What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of construction this product?

The microphone came with a ‘windshield/windscreen’ , I learnt that it protects from the microphone from outdoor noise reaching the microphone and ruin recording sessions .In addition I also learnt when recoding do not press the microphone up too close to the mouth otherwise it cause popping sound on into the recorder thus disrupting the quality of the recording. The next most used equipment was the voice recorder which I used to record the voice pops and the ‘comedian interview’ of the prelim task. During the set-up, the voice recorder needed attention because it had a complicated set-up such as setting it to ‘Dictator Phone’ etc. During when actually using the recorder I need to make sure I was watching the levels on the voice recorder so that it came out in high quality and there wasn’t any distortion.

Voice recorder

The constant usage of the computer made it easy for me to communicate and document our progression. Within the computer I used the editing software ‘Audition’. During the introductory process, I learnt how to set up, such as making the hardware correct for it to record. This then lead to me checking the levels so when it came to the actual recording, it wouldn’t be too loud that it made the sound distorted, or too low that I t would be hard to hear anything. Another skill I learnt was how to arm the recording layer, which allowed me record. During the recording process, I learnt how to record new stories and interviews and edit them on the software by bringing the elements together.

Audition suite.

Audition software

Audition suite.

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The key skill I learnt was not to overlap tracks; otherwise, it would sound less professional. When it came to editing large stories, I was able cut them down by using the Trimming tools and the Splitting tools, to take out the most important parts of the stories in my final cut. I already had previous knowledge about the Snipping tool, but was only using it as different way to add images. Another feature of the software that I learnt was the ability to include sound effects, such as echoes, delays which can attract the target audience due to the fast growth in interest of technical music, so adding these effects would make the stories more appealing to listen to. The main downfall of Audition was that some of the clips recorded on anywhere else, other than the software was in the format ‘wav’ or ‘wma,’ so I had to use media.io to convert the files, so they would be compatible with Audition, to allow me edit them. In addition, I learnt how to add and multiply soundbeds so it can loop when needed; I also used this to keep the story light, constant and flowing, also the music in the background sets the tone of what the story will be about.

For PowerPoint, it was for basic uses so I used it for all my presentations because I found it to be easy and efficient; also, it added more media to my blog. Sometimes, I would print screen the PowerPoint slides and save them as images which I used to put on my blog as a slideshow. I also used the scanner for multimedia purposes; I learnt to link the scanner to the computer to scan pictures and convert them into Jpeg files, so I would be able to include them in the blog. Scribed is an online software that allows you to upload word documents so it can be published on websites so that it can be viewed easily without having to download anything. Using Scribed, I learnt how to use ‘codes’ when uploading onto the blog, which is useful because it can be used instead of transferring a large file document

[Image sources; Wikipedia; Scribd, Powerpoint]

PowerPoint

During this process I used the Fuji Film camera to capture (videos/photos) moments and events such as the interview and documenting my posters and review sheets that we got as feedback. The usage of this camera helped me document everything to provide evidence; I then uploaded the images/videos unto the blog. This purpose was to add multimedia expect into the blog thus going along with the guideline of the exam criteria. Although already having knowledge of how to use a camera, I used that to practise how to take photos and to frame the image so that it would be centre of the subject.

Computer used to upload computer