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Every Great City
Studio 

What makes Federation Square tick? Why do people go there instead of somewhere else? I don’t know if these are questions you can answer in three and a half minutes but it’s all about the journey (of discovery), man.

Featuring Satie’s Fantaisie-valse

            I really struggled to think of new ideas for A3. Ultimately, I’m much happier with the route I took for Every Great City than Bored, Stressed, Stuck in a Rut (which I’ll discuss in that reflection). After my feedback from A2 I realised that I needed to find a focus rather than “misc Fed Square”. What could I do and how could a structure it in a way that was varied and compelling to listen to?

 

I was worried about getting enough to texture in – and, as these things usually go, I ended up with more and better texture than my field piece. I was inspired by American-style informative, explorative podcasts like 99% Invisible, which hop between producer narration and different vocal and recording textures. I’m aware that my piece is a very rough approximation of this, but it prompted me to think about the different ways information can be gathered and displayed – a phone call rather than a straight interview, the different tone my voice took on when I was reading from the internet. I’m proud of this piece, as amateurish as it is, because I see it as another step forward in my learning.

 

After some thought, I decided that the easiest way to create an examination was to ask a question. That came easily enough to me; since Fed Square is a hub for people to congregate, I would ask why. However, what was originally intended to be a serious piece was pushed into (arguably lame) comedy when my sources failed to come through – specifically the real psychology major, who was unwilling to have her voice recorded. The brusque phone call was actually recorded with an “actor”. It was inconvenient but very good experience to see how a failed idea could spark a new one and turn the piece in an entirely different direction.

 

I also worked harder to include a sense of structure in my piece based around the idea of acts. First, the so-called study, and then the casual interview with my grandma, finally leading into my reflection and sleep-addled realisation. Listening back, I’m surprised by the gulf between vocal textures; as I was recording, I imagined that my voice was essentially the same all the time. The differences between semi-scripted narration, reflection, middle of the night rambling, on the phone and reading other people’s comments was a pleasant surprise and has given me lots of ideas for future textural diversity.

 

Overall, I think this piece demonstrates a rate of learning that I’m satisfied with. It’s not especially polished or professional but I think it shows crude development of structure and texture. Moving forward, at least.

 

Bored, Stressed, Stuck in a Rut
Field

Federation Square is full of people killing time and (sometimes) brain cells. What do they do when they’re feeling chronically bored and confused? Your producer explores her own frustration and lack of inspiration through the ideas and opinions of passers by.

 

I think the limitations present in a location like Fed Square paired with my own level of skill come across without subtlety in this piece – not just literally, as I frame it around my own frustration (a concept I regret because I think it’s been done to death and isn’t funny or interesting – obviously it was born out of desperation). Listening to it, the editing is choppy and uninspired and my monologues sound tired in every sense of that word. I’m glad at least that I pushed myself beyond the mistake from A2’s Just different – rather than creating a monotonous rhythm of one vox pop snippet after another I managed a slightly less, but still very monotonous rhythm of vox pops interjected with my own thoughts, along with the (very minimally) different texture in the final reflection on the nature of the space.

 

When it came to editing, I felt very limited by the material I’d gathered. I went in feeling very vague and, even though I tried to flip that on its head, what I did gather was often repetitious or too convoluted to use. In hindsight, a moment to rephrase the questions I was asking and a few more interviews with these new questions could have provided more material to use. More conscious thought about texture would have also helped, although I did make a few attempts to gather different sounds. I have also learnt that “keep doing what you’re doing, just act like I’m not here” works about as well for audio recording as it does photography and videography; that is, not at all.

 

It’s a small thing, but I’m pleased with the way I managed to tie themes of stress and boredom (which are obviously free of location) to Fed Square itself. I think this is a piece that’s relevant to the space its in.

 

In this case, there isn’t a particular work or reading that I took inspiration from. I spent a lot of time listening with care to those in the Drive as well as my usuals and, aside from creating a piece of fiction I didn’t feel equipped to execute, there was nothing that sparked something for me. In honesty, the work that had the biggest effect on this piece is Just different, which I mentioned above. The paralysing effect of only having an idea of what not to do as opposed to what I could do comes through loud and clear.

 

In future, I’ll plan ahead and look at any future work I may need to do in order to pace my ideas. Racing into A2 meant that, by the end of A3, I was drained of inspiration. I think I could also benefit from having a stronger idea and rough plan of what I want to end up with, which is something I’ll experiment with for A4. While I’ll revisit it and remain flexible based on the raw material I gather, I think it could be helpful in guiding my questioning, field narration and collection of ambient sound.

 

 

“Recording yourself recording yourself recording yourself” – producer 

I wander through my memories of Federation Square as well as the place itself, reflecting on minor teenage rebellion, poorly maintained bathrooms, the people I see and, more than anything else, the strange drive we all have to record these poignant, pointless moments.

 

I was interested in exploring Federation Square as a collection of memories and experiences rather than a place in itself, so I decided to focus on my own history with it for my producer piece. I have a lot of memories associated with it and decided to explore those as well as including location narration to expand on the idea of Fed Square as a shared space.

After Just different, I knew I needed more variation and textures. Wandering around Fed Square with a microphone didn’t exactly yield the content I expected and was frequently derailed as I followed my train of thought. I had to rethink my piece around the material I had since I wanted the location narration to have that improvised element in contrast with the studio recording. I’m happy with the segments I isolated as I think they help round out the sense of a populated space without taking the focus off the producer.

I knew I would feature my voice almost exclusively, which is why I felt it was very important to include a section of pure ambient sound to set the scene. I decided to have so close to the beginning of my piece to create a sense of the space the listener could picture for themselves, creating a sort of stage for my anecdotes. I wanted to fix the piece firmly in its location to avoid it turning into a series of reminiscences and random observations. I’m happy in theory with the idea, but I’m not sure about my execution (like so much of my work in this course so far).

I’m satisfied with how I’m progressing in Media 2 but I know I still have a long way to go before I’m at a level I’m satisfied with. I want to focus on the complexity of my work and experiment with different textures and elements, but at the moment I’m struggling with finding a way to make them work cohesively. I think, like most of the media skills I’ve been exposed to so far, it’s a matter of exposure and practice.

I loved the way Dear Birth Mother and Tupperware intertwined different vocal textures and I took a lot of inspiration from these pieces; especially DBM, and the way it used the letter as a backbone for the feature. I wanted to have a similar sense of structure, which I don’t think I managed to achieve; it was too tempting to segment my piece into rough themes. I think losing that semi-formal structure did take away from my piece but with only three and a half minutes there wasn’t a great deal of time to establish a solid structure anyway. It’s an idea I’d like to explore in the future.

 

“Just different” – participant 

An abstract collection of voices from around the world tied together at Federation Square think aloud about their lives, in Melbourne and abroad, and come to the conclusion that perspective is everything.

I didn’t know what I would get out of the people at Federation Square, but I knew I wanted to ask them about their lives, in Melbourne and abroad. I didn’t have a strong idea of what my piece would be and let myself be guided by the thoughts and ideas I recorded. I spoke to some extremely interesting people but there was very rarely a common theme that linked them beyond the city we’re in and the fact that they might not necessarily have originated here. I didn’t really have any set questions I was seeking out answers for, although since so many people were travellers that became something that I focused on.

In many ways, I was disappointed that people were so positive (that, or were negative in a way I don’t plan on distributing) – I think the material I gathered ended up affecting the balance of the piece. I would have liked to have explored people’s thoughts on the negatives of Melbourne more than I did.

It’s made me realise that in order to get a truly balanced piece I need to ask better questions. “What do you think about x” isn’t enough – I need to be specific, and ask directly for the pros and cons. I also noticed that a lot of answers I received were nearly unusable since they were taken out of context. You can barely, if at all, hear my voice, and when I asked a question the interviewee usually launched into their answer without referencing the question. For example, a two-way conversation about if they’ve enjoyed their travels translated when recorded to “Yes; all over, lots of – ; no, I don’t think so… I enjoy it a lot, I think I’m getting better, but I wouldn’t say that; pretty much, yeah.” Not helpful.

I was influenced by Just Another Fish Story, which has captivated me the most out of any of the listening that we’ve done. I like the way all those different voices and experiences came together to give real texture and depth to the story. I wanted to try something like that around a shared experience – in my case, the experience of being in Melbourne. I think my piece has a vague sense of structure but nothing approaching the beautiful sense of flow Fish Story has.

Recording was a hurdle for me. I went out with a Zoom recorder and a shotgun microphone – which I feel are good tools for the level of technical skill that I’m at – but need to work on harvesting a clear and balanced sound. Obviously, I need to record in mono next time if I’m using a shotgun mic with the Zoom. By the end of the course I’d like to expand on my skills to produce a sound closer to what I want but at the moment I want to focus on my structural and textural skills.

My chief emotion during this assignment was frustration. Frustration with WaveLab, frustration with myself, fortunately no frustration with Bee who was a delight.

It’s clear to me that if I want to succeed in this subject and in future endeavours I need to master WaveLab. That could be easier said than done since there are so few online resources. There were things I wanted to do with my audio piece – in particular, tidy fades to make the piece lest abrupt – that I simply couldn’t figure out how to do. Exporting my piece was another problem.

That said, I can’t lead a software-centred witch burning without acknowledging that also held myself back. I listen to a lot of radio documentaries but I realise that my listening has been mostly passive. I know what good radio sounds like but I haven’t focused on what makes it so good. In future, I’m going to listen more carefully and when something strikes me as really working I’m going to take note of it. Not to copy what they did, of course, but to understand how it works and why.

Another concern I have is around copyright and fair use. I did use music in the background of the piece and I’m not entirely convinced what I did was up to scratch. It’s something I’ll have to learn about very carefully and specifically and I realise that if my assignment infringes copyright I’ll have to take it offline.

It wasn’t all terrible. I knew I would have an interesting interview with Bee and I was excited to use what I got from her. It’s interesting, but I didn’t realise the amount of pressure I would feel to represent her accurately. It would have been easy, for example, to pick out all the stories from her life and travels when things went wrong and to use those to paint her as a bit of a whinger. That wouldn’t have been accurate at all but it was important to include a few of those stories to add depth to the piece. I think I kept the balance between positive and negative fairly well, but like anything it’s a skill I have to practice.

Overall, I enjoyed making the piece when I knew what I was doing with the software and I’m looking forward to working on more.