ACID Day 2

Today started off with a Song Analysis exercise. AJ joined Chris and I to extend his knowledge of drumming with us. Richie's pick "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" by Marvin Gaye challenged everyone to pick out all the different percussion in the song. David's pick "Forever" by Drake featuring Travis Barker got the discussion flowing about pace. AJ shared a Keith Moon clip before we moved on.

Chris then went through the powerpoint and introduced sampling using various examples including Drake's "Best I Ever Had" which samples a song from 1975.

Chris opened the floor up with challenges using ACID. These involved what we covered today. In all, the Beatmapper, Chopper, rhythm, and song analysis was covered today.

The session finished with the students blogging about how this ACID session was the "Best They Ever Had."

The Story of Storytelling (day 3!)

Another fine day of storytelling through digital audio! The day started off with an enjoyable break from the norm - watching a film making documentary! Elizabeth explained a little of the background of the film, Persepolis; it portrays the story of a young girl growing up under the tyrannical state of Iran before and during the revolution. The story is crafted completely in black and white old style animation, each frame of the movie painstakingly drawn.

In discussion afterwards, Carrie mentioned that she enjoyed the film, though she had come in the middle of it. Jose pointed out that each of the actors really put a lot of emotion behind everything they said, even though they wouldn't be seen in the end by their audience. Elizabeth pointed out the the scenes describing the Foley Artist and his work - a foley artist is a professional job where you create the sounds necessary for a film or cartoon. The foley artist for Persepolis would move, dance, sway, using regular household items to create sounds as ordinary as the swishing of clothing in a crowd to the rolling chains of approaching tanks. For more information, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_artist

Afterwards, Paul led a lecture on SFX, explaining various sound effects in Vegas and the basics of creating them. For more information, see the examples on the student wiki: https://ita.wisc.edu/studentwiki/doku.php?id=program_knowledgebase:digital_audio:audio_effects_run-down
Paul challenged everyone to create a "story without words", a scene that is completely told through sound effects. Two examples he played were: someone coming in out of the cold and sitting in a rocking chair; and someone sharpening a sword, then fighting someone else, and then going back to sharpening the sword. Students nodded around the room as the scene began to make sense to them, as they caught on to how Paul had crafted a small 'storyline' using only sound effects and strategy.

Afterwards, break time! Most everyone sat at their computers and checked facebook, myspace, etc.

The Exploration section of the class began with Paul splitting the class up into groups to continue working on the "recording a scene" projct from the previous week. Tenzin, Diana, Nina, and Jose all stayed in the room to create a restuarant scene - Alli and her group ended up in the recording studio, though the H4 wasn't working so they ended up having to wait for the H2 from another group. Michelle, Jaylah, Malibu, Krystal were in the conference room on the other wing recording.

After the break, not many people had finished working on their projects - Alli's group was still adding sound effects and Krystal and Malibu's group still had editing to do . . . but soon after a little more work time, the groups were able to render their projects! Taylor and Diana's group shared a scene they had created of a French restaurant scene, with Jose as the waiter! Alli did a lot of the editing for their group. Michelle's group did a scene of girls at a dance discovering one another outside the dance room and going back in. And apparently, the groups switched a little since last week and they took the same idea with them! Because Taylor and and Alli had a very similar restaurant idea! Eventually, they also finished and we listened to a funny scene about people getting angry about a piece of hair in their salad and throwing food on one another!

In the midst of waiting for everything to be rendered, everyone worked on their blogs/did the learn@UW quiz. Paul went through the questions, getting answers from the students as they went - mostly from Jose, Keke, and Alli in the back!

Overall, it was a fun day - learning about editing and sound effects. Till next week!

Storytelling: LIVE PERFORMANCES!!

That's right . . . today was LIVE PERFORMANCES!! Unfortunately, even as Paul and Elizabeth tried to get everyone excited about this opportunity to exercise acting skills, things were off to a bit of a slow start! Not many people were there right at 12:15, but Elizabeth got them started on the learn@UW quiz while Paul went downstairs to find everyone. Eventually, we were all here and ready to start!

The learn@UW quiz had questions at the end having to do with one of the lesson plans - "Narrating without a Narrator". Elizabeth had the class listen to an episode from "Adventures in Odyssey", a radio drama for kids. Students had to listen to the scene and tell what was going on based on sound effects, dialogue, and other clues in the scene, since there wasn't a person narrating the entire scene. Afterwards, Elizabeth transitioned into some other examples, including a battle scene from the Chronicles of Narnia and another Adventures in Odyssey example story in which the kids get a rather eccentric substitute teacher.

After this, Paul and AJ took over with the live performances! The class was given 10 minutes before break to brainstorm and talk about what they were going to do . . . and then, when the Exploration section began, so did the live performances! Paul took each group to the conference room in the other tower to record, while Elizabeth and AJ hooked up the computers to skype the recording computer and record the performance on audacity. Everything ran smoothly - the groups got set up and then performed. The first group did a fun scene about a robbery in a walmart with really amazingly convincing emotions (including screams!), Jose's group did a creative story in which the characters, fruit and vegetables in a bowl, debated the values of vegetables vs fruit, and Michelle's group did a funny story about being in a movie theatre and talking too much - great sound effects girls! Overall, Paul and Elizabeth were VERY impressed and really enjoyed seeing the students creativity. But the day wasn't over yet! The students soon pressure Elizabeth and Paul to go do their own live performance! They grudgingly complied - Paul ended up coming up with a great story about a guy getting hit by a car as a woman is walking past. He wouldn't accept medical attention even though two of his limbs had fallen off :P Go Paul! Everyone seemed to enjoy it (Jaylah declared she would buy it if it were on itunes) but unfortunately it was the one performance that didn't record!

A taste of what the audactiy recordings looked like :)

After the live performances, Elizabeth and Paul led a discussion on them - what went well, what didn't. Elizabeth made the connection that in the future, when everyone has more time, the projects will be even better because the students will be able to go over lines again and again and have separate tracks in Vegas for editing. From there, she showed the students a BTW she had done a few weeks ago with a friend. She explained to the class how she had a separate track for each individual sound effect (fire crackling in the back, a door slamming, etc) and that she had each of these tracks named. Michelle knew right away that the 'crunching' noise at the beginning was supposed to be snow and imagined that the whooshing noise was wind in the woods by a cabin. That was exactly what Elizabeth was going for, though other students thought it was crunching leaves. Overall, the class talked about using creativity - about the fact that it isn't necessary to have snow in order to have a snow-like sound!

Afterwards, Paul discussed Theme, Story Arc, and Concept with the students. He used the example of Spiderman to point out where the exposition (beginning and setting) and climax (for Spiderman for instance, the climactic scene is when Mary Jane is held captive by the Green Goblin and Spidey comes to save her and fight him). He also talked about the Concept in stories like the Pirates of the Carribean - the concept being "the golden age of pirates". He explained how, if one has such a theme, it would be anachronistic to have, say, a cell phone appear in the movie. All these amazing storytelling techniques will give the class a good vocabulary to discuss their stories.

During the certification section, the students were released to play around with the H2 and H4 and record a short scene. Paul and Elizabeth had a few scripts they could use (one from the Princess Bride and the other that Paul had written) though most groups decided to use their own ideas. Elizabeth took one group off into a conference room where they practiced their scene (in a Mexican restaurant with two people who only speak English and can't understand the menu and another person who only speaks French!) and Paul took another group to the recording studio with an H2.

Soon after, the whole class gathered back in 3139 to blog about the day - Paul and Elizabeth emphasized getting everyone invited to the blogs! And it seemed to work! Hurray! Another successful day of ITA!!

Re-Power! HP Class Session 2

Class didn't start on time. Zon and Gavin had to wait for the rest of the students, but only four of them showed up. Regina and Aliyah were not there.

Despite two missing students and a late class, Zon resumed with what she had planned.

The class started out with Zon listing off her goals for the students. After that, the students emailed their goals to Zon and took the Learn@UW quiz. There were some problems with the quiz, because Zon made some mistakes when creating the questions.

The questions were about PowerPoint. From the look of the answers, the students needed some refreshing on PowerPoint. Which was what Zon had planned.

The class looked over what kinds of tools PowerPoint have and how it had changed over the years. After a quick review, the played a quick jeopardy game. They also went through the world's worst PowerPoint, keeping in mind on how they can improve their PowerPoint from their previous ITA session.

After a long lecture on PowerPoint, the students were finally able to take a break.

When the students got back from their break. Zon showed the students how to make buttons and link them to other slides. This was in preparation for their challenge of the day to make their previous PowerPoint better.

Since class started late, the students got only thirty minutes to work on their PowerPoint. After improving their slideshow, they saved their work and presented it to the class. However, there were some technical problems, so some things didn't get saved. Maddy's Mac number 15 kept on crashing.

When the presentations were done, the students began on their blog. However, all of them claimed they had forgotten their Gmail to log in to their blogger. So, the students were asked to create new accounts and write down their information so that they won't forget them. All the students were able to post up a blog except for Maddy. She was in the middle of writing her blog when her laptop crashed again.

There were many technical problems, so the class didn't get out until five minutes after. The students were all late to Community Hour.

ACID Day 1 - 1/23/10

The day started off with the students pairing up and listening to a song on Youtube. They had to talk about why they like the song and then share their reasons with the class. Garrett and Marleny picked "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion.

The students then learned about 4/4 time signature and learned terms such as bpm (beats per minute). Bronson and Garrett stomped and clapped in participation for Chris' example to get them thinking about multiple layers and counting beats.

The students ended the day by putting together the "Secret Song" and blogging about their ACID experience so far.

SHP Class 1/9/10 - First Session

Jamarra, Gavin and Madeline met Zon at the elevator by B109. Zon led them to the third floor to get their laptops in room 3139. After each student grabbed a laptop, Zon led them back to the elevator to their room on the second floor, room 2147.

The room was unlocked. Everyone walked in with their equipment. Zon told the students to start up their laptop as she ran to the ITA instructor office to get a Dell computer screen to project her PowerPoint from her laptop to the students.

When Zon was finished with setting up, she introduced herself with her PowerPoint slideshow. In there she had information about her family, school, Multico, and her dance groups.

After the intro PowerPoint, Zon went through another PowerPoint about the class and her expectations and goals. There were also information about managing files and various ITA accounts.

All the students had to give up their cellphones. Zon requested that cellphones should be placed in the middle of the table, that way it'll be less tempting to use it. The whole class discovered that they all had red phones.

Finally after two slideshows in a row, the students got to go onto the internet. However, they had to enter in their net ID and their password. The students couldn't remember their net IDs and passwords. Luckily one student, Gavin, remembered he wrote down his password on a piece of paper in his wallet. Jamarra and Madeline was struggling and told Zon that they should be in their binder. Zon then took a trip to the basement to search the cabinet in B109 for their binders, but before she did, she ordered the students to create a gmail if they haven't and email her about their blog.

She didn't find the binders at all in B109. She talked to AJ before she was going to leave. AJ told Zon to check B203 and if they aren't there the students should call the help desk. Zon also couldn't find the binders in B203. When she got back to the classroom, she gave Madeline and Jamarra the phone number to the help desk.

After about ten minutes everyone was logged in and were directed by Zon to their first SHP Class quiz at Learn@UW. When the students finished the quiz, Zon went through the questions and answers with them. They all seemed entertained by the Barbie and Ken question.

Zon explained to them how important their blogger and gmail were and that they'll need to check it regularly from now on. Some of the students had forgotten about their previous blogger and were asked to create a new one. After creating a blogger, the students then sent the link through their gmail account to Zon.

When all the students finished setting up their accounts they were given a five minute break.

Upon returning to their seats, the students noticed on the screen an in class assignment. They were assigned to create a PowerPoint introducing themselves. They had to include information about their hobbies/interests, ITA, goals, their technology story, and anything else they wanted.

Fifteen minutes after the students began on the assignmnet, Gavin says he was done. Zon looked over his PowerPoint and suggested that he add to his PowerPoint and try to sell himself. He tried to go back to work, but complained about how he didn't want to talk about his family.

At 2:15pm the students were told to save all their PowerPoint in the ITA desktop save place in the a folder called SHP Class under their 2012 class folder. The saving was successful!

Zon gave them another PowerPoint show introducing them to their BTW. The students seemed intrigued and nervous. Zon reassured them that it'll be easy if they are committed and fully put all their focus into being certified. She then shared her story about when she was in ITA. All the students were surprised by how Zon felt when she was in ITA. She shared with them many things and one of them was about how she didn't work hard enough to be certified because she didn't use up all her resources. She then asked the students if they knew how to check their scores for their permit test, BTW and road test. The students said no. So she led them to Panda and explained to them what each thing meant. Some of the students were surprised to see that they had passed a BTW. Zon encouraged the students to be certified in as many things as possible.

After a nice tour of Panda, Zon gave them some questions on a PowerPoint slide to prompt them to write in their blogger.

AT 3:55 the students were told to finish up and publish their blog. They cleaned up and shut off all the Macs and brought them back to 3139. As the students put away their laptops, Zon gave them a friendly reminder to check their gmail and said goodbye.

Storytelling through Digital Audio Day First!

An exciting new unit for an exciting new semester! Elizabeth started off the day with the learn@UW quiz - the class had a few difficulties getting connected to the internet and remembering their passwords, and poor Diana had trouble again not being added to the learn@UW class, but soon things were running smoothly!

Throughout the Education section, Elizabeth explained a little of the rationale behind this unit. Storytelling through Digital Audio she explained is really mostly about . . . telling stories!! She connected this for students to ages past as cultures have been passed down for generations aurally. She also explained the excitement of letting our imaginations run wild through audio storytelling - no longer will the class be restricted by the limitations of props and sets to tell the stories they desire! Now, they can tell stories at any time, any place, anywhere! Their imaginations are the limit!

After a brief review of saving files (including having the students create their very own folders for this class) and an intro to equipment use of the H2s and H4s, Paul took over the class! Paul, an experienced actor, got the students in a circle, and proceeded to take the class through breathing and relaxing exercises. Students got a chance to forget what others were doing around them (for the most part!) and just relax, making funny faces and noises to 'loosen up'. At one point, Paul asked how many students had done acting before; several raised hands! Next, Paul led the class through an acting game - Paul started the game by making a startled sounding noise - then everyone had to go around the circle quickly and imitate what he had done, with the same energy and emphasis :) Then, as soon as it came full circle, Paul did it again and then Taylor, who was to his right, made up her own noise that the whole circle imitated. Jose had a little difficulty in the otherwise all-girl group imitating the high pitched squeals some classmates were able to produce, though he was able to hold his own with a low-pitched growl that the girls weren't able to recreate quite as well! Overall, everyone was able to come out of their comfort zone a little and enjoy a little unconventional education!

In the Exploration section of the class, Paul led a discussion on old-time radio broadcasts, using old epidsodes from the Golden Age of Radio (the example used in class was Doc Savage - listen here: http://www.archive.org/details/otr_docsavage_fearcay). He also had examples of modern re-enactments of radio drama (from the videogame, Fallout 3: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D733CF970DB1143C&search_query=herbert%20daring%20dashwood). After listening to the Fallout 3 clip, Crystal queried, "Was that a girl or a guy?" Paul had explained earlier how often times in older radio shows, actors would really have to double up characters! Apparently this sometimes includes overlap between male-female roles! Though also, Elizabeth chimmed in, this could be for comedic effect :)

Afterwards, students commented on the storylines they had witnessed a little through these clips. A general class consensus was that actors need to be positive and have a good attitude - Keke commented that "you need stories that you can relate to". Paul connected this well to relatablility in story, explaining the reason that Shakespeare has endured in popularity for so long: his stories really touch the heart and soul of what makes a good story.

Anny raised her hand during the discussion and brought up the fact that characters are really important in audio, more so than in movies where you can rely on images. Here you really have to rely on quality of storyline and fun personalities to keep an audience interested.

Keke remembered a bit of what non-diagetic and diagetic sound as Paul began to explain them to the class before showing a clip from a South Park episode that illustrated the point. Good job Keke! Elizabeth certainly didn't know what those words meant when she was preparing the lesson ;)

Later, Paul explained to the students how to think of and create story ideas through the "Create Scenarios" activity, giving them 20 minutes to think of story ideas individually. Students asked a few clarifying questions going in, Michelle asked some good questions about what kinds of stories were apropriate to get some ideas, but then everyone got to work. Paul told everyone to send three story ideas to his e-mail by the end of the day.

Diana's beautiful word document :)

Afterwards, Elizabeth released the class to experiement a bit with the H2s and H4s - the class split themselves up into groups of 3 or 4 and each group got either an H2 or H4. Anny, Tenzin, and Diana seemed especially excited as they talked about recording each of them saying 'hello!' in the different languages they all speak! Crystal, Malibu, Taylor, and Michelle each went around and recorded their name and favorite food. Overall, the class got good experience using the equipment and extra excitement about using professional level recorders for their projects.

After a break, everyone came back to hear about their live performance projects for next week - after getting into groups, they were to come up with one story idea from all the different ideas they already came up with from the 'create scenarios' activity earlier in the day. Over the next two weeks, they are to write a script together and come together next class ready to run through it and be recorded!

After going through the PLC schedule and working a bit together in groups, the students ended the day blogging about the day and what they are thinking of doing for their live performances. Yay! Another successful ITA session! And next session will be the live performances!