Project 3 Reflection: BEATS?!

       I thought project three was interesting. My friend Karl and I really struggled to find a topic that we both cared about. I ended up picking the smoking ban and he talked about the Tiki Luau. Project three was very different from what I am used to in English but I thought I finished strong. I thought my interviews were my strongest part of my script and am thankful for my insightful friends. I learned how to compose an interview and how to make interviews flow into a script. My biggest struggle was my conclusion. I was really grasping at straws until I thought I found something that I could work with. I am a lot more confident with my conclusion now (thanks to a hint from Mr. Linthicum). 

The other issue I had was a mistake on my part. Garage band sets up the time as beats. Beats are NOT seconds. When I ended up finished with my script, I had only 80 seconds (which were really beats). I was freaking out and re-recorded all of my audio, so I would talk slow and create more time. I found out that the time was measured in beats and that my script was actually about 8 minutes long. This made me freak out even more (since it was about 11:00) Once again, I re-recorded my audio and talked at a normal speed. My final audio finished at 6:01.

I thought I crafted a strong argument. Even though I do not smoke, I was still interested in the topic. Luckily, my friends were too and they gave great quotes to bolster my points. I struggled with finding out what my topic would be, should I argue that the ASU smoking ban is good for the community? Should I argue that it is bad for the community? There are good points to both of the argument, which makes it such a great debate and I wanted to include them both. I chose to talk about ASU coming together because of the ban. I feel like this was a much stronger topic for me because I did not really have a stance on the ban and this allowed me to research both of the sides.

I have done a lot of work with audio and editing softwares. I had worked with audacity in high school but really forgot how to do a lot of the tricks. Audio is a real strong tool in writing and I thought learning how to write a script was great. I have not had a lot of experience with writing scripts but felt like this was very helpful. 

I feel like I will apply my interviewing skills outside of the university. Holding a microphone to someone is weird but coming up with questions on the spot, especially follow up questions, can be even harder. I have to get better at editing and must work on cutting things, lowering some volume and making quotes flow. 

Overall, I thought project 3 was an experience. I ended up learning a lot more than I had originally and had a lot of fun doing it.