For this project, you will compose a short (5 minutes) audio review of one or two contemporary movie/s of your choosing using GarageBand or Audacity in the style of radio programs in NPR. In the review, you will make creative use of sound effects, music, silence, and any other audio tools at your disposal to communicate your ideas.
Your review should be relevant to an educated audience beyond campus. It needs to be written in a style that will translate well into speech, a written piece adjusted into something more “talky” — a vocal performance. It should also display originality and technical execution, and should mix together at least three audio tracks (background music, your voice over/narrative, clips of dialogues from the movie, or director/producer or cast member’s interviews/commentary on the movie etc.).
In the composing part, you should make sure that your tracks are precisely edited and transition between tracks is natural and smooth. The principles of coherence, unity, organicity, and consideration of audience and media all come into play in this medium. Therefore, your review script should be written with much care, and plan for the composition should be done intricately before recording and editing the tracks. Unless you have an effective delivery (output), all your behind the scene diligence hardly makes any sense in this media. Your final product should be exported in mp3 format, uploaded in Sound cloud, and then embedded in your website—which becomes a part of your digital portfolio that you exhibit towards the end of the semester.
Even before all that, you will write a proposal and we will have in-class workshop. Your proposal needs to extensively outline the plan for your audio review. It should be approximately 200 to 300 words. You should indicate why you believe this would make an engaging review. I will respond to your proposal. Your next step will be to produce a script that outlines your audio review plan. You will present your review in the class. At that time, you will submit your mp3 and your script.
Proposal Due in Canvas: before class on February 9
Audio Movie Review Presentation: February 21
Submit your final Audio movie review via Canvas Link by February 23.
