Go Forward! Move Ahead!
Music right now: Josie - Steely Dan
Friday was easily the best class-related day I've had in college so far. Audio lab was spent producing live radio dramas; four in all including my group's. Each team of 3-4 was responsible for producing only. They would cast foley people, actors, and have one person mix the thing on the board. It became quickly evident that a lot of us misjudged our scripts' length and the time it'd take live actors and foley people to perform them. The first group had a whole Superman radio drama ready, only to cut it off before the actual caped crusader could appear due to time restrictions. The time limit was a rough number hovering between 4 and 5 minutes. Each group was afforded 10 minutes to prepare, 20 to record. The first group got three takes in - one to say basically "okay, let's cut this down" and two of the new version.
My group was second. Eeeee. To say were weren't prepared would be an understatement. I don't want to blame anybody else for my problems, because I simply could've been more forceful to control my destiny, but on last week's planning day, we found ourselves alone in the classroom talking about what we can use to make certain sound effects. Everybody had fled before we could even cast one actor. So we were left, like everybody else, to ask people to volunteer while other groups were trying to instruct them for THEIR drama. Chaos, but it was all fun in the end.
So I, naturally, worked the board. We only needed four actors, and few sound people, but since the project required you to involve everybody, I think we had more than one person assigned to simple tasks like creating our door open/close effect. What was six pages of stuff got hastily slashed into a mess that was maybe 2 pages long with the defiant swath of my ballpoint LaSalle Bank pen. Our first take went 5:30 before I just said aloud "okay, we're into the half hour/hour mark guys, let's take an editing break." Every group, no matter how cool they played it, basically took their narrator/announcer's "join us next week..." and plugged it in at the 4:30 mark. Me, I had to hastily shake my watch through the walls of the actor's "booth" and cue our announcer to sign off while I hastily faded in minimal theme music and stopped the recorder. This was all with completed with a mere minute left "on the clock" of our recording time. We clocked in 14 seconds short of 5 minutes in our performance. Most of our sound effects didn't get used. It still turned out mechanically okay, which is all that matters, as this class is all about the knowledge of the equipment rather than performance.
The third group to go had the same issue we did last week. They had the exact same script as another group. While I not-so-skillfully asked that group to simply pick a new script, these groups had no communication. So they quite eloquently picked up from where group 1 left off. This was the highlight of the day for most people. The only reason I'm bitter towards them is because I, and maybe 4-5 others, didn't have a part. But all of the employed sound people had fun, the actors hammed it up, and the group was well organized. They fired off 4 takes with time left for a fifth. Most takes found us trying to stifle our laughter.
When we finally got to listen to it, we found they used music from the Christopher Reeve movies underneath. Again, I hate to play a bitter card, but honestly - the music was way too high, and smacked of adding something just to attract attention and get better grades. It's like when somebody went ahead and made a video project of something that was just a poster board for the rest of us in high school. They got an A, even if the video was total crap. That's basically the story of this class. The grades have been right down the middle, but the peer critiques are laughable. People give high praise to others who put forth a lot of effort, but really just completely sucked. To give you an example - we were supposed to back time a news sounder to finish at the end of our news report project a little while back. In lament's terms, you're supposed to play it silently and time it, so that when you eventually fade it up, it comes to an end when your voicework does essentially. One guy started the entire 30 second sounder after his goodbye, creating a real awkward atmosphere in the room when we all sat listening to theme music for 15 seconds, and the lab teacher just shut it off. People who ham up simple lines in their copy also get "best project we heard" despite the fact they audibly peaked, left huge gaps between their speech and the playing of music/commercials, etc. Whenever we do group work, I try my best to correct glaring mistakes in the most passive way possible. I don't use a hint of sarcasm, yet I get completely blown off. Hey, if they like sub-standard grades, so be it - means nothing to me.
The last one was a Flash Gordon piece the group chose to introduce with the Queen song by the same name, which was a nice touch. They chose me to play Prince Barin, which I ended up doing in what was dubbed the "Kermit voice." During the take they saved, my throat gave out, and I became Matt Roloff for about 3 seconds of my dialog. Anyway, the girl playing the Princess was supposed to be entrapped in a man-eating plant. Her delivery instead suggested she was entrapped on a double headed dildo. It sent all of us into hysterics again, and got a lot of guys to come over to her after class, suggesting she go into the erotic telephone business. But I digress. It was another fun, well-produced group, that had the lucky stroke of an announcer misunderstanding her cue bringing them in on time.
Well, that was long. I've been soldiering through SvR. Took me two tries, surprisingly, to beat GM mode, giving me the desirable unlimited experience points. I'm not going to play a full season with a CAW Arn Anderson or something just to get him to respectable strength.
In the midst of that, I started reading this 500 page piece o'crap for history. It's not really a bad book, but it almost seems written in Engrish. It's about everyday life in post-WWI Egypt. I'm about a third through it, having started on Friday afternoon. Hopefully I can have this done by next weekend at the latest. I have to write a paper on it by March, and I don't feel like trying to recall big sections of the book weeks later. I'd rather suffer now.
Oh, and just to cap off what a nice weekend this has been so far, I passed by somebody in full stormtrooper garb on my home from dinner, AND all of my roommates are gone for the weekend. I'm still pretty content overall with dorm life, but it's night and day when you have a quiet place to yourself. Plans coming up - voyage to my grandma's this coming weekend, I think. Maybe catch a PPV and/or movie with Ken & Wescott soon. Spring break to look forward to in March.
Friday was easily the best class-related day I've had in college so far. Audio lab was spent producing live radio dramas; four in all including my group's. Each team of 3-4 was responsible for producing only. They would cast foley people, actors, and have one person mix the thing on the board. It became quickly evident that a lot of us misjudged our scripts' length and the time it'd take live actors and foley people to perform them. The first group had a whole Superman radio drama ready, only to cut it off before the actual caped crusader could appear due to time restrictions. The time limit was a rough number hovering between 4 and 5 minutes. Each group was afforded 10 minutes to prepare, 20 to record. The first group got three takes in - one to say basically "okay, let's cut this down" and two of the new version.
My group was second. Eeeee. To say were weren't prepared would be an understatement. I don't want to blame anybody else for my problems, because I simply could've been more forceful to control my destiny, but on last week's planning day, we found ourselves alone in the classroom talking about what we can use to make certain sound effects. Everybody had fled before we could even cast one actor. So we were left, like everybody else, to ask people to volunteer while other groups were trying to instruct them for THEIR drama. Chaos, but it was all fun in the end.
So I, naturally, worked the board. We only needed four actors, and few sound people, but since the project required you to involve everybody, I think we had more than one person assigned to simple tasks like creating our door open/close effect. What was six pages of stuff got hastily slashed into a mess that was maybe 2 pages long with the defiant swath of my ballpoint LaSalle Bank pen. Our first take went 5:30 before I just said aloud "okay, we're into the half hour/hour mark guys, let's take an editing break." Every group, no matter how cool they played it, basically took their narrator/announcer's "join us next week..." and plugged it in at the 4:30 mark. Me, I had to hastily shake my watch through the walls of the actor's "booth" and cue our announcer to sign off while I hastily faded in minimal theme music and stopped the recorder. This was all with completed with a mere minute left "on the clock" of our recording time. We clocked in 14 seconds short of 5 minutes in our performance. Most of our sound effects didn't get used. It still turned out mechanically okay, which is all that matters, as this class is all about the knowledge of the equipment rather than performance.
The third group to go had the same issue we did last week. They had the exact same script as another group. While I not-so-skillfully asked that group to simply pick a new script, these groups had no communication. So they quite eloquently picked up from where group 1 left off. This was the highlight of the day for most people. The only reason I'm bitter towards them is because I, and maybe 4-5 others, didn't have a part. But all of the employed sound people had fun, the actors hammed it up, and the group was well organized. They fired off 4 takes with time left for a fifth. Most takes found us trying to stifle our laughter.
When we finally got to listen to it, we found they used music from the Christopher Reeve movies underneath. Again, I hate to play a bitter card, but honestly - the music was way too high, and smacked of adding something just to attract attention and get better grades. It's like when somebody went ahead and made a video project of something that was just a poster board for the rest of us in high school. They got an A, even if the video was total crap. That's basically the story of this class. The grades have been right down the middle, but the peer critiques are laughable. People give high praise to others who put forth a lot of effort, but really just completely sucked. To give you an example - we were supposed to back time a news sounder to finish at the end of our news report project a little while back. In lament's terms, you're supposed to play it silently and time it, so that when you eventually fade it up, it comes to an end when your voicework does essentially. One guy started the entire 30 second sounder after his goodbye, creating a real awkward atmosphere in the room when we all sat listening to theme music for 15 seconds, and the lab teacher just shut it off. People who ham up simple lines in their copy also get "best project we heard" despite the fact they audibly peaked, left huge gaps between their speech and the playing of music/commercials, etc. Whenever we do group work, I try my best to correct glaring mistakes in the most passive way possible. I don't use a hint of sarcasm, yet I get completely blown off. Hey, if they like sub-standard grades, so be it - means nothing to me.
The last one was a Flash Gordon piece the group chose to introduce with the Queen song by the same name, which was a nice touch. They chose me to play Prince Barin, which I ended up doing in what was dubbed the "Kermit voice." During the take they saved, my throat gave out, and I became Matt Roloff for about 3 seconds of my dialog. Anyway, the girl playing the Princess was supposed to be entrapped in a man-eating plant. Her delivery instead suggested she was entrapped on a double headed dildo. It sent all of us into hysterics again, and got a lot of guys to come over to her after class, suggesting she go into the erotic telephone business. But I digress. It was another fun, well-produced group, that had the lucky stroke of an announcer misunderstanding her cue bringing them in on time.
Well, that was long. I've been soldiering through SvR. Took me two tries, surprisingly, to beat GM mode, giving me the desirable unlimited experience points. I'm not going to play a full season with a CAW Arn Anderson or something just to get him to respectable strength.
In the midst of that, I started reading this 500 page piece o'crap for history. It's not really a bad book, but it almost seems written in Engrish. It's about everyday life in post-WWI Egypt. I'm about a third through it, having started on Friday afternoon. Hopefully I can have this done by next weekend at the latest. I have to write a paper on it by March, and I don't feel like trying to recall big sections of the book weeks later. I'd rather suffer now.
Oh, and just to cap off what a nice weekend this has been so far, I passed by somebody in full stormtrooper garb on my home from dinner, AND all of my roommates are gone for the weekend. I'm still pretty content overall with dorm life, but it's night and day when you have a quiet place to yourself. Plans coming up - voyage to my grandma's this coming weekend, I think. Maybe catch a PPV and/or movie with Ken & Wescott soon. Spring break to look forward to in March.