audio

Audio Editing Tutorial with Audacity

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An audio editing tutorial about the software Audacity made by corps member Brooke Brown-Saracino for her citizen journalism project.

Visit her tutorial online here: Audio Editing Tutorial

Recording and Interviewing Techniques PowerPoint

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A PowerPoint about audio recording and interviewing techniques by corps member Brooke Brown-Saracino for her citizen journalism project.

Program Development and Outreach

Organization: 
Appalshop
VISTA Name: 
Julia Taylor
Program Start: 
7/2008
Program End: 
7/2009
Project Description: 

Julia works in various capacities at Appalshop/Thousand Kites Project. She manages “StoryLine,” our online story-gathering project, for which she uploads audio to the content management system, and writes the copy for the website. She also responds to communication via our social networking sites and writes emailblasts. She works with community members (locally and nationally) to gather their stories about the criminal justice system and post them to the website. She also is currently creating a plan for a google map to document these stories using new technology. She also co-produces our campaigns. For our most recent campaign, Calls From Home, Julia coordinated the targeted outreach to radio station managers, prison chaplains, and prisoners and their families. She does the background research for the campaigns and organizes content. Including partnerships with other non-profits for viral marketing support. Julia works with community members (stakeholders) to identify community needs to inform future campaigns and communication strategies. Julia also produces our weekly radio show, Holler to the Hood, which broadcast online, as well supporting workshops that train community members and stake-holders in radio/online production.

Project Outcome: 

When Julia arrived at Appalshop, she spent the first couple of months working with staff to revamp the project’s website, making it media rich, clean, and efficient. We now have an direct model for people to call in their stories and a way to share them on the web. At the same time, Julia aided in the creation of a Facilition Guide, which helps Thousand Kites be a model for communities to take action. This document makes our work process more efficient because we can now direct people to the guide, instead of having to talk through all the details with each individual community. It is available in print and online and has greatly increased our capacity to train and garner participants. Julia has taken the lead on developing our database, updating contacts, and training staff on a system for long-term use. Overall Julia has worked at all levels of the organization to build our communication, online, and digital capacity.

Julia is able to identify key opportunities, and run with them. While looking through old email to learn more about the project’s correspondence, she found an unanswered email from a poet who was willing to volunteer his time to the project. Julia contacted him about possible connections, and now his network of poets has become a tremendous source of capacity in our project. His online community of writers has generated hundreds of audio samples for our website. Another example of this was when we received an email from a woman in the Virgin Islands who is dealing with the prisoners from her community being shipped up to prisons in our region. Julia saw this as an opportunity to really immerse in a community’s issue and help them find ways they could take action locally. The group has since produced their own radio program and hosted multiple film screenings using the Kites tools.

Impact Quote: 

Without our VISTA we would not have gotten several projects off the ground or reached the level of capacity that we have. Julia greatly expanded outreach and participation in our program by local, regional, and national communitiy members through building our communication backbone, developing a model for web-site content production, and building tools to lower the threshold of working with our program. It has simply impacted the entire organization to have someone focused on capacity building and research.

Outreach and Web Development Specialist

VISTA Name: 
Christy Park
Program Start: 
1/2005
Program End: 
1/2006
Project Description: 

The VISTA worker at SCAT would spearhead the effort to more fully integrate web-based services into SCAT’s operations. For example, we would like to provide an interactive program schedule on the Website, and provide producers with the option to archive their programs on our website to allow for video-on-demand. The VISTA would also help us transition to wireless connections for all our office computers.

The VISTA would work with local non-profit organizations on outreach projects, both in video and on the Web. The VISTA would train staff and members in video and web design skills.

Project Outcome: 

Christy helped out with programing, including a monthly show called Talking About Somerville. She set up the lighting and manned (womanned) a camera and then edited the peice together putting titles and credits and music to it.

Christy attends local events around Boston interviewing and filming the community. She is currently working with one of our interns to start a show about the “issues” facing artists in somerville. She is hoping that anything from the cost of studio space to art education in public schools will be addressed. She has met with the host of another art show we do at SCAT to discuss the format of the show.

Christy is also teaching digital media courses to youth including a class on audio recording and garage band and a program called “Say Media!” where youth create music videos, PSAs, and documentaries.

Christy told us, “I have really enjoyed working with all of them. Some of them have really gotten into their projects and will stay several hours after the camp is through to finish up. they are pretty motivated (they should be, they get paid more than i do to teach, just to show up :) and they are producing some really neat youth media that will appear on our station.”

Mobile Learning Lab Youth Outreach Coordinator & Teacher

VISTA Name: 
Richard T. Anderson
Program Start: 
9/2006
Program End: 
9/2007
Project Description: 

Richard was a crucial part of the Mollie youth video team, providing youth access and exposure to digital video technology during Mollie moviemaking video projects with schools and community groups. Richard was especially instrumental in the use of digital audio technology, integrating audio technology into the Mollie youth projects and other GRCMC departments.

Project Outcome: 

Richard assisted the education department with youth outreach curriculum development efforts, developing innovative ways to expose community youth to digital audio and video technology. He developed interest surveys for school and community info. gathering and assisted with the implementation of an open house for CMC Wealthy neighborhood residents. Richard was a member of the SMART Festival planning team, an international student media arts festival organized and hosted by GRCMC..

A particular story that stands out is the use of audio resources and curriculum developed by Richard: There was a young man named Patrick who was 14 years of age and lived across the street from Media Center with his Mom and 6 brothers and sisters. He would drop by the media center often after school. He learned a variety of video production skills and produced a few short studio productions for air on community television, but nothing seemed to really stick with him. One day we asked him to produce and record a rap that could be used for promotion of the Mollie youth program. You could see the excitement in his eyes at that suggestion. In a matter of weeks he had the rap written out and beats to use with it created on the computer. Using the tools and resources Richard had collected and organized, we were able to both find a passion for this young man and help promote our programs and organization.

Citizen Press Corps Website

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A website developed by corps member Brooke Brown-Saracino for her project, the Shires Media Citizen Press Corps.

www.shiresmedia.org

Third Coast Conference

When: 
October 28, 2010 - October 30, 2010
Where: 
Chicago, IL

Ready to spend two + days with hundreds of fellow producers, artists, students, and audio enthusiasts, talking shop about radio/audio storytelling on the airwaves and beyond? Ready to come together, listen to each other’s work, share ideas and expertise, and make priceless connections with future colleagues and new friends?

Thought so. This fall marks our tenth (!) anniversary, and we hope you’ll celebrate with us over the course of another radio-drenched weekend here in Chicago.

Sound Board Quick Guide

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Organization: 
Media Bridges Cincinnati

A quick reference to an audio soundboard for use in a mixing studio. Created by Corps member Katie Finnegan.

Megapolis Audio Festival

When: 
May 14, 2010 - May 16, 2010
Where: 
Baltimore, MD

The Megapolis Festival is an annual, weekend-long celebration of the craft of DIY audio creation. Artists, documentarians, musicians, and fans come together to share secrets on producing and presenting challenging audio works online, on-air, and on the stage.

Transmission Project