Category Archives: AssignmentIdea

I’m DS106 and You’re Watching Radio Bumper

For the radio bumper assignment, I based my bumper on the iconic “You’re watching Disney Channel’ ads that would air when I was younger. I thought the idea was creative and nostalgic, but mainly because of Defunctland on YouTube. When I looked into what a radio bumper was, the assignment description explained that it is a “short recording that identifies the radio station with signature music or an expression that makes sure the listeners know what they are tuned into.” It reminded me of Defunctland’s “Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery” where the host, Kevin, talks about Network Identifiers. Kevin goes on to explain that bumpers are a fascinating liminal space that is able to tell viewers, “Here is where you are, here is what you’ve been watching, and here’s what’s next.” The video is all-around amazing, so I encourage anyone reading this to watch it. That being said, because this video taught me what bumpers were when I first watched that video, I wanted to reference it by using the Disney Channel theme for my bumper.

To make this bumper, I recorded myself saying my name and saying, “You’re listening to DS106 radio.” From there, I uploaded my recording and the audio clip of the Disney Channel theme to Adobe Audition to start editing. Because the audio was so short, editing was easy but I did run into one challenge. I wanted some music to play first and then for me to talk, but to do that, I had to set the clips at different audio levels and then have them fade into each other. The frustrating thing about Adobe Audition is that I couldn’t figure out how to do a fade transition for the audio. What kept happening was the first audio clip would fade into zero, and the next audio clip would fade from zero, but it was jarring and didn’t sound good. The solution I found told me to set the two clips to different volumes and then overlap each other. That is what I ended up doing, but I am keeping my eye out for a better way to do this.

I like how my radio bumper came out, and I’ve enjoyed listening to everyone else’s. I’m excited to maybe one day hear it on DS106 radio!

Another day at the office…

For the Sound Effect Short story I had a hard time picking out what story i wanted to tell. So I browsed around on Freesound to see if inspiration struck. And it in fact did! I chose to do a story about two men in an office job, one of them is asleep and is snoring very loud, and the other is extremely annoyed by this (He does this everyday!)

I started with background effects of office noises from BBC Sound Effects, then I looked for a man sighing on Freesound(this was the first part of my inspiration the rest came later, and the rest of my sounds are from Freesound). Next I found another man snoring and I copied and pasted this sound effect three times in the full story. The next step of annoyance is the attempt to wake the person up but discreetly, so I used a man clearing his throat. Once again the man snores so the next step is to get up and wake him up! To do this I used a metal bed frame creak, to implicate the man getting out of his office chair, some footsteps walking over to the man snoring and a blaring alarm clock! Finally the man wakes up with a gasp and the other man laughs and walks away, mission accomplished.

Audio Assignments

Soundtrack to Your Life – Assignment Bank

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLelZtVeDFv_i4bRAeAihpMVazQpc1NbzE&si=D2ZwDV_L4XXCfnT4

I decided to think back to all the songs that got me through life and showed I wasn’t alone to songs I just sung because they were complete brain worms. Took a lot of searching with lyric finders to compile this. I use YouTube music instead of Spotify and pandora, if I look back at either app, I am sure I’d get a blast form the past.

Auditory Hell – Assignment Bank

Freesound – Short_metal_screeching_sounds by Artninja

Freesound – z scream 26 mph 35 c.wav by ERH

Freesound – Harddisk scream.wav by sumsa

Freesound – 3-mod; 101Hz @ -10dB (AS) + 1111Hz @ -6dB (Sq) + 10101Hz @ -.5dB.wav by shimsewn

Well, I truly did not want it to be too long since it’s irritating in my defense, I get annoyed when something drops so doesn’t take much. So, I simply went with sounds that are annoying shoved them together and boom a horrible thing was created. Honestly harder to find bad sounds then good sounds. Still, I managed this took less careful layering since the intention was to make it sound bad.

My first Radio Bumper

Creating my first radio bumper was daunting at the beginning. Im still not sure how to use audacity and to completely honest I forgot that this was a tool I could use for this assignment. So I used iMovie and Voice Memo to create my radio bumper.

I knew I wanted to add a voice over of introducing the radio show and having a little bop with it. So I created the voice over in the voice memos and it only took two tries! Then I went to iMovie and created the background music. I started out with the “bright” theme music and I thought it would be cool to have a bit of a tease into the not-quite-right feeling you have with the tech noir theme of the course. So I split the theme music and cut it in random places added some points of silence like the sound is cutting out. I really wanted the music to go out with a distorted shut-down type of effect to the music but I wasn’t able to find the right tools for that so I went with a record scratch and a telephone disconnect sound effect.

Here is the final product!

Guess the song

M. Marshall 1.31

In order to create this I had to dust off my Canva skills. I googled “Beach” and found the on this website. I used a website to invert the photo and put some transparent images onto it. It’s one of my favorite songs!

DON’T SCROLL PAST THE PHOTO IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO GUESS. I will put the answer well below it, there is a hint as well.

I am going to put the answer well below this; if you would like to know the answer, continue scrolling.

Want a hint? “Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes.”

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Answer: Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift!

Tattoo that describes you

M. Marshall 1.31

When I was 17, I knew I would get a tattoo. When I was 18, I was like, “I’m 18, I can’t make a choice for something to be on my body longer than I will be in it”. When I was 19, I knew I would get a tattoo if I felt really committed to it and had wanted it for a while (like, at least a year). Now, I’m 20. I don’t have a tattoo, and I probably won’t get one anytime soon. If I did, it would be something for my siblings or my pets or something, but that’s not a super fun idea for an assignment. Gun to my head, right now, if I had to get a tattoo, I think I would get one on my ankle or arm of the Japanese maple tree growing outside the front of my childhood home. The beauty of Japanese maples is how colorful they are, and getting a tattoo with color ink and not the regular black has a higher risk of allergies, so I don’t know that I would ever risk it.

The Japanese maple in question, in all its glory.

In a perfect world; however, I could get whatever tattoo of whatever color, it would have no negative repercussions, and I could remove it with a snap of my fingers if I ever didn’t care for it anymore. If this were the case, of course I would get the gorgeous tree of my childhood home tattooed on me. I would get something like this! It’s obviously not perfect or exactly what I would want, but I’m happy with how it looks.

It was lots of fun getting to design something meaningful that I would put on my body forever (maybe).

Something About Kittens and Raindrops…

I took this picture of my desk after a particularly vigorous crafting session, but managed to have many of my favorite things in the image. I’m sure that there were easier ways to do this project, but I opted for convenience of device. Instead of loading up Photoshop on my laptop, I used Procreate on my iPad. I imported the photo and copied the layer, and made the top layer black-and-white. After that, I just erased the areas on the black-and-white layer that I wanted to be shown in color.

See if you can find all of them!

  • The Emotional Support Water Bottle: I LOVE my water bottle, and I carry it with me everywhere. I mentioned this in an earlier post, but there is almost never water in it.
  • Show Buttons: I have a pin from each of the shows that I have worked on in Klein Theatre, which is all of them! I have a display on my backpack and bulletin board.
  • Owen’s Farm Mug: This was the last trip my family took together before COVID, and my parents snuck this mug into my college stuff. It broke last year when I accidentally launched it across the kitchen while trying to wash it, so while it no longer holds coffee, it does hold pens.
  • Memory Box: I have one of these for each year of college, and it holds playbills/scraps of paper/playing cards/anything else that has something of importance to me.
  • Pothos: I have a lot of plants, but this one is the first one I got from my Mom.
  • Photos of my Roommates and I: We took these pictures at Fall Formal this year, and I adore this photo reel (and my roommates!).
  • Love Postcard: I got this in a box for a bracelet from my grandmother and, while I didn’t like the jewlery, this postcard has traveled with me.
  • NYC Card: I bought a lot of art on my first trip to New York, and this one is just so cute.
  • Dad’s Jacket: At some point I stole this jacket from my Dad, and I love that it’s getting so much wear from both him and me. It just goes with everything!
  • Work in Progress Art: I bought this right before college to remind me that I am always learning to be better. Cheesy, I know.

Trading card

M. Marshall 1.31

The assignment takes you to a website that allows you to make your own trading card! I thought this would be a good assignment for something fun and simple. I knew I needed an assignment incorporating my character so it worked out really well.

An important preface is that I never played with trading cards as a child (not even Pokémon), so I didn’t have a great idea of what I should or shouldn’t be doing. This is the trading card I made (I should probably make a new drawing that I find to be less embarrassing, and that has a nose). I decided to give her a high attack number (I’m guessing the scale is out of 100?) because in my story, the government is probably creating this pet-army because they would be strong. For softness, I gave her a 50 because she’s half cat, half robot. For flexibility, I gave her a 100 because most cats are very flexible and I felt like that should be represented. I gave her an 88 for adaptability, because I wanted to represent the robot part, maybe her robot half has a paw that can turn into different tools or something like that. I found this to be super cute and super fun!

My Logo

I’ve been developing an online portfolio to showcase my work for internship applications, so I knew this logo project would be an excellent opportunity for my website and me. I added the logo to the navigation bar to serve as a link back to the home screen and to use as the website’s favicon. My hope for this logo is that it demonstrates my skills to potential hiring managers.

I’m not very good with graphic design software so for this assignment, I used Canva, which I don’t know if that’s classified as a graphic design software, but I wanted to show that I at least have an eye for aesthetics. Typically, I prefer bright colors and bubble letters, as those better reflect my personality. However, this logo is different because I want to convey a sense of professionalism and class. I incorporated my initials and intersected it with my first and last name, so that viewers can easily identify who I am. Adding my role title was a difficult decision because I didn’t want to limit myself. However, I realized that I currently manage social media to market events, and the internships I’m applying for are in social media marketing. So, I figured if the shoe fits, wear it. I’m pleased with how this design came out because I think it is versatile and I will be able to use it for years to come.