zoo project

My Podcast project runs for ten minutes in total. It’s a sound tour guide presented by a solo presenter in narration way. The podcast has reflected the development of the Japanese Garden from interest in its specific design and its horticulture construction. Brendan Curtis is the mono narrator in this sound piece. He is the gardener in Melbourne Zoo, has been look after Japanese garden for more than ten years, following his point of view, Brendan tells the story of the Japanese garden and some of the elements in the garden and what it all means.

Brendan’s narration was throughout the whole piece, his voice was warm and gentle, and his narration was watery and peaceful. There was no such drama or impact during his narration. Therefore the music and melody has been used to responsible for the drama creating. There were three pieces of music throughout the podcast, behind key voice of Brendan. There were all played by traditional Japanese instrument (I got them from the Internet, but they all commercial free, so nothing about copyright). As I said before, the music were mainly used to create drama in the podcast, but it also works to create a sense of ‘Japan’ as the project was about Japanese garden. At the intro, a mystery Japanese folk song has lead audience in, aim to creating a sense of exoticism. Then, the sound of footsteps on grass fades in, together with birdcalls at background, drag out audience from the exotic fantasy, implies someone is come to somewhere with grass and birds. Soon enough, man’s voice appears with short clearly introduction, we then find out we are at Japanese garden. The impact I tried to make here is to create a kind of tension which allowed audience been curious and looking forward to know more about it. This mystery folk music track were used at the intro part, then fade out, and re-used at the middle of the narration when Brendan talks about the particular design of the garden and talks about the story of water basin. The reason of introducing a new music track played by tradition Japanese stringed instrument, was simply because I want some thing different to transit the introduction and the body narration. Also, the tempo of the mystery folk track was too plain, I don’t want it goes under the narration of history subject, it could be boring. So I chose to use passionate and romantic music track to transit this part. However, My decision to re-use the folk track was also because its plain tempo and mystery feeling. The second use of the folk track were all in low key and small volume compares to its first use, because of I want to drag audience’s attention out of the music, to let them more concentrate on the subject. Also its mystery feeling matches the subject that Brendan touched when he talks about the unexpected design of the garden and the temple story behind the water basin. The last music track I used is played by another traditional Japanese instrument Koto. The sound of Koto is bright in high-pitch. The reason I used it under the last part towards the end has nothing to do with the narration subject. Because of my project goes for 10 minutes, which is quite long for a tour guide (no drama no narrative), so I’m afraid that people might be get bored when they listen to the second half of the piece, therefore, I used Koto music track to excite ears of audience.

Besides the music, I largely used the sound of wind-bells, which recorded by myself at my restroom with assistance of my sister (she sways I record). The sound of wind-bells was mainly used to be transition between gaps of the narration, except used as background under the narration part of summerhouse. I suggested that the high-pitch leaping rhythm of the wind-bells sounds were distinguished enough to box of two different subjects in a less abrupt way, because of its natural rhythm and scale. Also, when Brendan talks about the summerhouse, I muted all the music, turned loud of the birdcall environment sounds, used only wind-bell sounds to create a natural scale. This is the only part I edited without music, it was special important as the summerhouse is the most centre part of the Japanese garden.

More to the sound elements in the project, the use of footstep sounds was also worth to talk about. As audience may notice, the footsteps sound was the only human noise in this podcast. It appears every time after introducing of direction indicator words, which implies the change of location. Originally, I utilize the sound of footsteps in order for creating a sense of location, as I want the tour guide to be more like a sound walking tour guide by walking with Brendan at the garden. However, as the sounds were not recorded at the location, the footstep fails at create a sense of ‘on location’, only act as a symbolism. Another sound elements in the project were the sound of stream, waterfall, and stone fall into the water, and water wave of lake. Most of those texture sounds were recorded at the Japanese garden, except the sound of stone fall into the water, which is actually a stone fall into a bucket at my toilet. All the texture sounds were appeared together with the subject being mentioned aim to impress audience with the ‘physical’ sounds. Speaking of environment sounds, audience can hear sounds of birdcalls and wind throughout the piece. The noise of ducks and big birds swim on the lake went through the second last part when Brendan talks about the lake. All the environment sounds were used to create natural scales and create a sense of ‘real Japanese garden’.

In terms of what worked well in my sound production, I think I did a good job in terms of recording quality and the structuring of sound tracks. I’m quite happy with the good sound quality I’ve obtained; it seems very clearly and strong. Most of my sound source were as good as its original, some of them were not good enough, so I’ve lifted up the levels of some sound source when I doing post editing. But the result was still good enough for me. I think its major benefic from my decision of recording key voice, texture sounds and environment sounds separately. With the structuring, I think my piece is quite straightforward as a tour guide, the backbone line is out there and the message under the production is clearly. All the sounds I used were for reasons, not just stand out there acting being busy. In addition, I personally enjoyed the music strategies I used for the production. I think it works very well in terms of making impact and dramas of the piece. But my sister says she doesn’t understand why I’m using different music under a same subject. She doesn’t like the Koto music I used at the end. She says its not matching the speaking and the emotion of the speaker. I don’t know if anyone else think same as my sister, but it might be a problem that I used too much sounds for a 10 minutes project.

Another thing don’t work well is the problem of sense of location. As I mentioned before, the sound piece was originally a sound walking tour. I used try to build in a real location sense into the production to guide audience walking with Brendan feeling in the real Japanese Garden. But I failed because of the off-location recording. Also because of the main subjects was changed during the interview. Brendan is a terrific interviewee; he provides me a lot of information and knowledge of the Japanese garden, which was far more extended my expectation. Therefore my original ideas of producing a sound walking tour changed to produce a tour guide. The difference between walking tour and tour guide was the attention to the direction indictor sense. Sound walking tour focus more on the directions to create a sense of the real location. While the tour guide focus more on the information introducing in terms of exploring the place and its story. Whether good or not, the fact is my final project changed from my expectations.

With the major podcast project for Melbourne Zoo, my original idea is to produce a sound tour in the Zoo in terms of exploring the past, the present and the future of the Zoo. My intention was to ask an officer in the Melbourne Zoo to act as a narrator of the walking tour, introducing the important changes in the Zoo during the past years. However, both Jennifer and I were thought the idea was too big and unrealistic for a 10 minutes podcast project, therefore, as Jennifer suggested, I developed my original idea to produce a ‘walking guide’ track in the beautiful Japanese Garden.

In order for the exploring of the Japanese Garden, I got contact with Brendan Curtis, an experienced gardener who has worked at Japanese Garden for more than ten years. Brendan is a delightful gentleman to work with. I firstly arranged a short meeting with him at the Garden in terms of explaining the project I’m doing, showing him my inspirations, and to discuss the interview we were planning to do at next time. Before I went to meet Brendan, I did some researches about him and Japanese Garden. I found quite few feature articles about Japanese Garden and two interviews that Brendan previously did with Herald Sun and a horticulture student from Melbourne University. The information was not much but clearly enough for me to gain a historical sense of Japanese Garden and to understand the job that Brendan did at the Garden. At our first meeting, Brendan detailed told the story of Japanese Garden from the designer to the small elements in the Garden and its symbolism. He gave me some of useful graphical flyers introduced the Garden and even gave me a copy of outline of presentations he used to do about the Japanese Garden. Also, he answered some of questions and curious I’ve got about the Garden and his job. The information that Brendan provided to me was very much helpful in terms of preparing my interview and structuring my sound tracks.

After meet with Brendan, I went through the Garden, recorded some environment sounds and experimented to record some conversations in order to figure out the best recording conditions for the official interview. With numerous experiments, I found my plan to record interviews at the location does not work very well. There is a restaurant nearby the Garden, the noise from its air-condition and kitchen are very loud. Also, the background noise of waterfall in the Garden are hardly avoided, I feel it will be too lassitude for audience to listen to stream sound through out a sound piece. As the result, I decide to do the interview indoor, and record the environment sounds and human noise separately.

My interview with Brendan took place on the following week that we first met. I sent my question lists to Brendan two days before the recording, because of Brendan says that he would like to be well prepared at the interview. We did the interview at his office in early morning. There are only two of us in the office, so the condition was perfect for the recording, quiet at foreground with slightly birdcalls at background. As the result of Brendan’s good preparing (he even made a note to response my questions, very kind!), the interview went smoothly, it ended with more than 20 minutes monologue of Brendan, which is brilliant. At the same time, the sound quality was perfect, and the structure of his speaking was clearly and logically. The only problem I could think of was that I wish Brendan could put more sorts of characters into his speaking. We actually tired few times while he introduces himself. I think he did a great job at the intro, but could be more ‘characterized’ during the narration, less ‘presentation’ style. However, I totally understand that Brendan is not profession at podcast stuff, and I can’t ask him to do something more than he could, and to be frankly, he is the best interviewee I’ve never worked with before. So I don’t think it was Brendan’s problem. If I have another chance, I will try to do the interview first to collect information that I need, then script the way that I want speakers to present, and doing the recording at last, rather than doing the interview and recording straightforward.

In terms of what I’ve learnt throughout the production, I think I’ve learnt how a good preparation and pre-researches are essential to a production project. I’ve never think highly of pre-production before, because I used to think that plan can never catch ups change, so I did a poor job on draft writing and researches. After I worked with Brendan, I start to sense that the detailed plans and plenty researches will be very much helpful to the production, as I saw how the interview benefic from his good preparation. Besides that, I’ve also learnt the importance of communication between producer and the participants. When I first meet with Brendan, I tried very hard to explain the project and what I want him to do. Because of my language obstacle, I don’t think he fully understand me. Therefore, I passed him a copy of my proposal, an overview schedule of the production, a question list of interview, and most importantly, I showed him example sound pieces of my inspiration. I think the communication between producer and participants are very important, and there are many ways to communicate. It is essential to figure out the most effective way to ensure your participants understand what we want from them. This is to say, if I’m a good chatter, go to chat with people, if I’m a good writer, email them with some impressive outlines, and for the all, I suggested, it worth to show them some visual or physical examples, as it’s the most straightforward way enable them to understand the concept.

•            Contribution and collaboration – describe what you did throughout the process of organising, delivering and publishing your seminar event. Describe your collaborative process and identify the strategies you used to solve any issues or problems that arose in the process.

I guess my biggest contribution to the group throughout the seminar event was contacting with two of our guests. As most of our group members are international students, we don’t have many ‘human networking’ at here, which means we have to find suitable guests through some of mainstream resources, likewise, Internet. At the preparing stage, we are very much struggling on the guests problem, so we decided to let everyone to do research and send email or phone whoever we thought suitable, then whoever have get replies will be the person who responsible for the guest contacting. I myself have throw out six invitation emails, have got four replies, finally locked up two guests – Corren from Potential Film and Sam from Big Media.

Besides of contact with guests, I also forwarded guests information back to the production group, and helped with producing introduction video as well as bio handouts editing. On the seminar day, I was responsible for food drinks and light control. I won’t say I did a great job on our day, because the light was not spotted on the faces of guests, for a long time they were sitting in the dark. I was guilty because I should adjust the sits and the table more carefully before the Seminar.

•            Proactive Learning – describe the extent to which you took responsibility for your own learning throughout the process of arranging and delivering the seminar series. Did you actively seek to improve your skills by extending beyond what was presented in class and what you already knew?

The biggest lesson I’ve learned throughout the process of arranging and delivering the seminar was good people skills and good communication abilities are very much important to a media industry professional. During my three years Uni life, it was the first time for me to work with a ‘Chinese group’. I have to say that there isn’t much difference between work with locals and work with Internationals, but work together with friends however makes me feel more confidence and delightful. And I think it was because of the communication. Good communication with my group members led me contribute more to the group with my ideas and problem solve. In addition, I found that it is essential to make a good first-impress to your client or people you want to communicate with. There are many chances for us to write emails or invitations, so it’s important to know how to write a nice email to make good impress. After write dozens of emails to invite guests come over to our seminar, I found it’s good to write your email in short expression, clear layout and with detailed information about yourself. Because people are usually too lazy to read a long writing email, so we need to be sincerity and straightforward. Also the detailed information about us will make them feel secure and reliable.

•            Participation – describe the extent of your participation in the seminar. Did you attend all, most or just a few classes & group meetings, the event and post-production sessions? Did you seek to engage with and contribute to class or group discussions? If not what do you think hindered this for you?

As responsible for two guests I feel I was very involved with the seminar organizing. I believe that I attended all the group meetings, updates everyone’s progress, discuss questions for guests, planning events and so on. I helped with shooting introduction video and I was there at editing suites to share my ideas for post-production. Speaking of engage with the group discussions, I think I did quite well in terms of sharing my ideas, and provide my point of views to solve the problems we’ve meet.

•            Connections & intersections – what do you see as the value of the seminar series? Overall what have you discovered about your learning, your group interactions and your networking abilities in relation to this series? How do you see what you have learnt about yourself via the process (and via the content) fitting into your future career development and future work?

I would say it was very valuable to have this Seminar series. Most of us will graduate at the end of this year and will be face the pressure of real industry. The Seminar provides us a good opportunity to develop our skills and knowledge relevant to our interested career in the industry. It also gives chances for us to learn how to facilitate networking, how to seel yourself and how to organize an events. For me, the seminar series provides me a clearly framework of how the industries really works, which led me more confidence about my future career plan. By listen to the professional stories of the guests, my worries about the uncertain of working environment and my limited technology skills have been blowed away. Most importantly, I realised how communication skills and people network building important to my future career.

Overall, I give myself a HD for my last group work at Uni.

You can find evidences HERE.

Being on my work attachment at Ulaanbaatar, a capital city of Mongolia, I gained a great insight into how TV broadcasting works in a totally foreign country. It was great to see how other TV stations worked in a developing country and surprisingly, how technologically advanced they are, and how profession seasoned they are. By working with local professionals, I have learnt many new things in terms of professional development and industry networks from them. The experience was great, as I have delightfully tested myself at the real broadcast industry using my skills and knowledge. Also, I believe the experience will be good to add to my profile highlighting my ability of learn and adopting.

There are some certain reasons for me to choose to go Mongolia to do my work attachment. Firstly, as an international student studying aboard at Melbourne, I feel it always difficult for me to find a right position at somewhere between Australia profession and Chinese profession. I believe that there is a gap between media industries in Australia and in China, in terms of its profession systems, industry cultures, and working environment. Therefore I sometimes feel worried about my future employment either I can fuse into the Chinese working surroundings with the knowledge and experiences I’ve obtained from Australia or not. So my first intention about work attachment was go back to China to find an internship to do. However I’ve noticed of this opportunity to go to Mongolia, a country where I never been to before and where I truly yearning for.

Mongolia is a typical Asian country but has huge influenced by the Russia, as Russia has colonized Mongolia for a quite long time. So I understood Mongolia as a developing country with strong Asian identity and also with clearly imprint of the Europe. It seems to me that Mongolia is a multicultural country, where I think would be a good start for me to fuse up my Asian consciousness and the Western perspective profession. Secondly, similar with China, the Mongolian national media industry is in fast developing, so I believe it’s a place full of possibilities. And most importantly, BTV is a young and passionate television station, there were very little prudish rules and clearly professional divided. People works at BTV usually carries multitasks. For example, some journalists at News Department need to go outside chasing news, edit news by themselves, then report news in front of the camera. It might because the industry was lack of professionals, so people have to be multitasked. It however provided me a good opportunity to be multitasked as well to learn more during my internship.

Generally speaking, the 30 days internship at BTV teaches me three lessons that I believe will be very much beneficial to my future career. First, it doesn’t matter how advance the technology you know, and it doesn’t matter how proficient the skills you can apply. What is really matter to a new media professional is the ability to study at and to adopt with new technology and skills. Because the industry changes everyday, which means the knowledge and skills you already have should be update everyday. We have to keep study at new stuffs and never stops assess information from outside world to make sure we are in the front line. Secondly, as a media professional, we have to have an open mind to all the situations and challenges we may meet. A person whoever works at media industry is doing a business dealing with people and ideas. People are different and ideas are floating. There is no perfect manual can tell us how to work with your team and how to deal with your clients. And there is no exactly instruction to guide us to be creative. So I have to figure out my own way to deal with people and to come up ideas. As far as I considered, to have an open mind to all the challenges is a good start. Thirdly, experience is essential to media professional as well as ‘well-rounded’ daily life. My supervisor told me that choose to work at Television station, especially a news television station is choose to live a high pressure life. It’s very important to balance your work and life, otherwise your passions about the TV will be die out quickly.

Marketing and Distribution Highlights

My major role during the seminar was seek for guests, contact with them, and take care of them. Here is some sanpshot from facebook shows my ’seeking progress’.

Our seminar will be held on next week. It seems to me that all the stuffs are on the right track. I myself responsible for two guests, and I think it would be good to forward them a detailed overview of the seminar before they come at the day. I believe that more information they know, they will feel more comfortable on the seminar. So I wrote an overview of the seminar, in guest version, which includes the time, location, the information of guests, the schedule, and the possible question list. I think it’s a good idea to let them know the questions we might ask before the seminar, then they can well prepared, then we can avoid heading off the topic, or something else awkward happens. Anyway I sent the overview over to my guests, together with the confirmation email and I forwarded to Susanna and Rena, hope they find it helpful.

Here are shortcuts of the overview I’ve wrote:

This is a 5 min sound piece about ‘the passing of time’. In the piece, people shares their feelings about the passing of time, anserwed some of questions like: Do you think the quickly passing of time is a good thing or bad thing? Why? What will you do if you can slow down the time?  Basically, this is an obivous sound track mix with voice-pops, speical effects and music.

To Listen:

the passing of time-final

By this Week we already had three guests confirmed. Hope Louise can lock down the contact from madman entertainment, or if Leona can get her friend’s friend, CEO of TVB television comes over; we will have our four guests to go with the seminar. On today’s meeting, we come up with some questions together for the seminar. As long as we confirmed four guests, we will start to produce intro video and organize handouts.

Here is a notes of the questions we’ve came up today:

Production Company vs Distribution company, what seperates these, what alliances exists, how do they exists, who benefits from these, why do they exist?

Independment vs large scale films, how does this change distribution tactics

What factors in a film decide which cinemas its distributed other than money?

What steps are involved to get a film to distribution after its been made?

What would make you import a film from overseas or export a film?

What allainces exist internationally between distribution companys?

What stragies can we use for distributing a low budget film?

Online distribution/dvd distribution. What is the future , is it really going as well as it appears?

Where do the profits go? percentages…

How does pre-selling work, viewing only trialer before film sold

Viability of festivals?

What would be the absolute best outocme/ worst outcome scenarios for film distribution?

Challenges of Australia films being distributed internationally? Also challenges bringing content into Aus?

Is there a market for overseas content?

advice from their personal experiences

How did you get into the industry

Why do you enjoy it?