I read a quote recently, by an anonymous author, that instantly conjured up thoughts of my experience in ENGL149.
“You did not fail, you simply found another way that won’t work.”
While I loved my time in this class and loved the skills and experiences that I gained from it, all of that was overshadowed by feelings of failure. Twice, I had major projects wiped out in front of my eyes and I watched as hours upon hours of hard work vanished in an instant. The first time this happened was with our video poems. After hours of revising my poem and working hard to make it look, sound, and flow just the way that I had envisioned, I pressed the export button. I was all ready to publish the video and hopefully impress my new teacher and classmates. I had made something from nothing! Hard work had turned an idea into a product and I was proud to show it off. Then - Crash. My computer stopped responding, my video editor froze and the screen turned grey. Impossible. There must be a backup on the Adobe Cloud! Right?
That file was corrupted too.
In that moment I felt discouraged and dejected but most of all, I felt angry. It wasn’t fair that I had put in the work but wouldn’t get the result. Especially seeing as the circumstances were entirely out of my control. I knew what I had done but now, no one else would. Would my teacher even believe me? Would it just sound like the new twenty-first century excuse - my hard drive ate my homework? This was, of course, before I really got to know Professor Anderson. Professor Anderson would be patient, understanding, and accommodating of situations like this for the rest of the semester, even when he didn’t need to be. When my podcast was deleted, he understood, when I needed more time to work on an assignment, that was alright. Time and time again he chose to be flexible and encouraging rather than punitive and scornful.
See, when I lost that first assignment, I lost all motivation to put the same level of effort forward. The class had a structure and a rhythm, with each assignment meant to build on the last and I, was behind. For the rest of the semester, I felt one step behind the rest of the class as projects piled up and deadlines passed. With each coming assignment, there was another assignment already waiting to be completed and the things going on in my personal life weren’t doing me any favors. Every time I would set aside time to complete an assignment, another crisis would arise or another obligation would come up. But it was the patience granted to me by the Professor that pushed me to return the favor. He assured me that my reflection on the process and what I learned from it was more important - “You did not fail, you simply found another way that won’t work.”
Another issue was also at play. Ignorantly, I thought these assignments would be easy. At first. I came into the class thinking that I knew how to make a video, I’d made memes (who hadn’t?), I posted on social media for a living and a podcast was as simple as sitting down and talking to a friend with a microphone nearby - this would be a walk in the park! I would quickly discover how wrong I was. The truly difficult and challenging part of this class wasn’t making the products themselves, it was the process that came before. Sure, the process of creating the products was time-consuming but it was the planning, ideating, and perfecting that was the challenge. It took critical thought, trial and error, and most of all creativity to execute a successful project.
Without a specific topic or assigned step-by-step process, we all became pioneers in our own right, pushing forward into uncharted waters deciding where we were going with only a slight idea of how to get there. This also meant that we had to be generators of our own creativity, something that is easier said than done. In this multimedia age, we consume so much content that I felt that because I was good at consuming creative content, I believed producing it would be an easy task as a result. The difference between the two quickly became apparent as I struggled to be “creative enough.” What finally helped me was when I started creating things that I was passionate about and that excited, pleased or entertained me, not anyone else. I think that I felt this way about this class because of the multimedia and networked nature of the class (I mean, it’s in the name.) People often talk about the judgment and pressure that we feel from social networks and I think this concept played itself out with my performance in this class. When we create art, whether auditory or visual, it is an expression of our inner self, something personal to us whether we mean it to be or not, and the ability to express clearly through these mediums is like a muscle that has to be trained. I thoroughly enjoyed training those muscles in this class.
Video Poem
Social Media Postings
The social media postings were a wake-up call for me. I thought this would be the easiest component of the class and thought the assignment itself was a bit of a joke when I first heard it. This was because I had created things like memes and stories and gifs on my own and figured it would be easy. Well, I quickly discovered that creativity does not just grow on trees. I struggled for a long time to think of what my memes would be about, what images I would use, and what their captions would be. These images were deceptively difficult to create because of the pure creativity required. Failure after failure. I had never been asked to do a project like this, one that was completely creative and not analytical in any way. There was no right answer, just what I wanted to create. Eventually, after I relaxed and stopped trying to think of something genius off of the bat and just started spitballing bad ideas, a few that I wanted to create came out. While I don't know that these were the most impressive or creative things I produced this semester I was eventually proud of them because I had generated the concept myself. Photoshop was also a steep learning curve, it wasn't as intuitive as Adobe Rush and one wrong click could change the image into something I hardly recognized. This was, however, one of my favorite skills to learn. I ended up using these exact skills for something entirely different at my job later on in the semester and I think I would have been far more intimidated to use Photoshop had I not used it already in class. So, thanks for that!
Audio Essay
Audio Essay Script
First Draft Audio Essay
Final Revised Audio Essay
I had a ton of fun creating the audio essay and I feel as though it was one of my most successful products of the semester. I think my success and comfort level was partly due to the analytical and research-based nature of the essay that made the assignment feel like only a slight variation of something I was already comfortable with. This comfort level with the format allowed me to choose a topic that I was a little less comfortable with as a result. I had been wondering about the relationship of language and thought for quite some time so this was a great opportunity for me to dive deeper into a topic that intrigued me. I felt rewarded for my efforts when someone from our class that I had never met approached me at the dining hall and told me that as a linguistics major he really enjoyed listening to my essay in class. That was a really cool and impactful moment for me as someone had gone out of their way to say that a product I had made for the class had connected with them and sparked the same interest as it had in me.
I also thought this was a great opportunity to learn Audacity skills. I had a really fun time playing around with different techniques and effects in Audacity to enhance my voice. While I may have actually overdone it with some of the effects I still learned from the experience by learning that more editing is not always better. It was also really good practice for the podcast which was a longer form project and would have had less room for error in editing voices. Finally, learning how to harness Audacity, which seemed like a daunting and not very user-friendly program at first, gave me a real sense of accomplishment and confidence in my own ability.
Podcast
Final Podcast take 2
In this reflection, I also want to comment on the value that I found added by the audio essay and the podcast versus vs let's say, a traditional written essay for the person producing it, in this case, me, and how that value that is being added to the producer is passed on to the audience. In the production of both pieces, I was aware that the attention span of my audience was limited. From my own experience listening to podcasts, I knew that things could quickly get confusing, convoluted, or boring if the pacing tone and information being conveyed was not carefully curated by the producer. So when I went about creating my own, I believe this forced me into diving even deeper into a topic than I normally would so that I could understand exactly what information was important and needed to be emphasized and what information was not important and needed to be stripped away. It also required me to explain things in a more simple and conversational way which by extension required me to gain a deeper understanding of the material. My professors often say that the best way to study for a test is to teach the concepts to your peers, well, in this case, the audio essay forced me to teach a lesson to my peers and the podcast allowed me to hear responses from the people that I was informing.
Most importantly, I think I noticed in this project more than any other we had done before how much of a difference is made with the medium through which information is conveyed. Telling the same story through two different mediums changed the way that I thought about my subject, made me think about it more clearly, and forced me to become comfortable with the material in a way that was outside of being strictly academic. And hopefully, that passion and interest is passed on to the audience and makes for a more compelling final product for them. I think in the end that's what this class has been about, exploring the different types of media and the difference that each choice of medium imparts to the final product and the final consumers of it.
Portfolio Reflection Videos
This reflection video, along with my reflections from the above podcast and audio essay submissions, covers the differences that I found between the two mediums as well as the lessons I learned along the way creating both.
My video poem reflection is definitely something a little different. My luck with premiere was going strong for once throughout my time making the reflection video but once again, just like my original revision of the video poem, crashed and burned as I tried to export it. Feeling out of options, I decided to do something untraditional. I recorded my video live instead of using screen capture and narration. While the end result is undoubtedly less polished then doing it with premiere and voice-over, it covers the same topics and visuals that were present in the reflection video I recorded. It may have even added some additional value through the addition of facial expressions and more free-form pacing. As the rest of my portfolio has said, I haven't failed, I've just found another way that won't work. This video was my attempt at finding a way that will work.
Though I have spoken extensively about the importance of preparation and planning, these types of events are the type of things that cannot be foreseen. From this, I have learned the importance of being adaptable and having the right equipment.
Web Site Comments and Peer Review
- Peer Review Comments
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These are my comments and feedback on Dillon's first audio essay, Logan's video draft, Marlon's Video Poem, and Dillon's video poem.
- Class Comments
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These are my comments and questions from class readings like Word Play, From Print to Audio, literacy questions, audio essay topics, RIP: A Remix Manifesto, reflection videos, Photoshop and Memes, and Visual Strategies.
Conclusion
While my path through this class has been untraditional and tumultuous at times, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. This class has been one of the only classes that have ever taught me both hard skills, like how to use programs such as Audacity and Rush, and soft skills, like how to think creatively, think critically, and collaborate and network with others. I have gained a profoundly different level of respect for producers of media that I consume, from podcasts to memes. I will never listen to a podcast the same way or scroll past a meme on Instagram without a second thought. Instead, I will listen for background noise, pay attention to the intro music and balance levels, and whether or not their photoshop masking was done correctly. Inherent in this new appreciation for media is also a new perspective on the way that I express myself. No longer will I only think about an essay or a poem or a written reflection as the way to convey important ideas and think of audio and moving images as play fodder. Now, I feel as though I am equipped to use any of these forms to convey any type of information I choose. Most importantly though, I have learned to fail, pick myself up, learn from the lessons of my failures, and turn them into successes.