Stage 1

Before looking at the transcripts/interviews, we thought a good starting point would be do find women who were born in different decades, and then to compare different aspects about their jazz careers and how they differ in time. Next, we went ahead and chose 4 women jazz artists in different decades, so that each group member could be assigned one musician. We distinguished what decade they were from by looking at the Jazz Archives. The women we chose were: Jane Ira Bloom, Vi Redd, Joanne Brackeen and Genevieve Rose. Then we brainstormed ideas for what might be interesting aspects to compare across these different women in jazz. The topics we chose were: childhood, wages, access to the stage, as well as leadership roles or roles within different bands. We continued to create a thesis, and assumed that we would see a general trend that women in jazz, as time goes on, have a bigger presence and that it is easier for them to have a career in jazz than it was earlier on. Without looking at the transcripts, we continued to plan: we decided that each group participant would focus on one musician, gather information related to our comparison topics and from there, we assigned each group member to one of the four topics that were to be compared.
Process 1

Stage 2

In class we made a scalar account and made a new project. We learned how to edit videos with quicktime player. In class we tried to upload a video that we cut onto scalar but we were unsuccessful. We assigned Molly and Katherine to Scalar webinar, Jenna as the researcher, Katherine as the videographer and Kylie as the writer. We then started to look at the transcripts and realized the information we were seeking was not included in the transcripts. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize how hard it would be to find specific information across several different individuals in order to compare their jazz careers (this points back to the fact that there is not a lot of information about women in jazz.)

Stage 3

We worked together to create a new thesis. We agreed that our next step was to first read the transcripts and then decide on a new project goal. After reading the transcripts we decided that childhood had a great influence on all of the musicians we chose and thought it would be interesting to enlighten people about how childhood influenced their career choice/ instrument choice.
Process 2

Stage 4

We created the transcripts that we wished to upload onto the scalar page in a google doc. Then, we moved our efforts into the Scalar Page. Katherine trimmed the interviews, and Molly uploaded them to Youtube in order to import them into scalar. We began playing with the format of Scalar, and learned how to make aesthetic changes within the page (this was very hard, and we still have no mastered it).

Stage 5

    We prepared for the in class presentation by going through the Scalar project, and picking out information that we thought was most important to an audience with no prior knowledge about our assignment or project. We divided the slides amongst the four of us, and present in class.
Process 3

Stage 6

    The final stage in project was to finalize all pages in Scalar. We wanted to make the scalar project as easy and aesthetically pleasing as possible. We came across several difficulties with formatting. Ultimately we determined the best way to create the pages was to use google docs to copy & paste text into the pages. We concluded our work on our scalar project by adding descriptions to interviews and touching up on other visual aspects of the project.

Tentative process outline:

I.               Each person in the group researches their person

a.     Include graphics, audio, and an short mini essay

II.             coming together as a group and trying to pull out major themes

a.     decide how we can connect and display the themes in a way that tells a narrative

b.     maybe decide on a certain argument or stance we want to be the main body/ glue holding the site together

III.           Cutting it down

a.     Deciding what material is the most valuable to our site

IV.           Start outlining how we want to present the information

a.     In what order

b.     How? Time, person by person, influences etc.

V.             Starting to piece it together on the site

a.     Finding the narrative in a visual form and audio form

VI.           Working on making the site visually attractive

a.     Really focusing on the design and interactivity of the site

VII.         Fine tuning

a.     Getting rid of no essential text, visuals audio

b.     Really making the site flow and tell a powerful narrative