Sunday, March 27, 2016

Peer Review for Jason Boley

In this blog post, I will discuss my peer review of Jason Boley.

I peer reviewed Jason Boley's project, titled "The Future of America Podcast". The project can be listened to here. I decided to focus on a copy-editing suggestion for Jason's project. I believe that while he introduces his information in a professional manner and establishes credibility, there are certain awkward moments in the technical aspects of the recording itself that detract from the listening experience.

Jason was already aware of the pausing, but coming from an objective perspective I was able to note that the project itself seemed to fall flat because of these technical problems. Also I believe that by telling him to focus on incorporating various other elements of the podcast such as music and sound effects, it will add to the variety of the listening experience and therefore make it more enjoyable for the audience. His biggest issue is not the content of his work, but the execution and therefore the podcast viewing experience suffers from an audience perspective and hopefully he will be able to fix this and add more variety to increase the quality of the listening experience. I also took away from the lecture in class on the conventions of a podcast, and how the audience experience and quality is extremely important, and that the audience tunes out after just hearing one or two people speak without much variety or change.

I greatly admired his ability to set himself and his sources up as credible within the intro of the project alone. He was able to establish credibility for his interviewees and for himself while listing off the credentials of those who he has spoken to before the interview even begins. I believe that this ability to automatically create credibility is a great way to do this in the podcast, and is definitely something I shall keep in mind as well.

Peer Review for Veronica Funess

In this post, I will go over the peer review I did for Veronica.

I peer reviewed Veronica Funess' project titled "Scholars of GWS: If We Write, They Will Follow". The project can be seen here. I decided to focus on a recommendation about form for Veronica's project. I believe that her content is good, but she needs to take more advantage of the creative aspects that the genre of a podcast gives her.

I believe that my advice will let her focus on the more creative aspects of the project overall. She can take into account all the music and the sound effects for her project. This will not only help fit the genre, but also it would increase the entertainment value of the project and allow listeners to enjoy the project more. I took into account our group discussion on podcasts, and the conventions of podcasts as evidenced by Project 1. The music sets the tone for the whole project, and therefore it is important to allow music to work it's magic and allow the music to do what it needs to the audience.

I admired that even when they were discussing the genres themselves, they incorporated someone else so that the audience would be able to hear another voice. It ensures that she is not monologuing for long periods of time on her own, and therefore the listener will want to pay attention.

Reflection on Post-Production

In this blog post, I will reflect on post-production.

Some of the successes this week was that I was able to figure out Audacity in order to fix the technical issues that were going on with my rough draft. I believe that most of my content in the rough draft was good so I did not worry about most of the work that went into that phase of the project but there were a lot of technical aspects that I needed to get under control for this project that I was able to do. I not only fixed some of the problems, but also enhanced the project by adding in other aspects as well like different recordings and other audio segments that really enhanced the project from the rough draft to now.

I believe that it was a very awkward time to do peer review during this week, as much of the peer review is occurring on Sunday and I had finished my project ready to go on Saturday. Thankfully I adapted and put the most up to date project on the blog to be peer reviewed, so if there are any issues at this point, then I can add some final touches to the project which I was able to do. However, that is the biggest issue in terms of scheduling that I did not realize until the time finally came and it was just how it all played out in the long run. Also, I was very nervous going into this week because I was unsure about where to take my project in terms of editing, but after class and listening to the other examples of podcasts and analyzing them, I got a wonderful idea for where to take my project and lead it to it's current state.

Next week should be off to a good start with Project 3, and I definitely feel that this is a very strong conclusion going out of Project 2. I am very nervous about doing the video essay due to unfamiliarity, however I was able to conquer the podcast with the same fears going into this project so this does give me a somewhat boost of confidence that can hopefully lead to a positive outcome somewhere in Project 3.

I was actually very nervous about this project at the beginning of this week because I was not able to get into office hours to discuss my project. So therefore I am turning this project in a little bit colder than I did Project 1, and while I was ecstatic with getting a B on Project 1, that was also with Professor Bottai seeing the project and setting me on a course with the project personally. I am not sure how the reaction is going to be to this project, but I feel the most confident with this project than I did the last project for some reason. I believe this is due to me figuring out the project on my own after initial misunderstandings with this project and the genre and getting what feels to be a quality product at the end of the day. I believe this is the better of my 2 Projects, and it has definitely grown the most especially considering this was all me taking it and nurturing it into what it has become.

Editorial Report 2

In this blog post, I will compare another 2 sections of my rough draft and final draft.

Selection from Rough Cut

Re-Edited Selection

The content in the re-edited selection actually included credits where I thanked those who helped give me the information that I worked with, such as my interviewees. In the original cut, I just ended the podcast when the content of the project ended as well. There was no sort of finality to my project in the rough cut of the project, and it left much of the audience to wonder if the ending my podcast was truly the ending or if there was another point that I was missing. The ending of my podcast lets the audience know that the podcast is over, creates some entertainment value, and allows the project to come to a natural end in the final version.

The form changed because I added more to the entertainment value of the piece. I added my attempt at humor to ensure that the audience was still listening to the podcast and still consciously paying attention, while also adding music to wrap up the podcast concluding even with the conclusion of a song as well. The other did not use the conventions of the podcast to keep the audience enthused or interested in the podcast as a listening experience, and therefore was a failure in terms of it's form. I engaged the audience with the conventions of the podcast to the best of my ability, and did the best I could for the project to end on a successful note with the addition of music and credits.

Editorial Report 1 - Project 2

In this blog post, I will compare selections from my rough draft and my revised project.

Selection from Rough Cut

Re-Edited Selection

The content in the re-edited selection hooks the audience into listening more into the podcast, as opposed to the rough cut of the project where it drops them into information far too quickly. There is not much explanation for what is going on within the rough cut of the project, and it is not effectively introducing anything to the audience the way I wanted them to. The re-edited selection introduces the audience in a much more friendly and inviting way, and invites them to listen to the podcast rather than jumping straight into it.

The form in the re-edited selection is a much better use of the conventions of a podcast. It invites the audience to listen in, and then follows up with a musical break. In the rough cut the music is playing over everything and therefore makes it much more difficult to know what to pay attention to. In the final version it allows for the listener to focus on what's important rather than having to try and balance between the music and the information.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Open Post to Peer Reviewers

In this blog post, I will submit my rough draft and leave an open letter to the peer reviewers.

SIDE NOTE FOR EVERYONE VIEWING THIS THAT WANTS TO PEER REVIEW: Please peer review this link rather than the link below. This is the closest thing to the final project that will be turned in this weekend.

Here is a link to my project and here is a link to my script.

I definitely want to see how the content of the project is working out. There are certain technical aspects of the project that I am aware of already that need to be fixed. However in terms of the legitimate content and answering the question that the project wants us to answer, I want to be sure of what it is that I am doing right or that I am doing wrong.

I am aware of the music being a problem and random moments being too long with pauses, and random moments seeming to cut into place. I plan on re-recording in order to fix these problems, and they will not be an issue in the final draft. The technical problems are the errors that I am aware of going into this project.

I believe that I try to keep to the content very well, and I believe that I try to stick to what the topic is asking for and I do not think that I go off on irrelevant tangents that are not relevant to the project itself. I am very curious as to how this plays with the audience, and what I need to work on in this area to ensure that this really is a strength of mine.

Reflection on Production

In this blog post, I will reflect on the production process.

Some of the major successes that I had were being able to stay on topic with everything that needed to get done so that nothing felt rushed. While some of this time management was improvised, at no point did I ever truly allow myself to get overwhelmed with work, and it was never a question of whether or not I was going to be able to get the work done. Due to my planning of the production schedule, the two major events that needed to get done was the script and the recording itself. Because I had laid out these two events as important in my production calendar, I made sure that they would get done on time with plenty of wiggle room to spare.

Some of the problems was that while I did give myself enough time to do the work, I did not follow the production schedule as well as I should have. I had planned on giving myself from Wednesday to Friday to complete a script for the project, and the work ended up getting done completely on Saturday. While this was fine and ensured that the work would be ready for Sunday, it did not give me the right enough amount of time to do the work I wanted to the best of my ability. Also learning how to use Audacity was a struggle, and while I was able to figure it out enough to complete a rough draft of the project, there are many things with this program that I still need to learn in order to successfully edit the work I have done.

I think the post-production week will go fine, because I am completely caught up on all the work that needs to get done. There is no catching up or finishing that needs to be done, so I can adequately focus on revising my rough draft and ensuring that it is ready for the final. I am also ready for peer review to look at the content of my work and see how well of a job I have really done on the work.

I definitely believe there is a lot of work to get done, and this is definitely a rough draft of the project. However, I believe that there are plenty of edits going forward that I am ready to make completely on my own without being told what is wrong with the project, so much of the technical aspects of the project I am aware of and prepared to work on. The biggest problem that I need to take care of is the content itself and see what it is that I am missing, or possibly misunderstanding.

Production Report 2

In this blog post, I will compare another section of my outline to the rough draft.

Outline Item

I am then going to analyze the work of how workshops are constructed by their authors. Due to my inability to experience one on such a short notice of time, I shall use videos published by professional companies on YouTube

Adaptation of Outline Item


The next genre that I am going to discuss is the workshop. To start off, I am going to introduce an interview segment with Dr. Barbara McKean where she discusses the advantages of completing a workshop as opposed to other forms of communication of information. 

Interview here

The main focus of the workshop that I am going to review is a workshop conducted by Broadway actress, Kristin Chenoweth and follow it up with workshops completed by Yours Truly Theatre and the British International School.

The above is a part of the script, and also inserted between the two sections is a segment of an interview with Dr. Barbara McKean. I decided that inserting the audio of the interview broke it up and allowed the audience to hear another voice rather than mine. I also inserted music in the background as well, to try and blend all these different forms of audio together. 

I was able to do it eventually, however adding the interview into the middle of the already recorded audio was difficult, and the music in the background can overpower McKean as well. This is something that I intend to fix for the final draft, and will be sure to make sure this turns out successfully.

Production Report 1

In this blog post, I am going to compare the outline to the rough draft.

Outline Item

      • Theater is named after Chenoweth
      • Wants to make it a yearly thing for her and her “Broadway friends”
        • While this is credible, the pretension in that is worth noting.
      • Her ending the show with her singing

Adaptation of Outline Item

Her focus on credibility begins right from the beginning of the workshop, as the theater the workshop took place in was named after her. Those who attend this workshop know automatically who she is, and are immediately influenced by her level of importance in the theatre just from entering the building. She also references other credible sources by slipping a mention in passing that she wishes to conduct further workshops annually taught by her and her “Broadway friends”. If this mention were made by someone who was not credible this statement could also be dismissed as meaningless, but due to Chenoweth already establishing her credibility before the audience took their seats in the workshop, this further increased the importance of her words, and therefore ensured that the audience took her seriously. They also did as well, as following this moment she was met with unanimous applause. To cement her credibility, Chenoweth ended the workshop with a performance of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.

The above is part of the script for what I put into the actual draft of my podcast, due to technical difficulties from cutting the individual piece from my project. I decided to try and summarize and quote from what she had actually said at the workshop itself. Also the genre of podcast influenced me as I had background music of Chenoweth singing in the background. I tried to blend other forms of audio such as talking and music together within this podcast piece.

The music was difficult to try and place into the program because the music was not coming up in my folder so I had to add the music individually, and then change the format that the music was playing in as well. Also the music volume levels provided some difficulty, but that can be talked about in more detail in the next production report.

Monday, March 7, 2016

Reflection on Pre-Production

In this blog post, I will reflect on pre-production week.

I feel like pre-production week went rather well, and I feel very prepared going into this coming week. I believe that creating the schedule is already holding me to my word, as I am making sure that everything I have set up to do everyday is getting done. Even looking at the production calendar, it is being checked off as time passes as I make sure I try to stick to what I planned for myself. For example, the sound system was decided and therefore the calendar needed to be altered before posting.

My biggest problems coming out of this week is that I feel like most of my focus was spent on figuring out the coming week rather than dealing with much of pre-production. I feel like things were a bit more convoluted just because of the drastic shift in how the project was organized due to the class cancellation and schedule alterations. I also believe that the production schedule is not as detailed as it could be because I have to try and keep in mind what is getting done. For example, my project starts off very specific and gets more general as the week goes on.

I am very hopeful for next week because I have set up a schedule for myself that I have to ensure I stick to. I am the kind of person that needs to set a very specific time to get work done in order to get things done. For example I am the kind of person who would say "I am going to do my homework" and never do it, but if I say "I am going to do my homework starting at 6:30" then I will start my homework at least around 6:45 after 15 minutes of procrastination and YouTube exploring.

I am a bit nervous just because of the amount of work that is going to have to go into this project, and I believe that this project is the most vague of any of the projects. I believe I understand the prompt fully, but I have this very uneasy feeling that I am missing something. I do believe that this might be personal paranoia but it's still there.

Production Schedule

In this blog post, I will detail out a production schedule for Project 2.

Here is a list for what I plan to get done this week in order to stay on track with Project 2:
  • By Monday March 7: Will gather materials to complete Project 2 
    • Macbook
  • On Monday March 7: Will decide on which program in which to record the podcast, whether that be on the MacBook or PC
    • PC - Audacity
  • By Wednesday March 9: Will familiarize self with all of the genre examples
    • Reread The Vagina Monologues 
    • Reread A Doll House
    • Reread The Harvest
    • Reread Dr. Byrne's entry
    • Reread Dr. McKean's entry
    • Read entry from Theatre Research International
    • Watch workshop by Yours Truly Theatre
    • Watch workshop by the British International School
    • Re-watch workshop by Kristin Chenoweth
  • On Wednesday March 9: Will begin writing a script for the podcast and detailing out exactly what I am going to say.
    • Detailed out analysis of how the plays are constructed, with the main focus being on The Vagina Monologues
    • Detailed out analysis of how the entries are constructed, with the main focus being on Dr. Byrne's workshop
    • Detailed out analysis of how the workshops are constructed, with the main focus being on workshop done by Kristin Chenoweth
  • By Friday March 11: Will complete script for the podcast
  • On Friday March 11: Will complete recording the script in it's entirety for the podcast
    • In study room in the library
    • In the study rooms of the second floor of Yuma Hall
  • On Saturday March 12: Will ensure that rough cut of video is adequate and fully recorded, and post to the blog for peer review

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Content Outline

In this blog post, I am going to detail out an outline for my project from beginning, middle, to end.

To start off the project, I am going to detail out the "genetic makeup" for some of the most common genres that occur in the theatre. In my case this happens to be the play (specifically politically thematic plays), *the academic journal entry*, and the workshop. I am going to give a brief description about what all of these genres are, what their relation is to one another and/or to theatre in general.

I am going to describe how plays all vary in their structure or purpose, but that plays with a political message all contain examples of their theme as to show an example for the audience (The Harvest and globalization, Vagina Monologues and women, Doll House and independence). I will also detail out that while there are similarities between the content of a workshop and an academic journal entry, their execution is what drastically distinguishes the two (The difference between a workshop and a journal published about Shakespeare)

The bulk of my project shall be spent analyzing how each piece of work is constructed.
  • For plays, my main subject of analysis is going to be The Vagina Monologues written by Eve Ensler with supporting texts being The Harvest and A Doll House.
    • The sets of each production, if any, and their construction and how that can translate into pathos, logos, ethos?
    • Focus on emotional appeals - shocking statistics and personal stories
      • Not-So-Happy Fact
      • Because He Liked To Look At It
        • Men and femininity (Doll House)
      • My Vagina Was My Village
      • They beat the girl out of my boy...or so they tried
  • I am then going to analyze the work of how workshops are constructed by their authors. Due to my inability to experience one on such a short notice of time, I shall use videos published by professional companies on YouTube, featuring the workshops performed by Yours Truly Theatre, the British International School, and a workshop performed by actress, Kristin Chenoweth.
    • Differences on how those in America construct theatre as opposed to other countries (Yours Truly in India)
    • Focus on credibility-based appeals - info about the authors expertise, reference to credible sources
      • Theater is named after Chenoweth
      • Wants to make it a yearly thing for her and her “Broadway friends”
        • While this is credible, the pretension in that is worth noting.
      • Her ending the show with her singing
        • “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is her signature song? What?
The end of my project will summarize all of the work in full, and explain what the author was overall trying to accomplish and their effectiveness in doing so based off the decisions that they made in their rhetorical strategies. For example, are the facts/statistics in The Vagina Monologues influential and overall aid or hinder what Eve Ensler is trying to communicate to her audience, and in this example I will say yes and go on to elaborate how and why it does. I shall do this for all of my genres.