The Underface

This is my first draft of my audio essay, which deals with the social issue of image within social constructs. I used two poems: Underface and Masks, both by Shel Silverstein. These two poems deal with the idea of people conforming to societal standards in order to fit in, and by doing so, they do not portray to the world who they really are. I chose to do this topic because there is a lot of content on it, mostly due to the current rise in anti-bullying movements and the culture that is attempting to shift towards accepting imperfections.

To start this piece, I have a brief personal story, which I use to try to gain interest and bridge the gap between me and the poems. This somewhat works, but is a bit awkward. I use a number of pop culture songs that relate specifically to beauty and how women are perceived. I did not expand on them, but used them as transitions between pieces and to underscore something I had just said. In an attempt to vary the voices, I had other people read the poem, which also adds a different texture to the audio essay because their inflections and speed of speaking was actually different than I had imagined, but it allowed me to vary even more throughout the piece and avoid being so monotone. I caught a bit of a lucky break in my topic though. I initially wanted to do something with the idea of my personal story in the restaurant, but I didn’t know what topic it would be or what poem I could use. I googled poems by famous authors trying to find the right poem, one that I could talk about and connect to something in my life. On a whim, I googled Shel Silverstein poems and read through a website which offered me both Masks and Underface. These poems vaguely reminded me about my experience at the restaurant, but I needed a way to connect the two, and eventually I was able to come up with one, so I structured my audio essay around the personal story. This was the part that allowed me to use the most sonic elements, simply due to the fact that the other speaking areas where either analysis or not very emotionally charged, and this was a scene that could come to life.

At some points my speaking passages were a bit long, and I’m sure the audience’s attention isn’t fully held at all times. However, I didn’t really know how to address these issues and so left them alone. While I was recording my own voice, I often had to redo the recording because of outside noises. I recorded in my dorm, which is on an intersection, so if the traffic was loud I’d have to re-record. My fridge also posed a problem because it would randomly start cooling extra and it was audible. That was especially frustrating, and at one point I just unplugged my fridge so I could work, but I forgot to plug it back in for about an hour! Luckily none of my food went bad.

Some of the feedback that I got said that I should expand on the songs that I chose and talk about their significance, but other feedback said that the use of the songs was well done and just enough to make the listener think. These songs could create their own audio essay even without the poems, but due to time, I couldn’t expand on them. I also decided that these songs would serve well to reflect on some of the themes of my work instead of being some of the main content. Most of my concerns for editing, as mentioned in the video, were about fading and volume levels, and re-recording my introduction so that it made more sense.

In this project, I realized that there is a huge difference between listening to and doing the project on headphones and through the speaker. There was a difference in volume levels which could really change what you needed to do for the project. Luckily, I was able to find the time and place to do the revisions where I could use the speakers instead of headphones. A lot of layering was required which could be hard to coordinate, but usually it worked out. Even in my revisions I had some trouble with the ambiance, because my fridge was still running. Thankfully, I only had to re-record one section. I wish I had had more time to edit this, because I wasn’t able to make a lot of the changes to the script that my teacher had suggested and that would have condensed the project. . At one point in the semester I started editing it again, but when I opened the file, most of my audios had disappeared and Audacity said that they couldn’t be found. It was awful and I started freaking out, but luckily my tech-savvy cousin was there and helped me find the files. Remember kids, never move the folder with your audio stuff or else you will have problems! Instead just open the file, go to “save as” and save it as another name and in the place that you want it! I learned that the hard way. All in all, this was a pretty fun project, and I looked forward to editing it because it was so fun to do.