 80’s but I took Professor Bond’s offer of bending assignments to meet our show, so I just did a regular commercial for this.

Assignment Bank: Sick beat – Making the Logic Pod Intro

https://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/sick-beat/

"Make a sick beat, using whatever you can find on freesounds.org, and whatever you can record around you! I don’t care how long it is, just get groovy dood."

I bent this audio assignment a little bit to meet our needs for the podcast. I decided to go on freesound.org to find a suitable introduction song to our podcast. Actually, as we’re still in the process of splicing things together and deciding on which audio files would work for each scenario, I think that this may end up being a transition of some sort. There are a few other audio clips from the website that we have in mind but we won’t know for sure which ones to use until the rest of our show is structured.

I think this sound in particular has a very tech-y sound signature to it, and it’s almost stereotypically high tech with the synths and chords that go into it. We’ll see where this goes in our show, but I’m glad to have one piece of audio that would suit many aspects of our show.

Where Creativity Never Sleeps – Radio Bumper

Today, I worked on a radio bumper for our radio show!

This might be the first time I’ve ever heard Dr. Oblivion sound a little enthusiastic! (I put the same prompt in over and over until he didn’t sound dead inside)

I use the CC Search and looked up “futuristic,” originally for inspiration, but then I found this which linked me to a Freesound audio that I ended up liking enough to use! It’s the only music I used, and I only really fiddled with fading in and fading out at the start, start of Oblivion’s message, end of Oblivion’s message, and the end of the bumper.

The only other thing I did was talk to Dr. Oblivion and convince him to give me a radio bumper and end it with the familiar phrase “ds106 for life!” This took a while, because sometimes he told me he couldn’t do it, other times he would, and other times he’d just spit out something that wasn’t quite what I wanted. I ended up using two different responses he had, both where I had to tweak a little to get the sort of message or tone that I wanted.

I put everything together in Audacity. It was pretty simple, but I wish I could get rid of the slight background noise for Dr. Oblivion. I also wish I could just make him speak with a little emotion . . . but I know, he’s literally an AI, of course he’s not gonna be full of emotion.

Not sure what else to add for this, but it’s what I’ve made!

Interview Yourself

Yesterday, I interviewed myself for this Video Assignment, where the prompt was:

“Each year since 2017 Vanity Fair interviews Billie Eilish, and in many ways it is an introspective in which she is talking to her former self as the years go on. I hope when you’re reading this they are still doing them! But now it’s your turn. The first part is easy, make a list of questions you want to aks yourself, turn on the camera and hit record. A year from now, take the same questions and record yourself answering them again. Feel free to edit in responses from the previous year and even reactions to those previous answers. As the years go on perhaps you’ll learn more about yourself and who you are becoming.”

Here is the link!

This was actually fairly simple. I took questions from the 2022 Billie Eilish Vanity Fair interview (oddly, the 2023 one is not out . . . so maybe they’re done?) for myself and asked myself the questions. Well, most of the questions. I skipped the ones revolving around fans or about being an artist because I have zero fans and I am not an artist nor am I famous.

Filming was easy, I just filmed it on my iPhone 15 Pro camera and edited it using iMovie. I don’t think I ran into any errors in this or any trouble, it was fairly easy after having practiced using video editors for the class!

This was actually more like a reflection for me, and it kind of forced my to uncover things about myself that I wasn’t aware of our hadn’t voiced. I hadn’t really understood that I put so much work on myself just to escape overthinking thoughts until I, well, thought about it, and this made me think about it.

Obviously, I can’t fast travel and show you 2025’s interview of me, but I’m excited to see where I’ll be then, and I hope 2025 me will feel like I’ve come a long way.

aggressive technologies: propaganda

For one of my assignments that needed to include my course character, I decided to make this Fake Propaganda Video

Smash up any combination of videos, still images, and audio to create a fake propaganda video.  It can be comedic or (non-offensively, of course) serious, its up to you.  Possibilities include: advertising a product, creating a villain, or selling a revolution.

Fake Propaganda Video

Music here:

Text-to-speech

Videos from:

serenity now! but for real

Serenity Now!

In one of the episodes of the last season os Seinfeld, one of the main characters is advised to repeat “serenity now” as a mantra to ease his high blood pressure. Rather than repeat the phrase in a calm and controlled manner in a way that might help, Frank Costanza yells “SERENITY NOW!” at the top of his lungs whenever he feels stressed, thus defeating the purpose of the mantra.

I decided to create a visual piece of video and audio that would correct Frank’s mistake, and attempt to actually create one of those “serenity videos” that are often seen being played at dentist’s offices, or a spa. As an added twist, I loosely based this assignment on the “10 minute video challenge” meme in which a repeated looping of audio or video is played non-stop for 10 minutes. While it’s usually done for comic effect, I stretched the video out, repeating three 50 second nature clips over the course of the 10 minutes.

Serenity Now!

Music used here:

Videos used here:

the rivalry redefined: andrea’s story

Tell Your Character’s Story

Tell your character’s story or a story from their life through video. This can be as simple as adding images and putting a voiceover, or recording a bit from your character’s life. Use MovieMaker or iMovie to put together the video and throw in some sound effects if you’d like. It is up to you!

Tell Your Character’s Story

 Image: Paper Writing Old  Sound: Writing with pencil