Personal Essay Design Rationale

The post above this one contains my final project for my Electronic Communcations course. We had to create either a Soundslide or a video that showcased the majority of the techniques we've learned this semester. This project also had to explain one of our passions. For mine, I decided to do a Soundslide about my family's vacation home in Narragansett, Rhode Island.

Our beach house is in Breakwater Village, a small trailer park in Pt. Judith. I went through childhood and current photographs and identified 12-15 that I thought would be appropriate for this Soundslide. Most of them had to do with my sisters and me, surfing, and the location itself.

I then wrote a script for my Soundslide, which I recorded into GarageBand. Since I have a Mac with a built-in microphone, it was really convenient to record my voice in GarageBand. I then recorded some ambient sound of water lapping to serve as background audio. The sound of the water is not very loud, but that was my intention. I didn't want the water to overpower my voice, I just wanted it to be really subtle and relaxing, and I think I accomplished that.

After I had compiled all of my pictures and exported my audio into iTunes, I was able to create my Soundslide (which can be seen in the previous post). I wanted the pictures to correspond with what I was saying, and I think for the most part, they do.

My favorite part of this presentation is the pictures. I was really glad that I was able to find pictures from my childhood that matched my script, particularly the ones with my sisters and me. Since one of my main points about memories from Breakwater Village concerned my sisters, I thought it was really appropriate that I could include this pictures into my presentation.

Something that didn't work quite as well as I would've liked was the audio. Though I intentionally made the lapping water quiet, I think it could've been a little bit louder. Also, I was not very happy with the sound of my voice in this project. I don't know what it is about my voice-- I guess I'm just not accustomed to listening to my voice on recordings.

I'm most proud of how the audio and the images work together. I think the pictures correspond to what I'm saying in the audio, and this helps tell a story and makes my presentation more effective. Although I had some difficulty trying to figure out the timing, it ended up working fairly well.

The most difficult aspect of this project was, without a doubt, the audio. I had such a hard time recording my voice, I had to start over a million times. When I messed up I would still keep going, but I usually had to do it over again because my timing was always off. Once I finally did a good run through, I had to go through and edit out all the mistakes and make it sound like one fluid story, which was difficult as well. Then things only got more complicated when I had to add in the ambient background audio. In the end, however, I was pretty happy with the result.

If I had more time, I think I would've liked to elaborate on this project. I have so many pictures from Breakwater Village, and so many more things to say, that it would've been nice to be able to include them. I know that I could've made it five minutes long, but I didn't want to bore my viewers. I think I made it a good length; it's long enough to give people insight into my childhood and summer traditions, but not long enough to make them lose interest.

Though this project could get a little frustrating and overwhelming at times (like a lot of the projects in this class), I was really happy with the final product (also like a lot of the projects in this class!) I was really excited that I was able to use all the skills I've gained this semester in Electronic Communications to create a Soundslide about one of my passions.