G A R A G E B A N D  x  6 0 M I N U T E S
A 100-word (maximum) introduction or description of the project and its content.
As of my love to manipulating and playing music, I have chosen to go against and change my proposal and have made an MP3 audio file using Garage Band. The Ice Addiction of Australia is on the rise and has now taken over the most used drug of Heroin in regards to how many medically noted addicts exist in Australia. I have remixed and used snippets of a 60 Minute Documentary on the problem, and have added my own sounds and Garage Band loops to create a soundtrack that drives emotion behind the story of Australiaâs Ice Addiction and the addicts that appear through out the audio file.
A 400-word (maximum) statement outlining your prior skills in the chosen area of production, your role in the production, the software/hardware used in production, and a general reflection on the production process (eg. what worked, what didn't, how you might do it differently in future).
Audio Production is not something I would ever say that I am good at as when it comes to producing music on the more technical programs such as Ableton or Logic Pro, I would have no idea where to start. This does not mean that I would not love to be able to as music is a huge part of my life and making actual music that I would love to listen to and have other people love to listen to would be simply amazing. So apart from Garage Band I have next to no experience with producing music. My role in the production was grabbing audio off the YouTube video that 60 Minutes had posted on Ice Addiction in Australia. I then dragged this onto Garage Band and chopped and cut bits out that I felt relevant to mix with my music. I also changed the speed and tempo of certain bits to create a more in time narration. After this I went through a trial and error process with different instrument samples and loops that were already provided by Garage Band. This was probably the lengthiest bit of the production. Although there is a lot of samples and loops on Garage Band, there wasnât always exactly what I was looking for, so I had to âmake doâ with certain samples even though they werenât exactly what I had in mind. Some worked perfectly, others did not. This seemed to be due to the emotion I was trying to convey (deep, dark and empathetic) and the fact that there were more happy and bright samples already uploaded onto Garage Band. If I was do to this the exact way I wish I could have, I would learn to use Ableton or another professional music production software. This way, with the use of a MIDI controller I could manipulate the sounds to exactly how I want and create the emotion in the perfect way. The effects I could put on the voices and other sound samples would also dramatically increase the effect I wish to convey.
A 500-word (maximum) response to the questions: What did you learn about digital media production by attempting this project? How did this learning align with your understanding of the emerging narrative forms possible in digital media production, and/or digital media's impact on contemporary media communication practices and popular culture?
Through the production of this project I learnt about mixing pre recorded vocals with new voice samples. This is something I have never done before and it was actually quite enjoyable to mix something so serious (Ice Addiction) and put it onto a musical track that tried to emulate the emotions that the documentary originally tried to convey. Although throughout the COM112 course I have learnt a lot about the different ways in which stories can be told through many, many digital forms, my attempt at doing so had taught me how hard it can actually be to the create emotions within people without actually showing someone or somethingâs face. This difficulty was a definite problem with me when using Garage Band as of some of the limits it held compared to other music production software. All these other softwareâs are incredibly hard to use unfortunately, which would have proved to be a greater problem. I believe with todayâs growing younger generations, the old-fashioned way of telling narratives just wonât have as much impact and will not carry the message that was firstly implied without having it accompanied by some sort of digital format. Whether the story is accompanied by a movie clips, sound clips or illustrations, I feel as if it will be taken in a lot more and be under a much stronger focus, especially from the younger generations. I feel this is why, on a kind of separate note, that a lot of learning materials for younger generations are now visually aided. A lot more than they would have been ten years ago anyway. The rise in technology among younger families result in younger children grasping onto the working of technology at such a young age that simple story telling from a book other form of print communication becomes a thing of a the past. Why would a child look at a book and learn the alphabet when they could look at an iPad with flashing colours and characters that communicate back to the child. This is what COM112 has really taught me, how fast the world is changing and how fast it will continue to change in relation to Digital Media. It is a subject and field that the human race will constantly try to better themselves at so they can make things for unique as well as more efficient.
Rights; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFcfyA1a0Hs GarageBand Audio
