I become an FM Radio ☆//MEET BERNIE!!!!

Today's topic: A continuation of me completing my soundscape, specifically through playing around w/software until my voice became the perfect radio host voice for this piece. BUT, before we do that, I wanna introduce you to the newest member of our Crew...

Meet my kitten, Bernardo aka Bernie

Yes! That's a live kitten I adopted! Well, technically, Sil helped me adopt him 99% of the way there. Story time: I like Sil's cat, Pikachu, a lot. That, plus the fact I think having another animal may boost the mood of my aging dog (whom I love) led me to consider adopting a kitten. So Sil, being the quickster she is, looked up some forms, filled them out for me and filed them with the Broward Pet&Animal rescue for kitten adoptions, and within hours of her posting them I got a call to go pick up a kitten!

I was SUPER NERVOUS about picking him up today, I could barely sleep. Before we went to pick him up, I went over to Sil's and got working on my project (we will discuss that in a second after story time). Once I got another call to go pick him up, we went quickly on our way to the shelter and after I signed a few papers they brought out for me (stay away COVID-19), they brought out Bernie along with food+kitty litter for him. In short, thanks in part to COVID, adopting a pet right now is WAYYYYYY easier than it realistically should be. I am not complaining though, I am just pointing that out. Anyways, me and Sil brought him back home after buying a litter box and collar for him, and while my family is very surprised and apprehensive, they've promised to give him a chance.

So for your viewing pleasure, here is the first ever picture I took of Bernie! It was when I unboxed him while he was in the car.

1st ever picture!

 Anyways, that has been Bernie! Now on to actual content.!

Imma be real I do not comprehend what this means

So as y'all saw, I downloaded Audacity onto my laptop and I was hoping to use it for some ~real~ soundscape style action. Unfortunately, Audacity is like NEAR IMPOSSIBLE to operate successfully. Its user manual is 25 pages long, the interface is ugly and super clunky and the compression bars are complicated AF and DO NOT match the videos I watched and memorized yesterday AT ALL, so I had no real idea how to work audacity all day. So there I was, kitten by my side, Audacity on my screen and I was feeling FRUSTRATED. So I googled viable alternatives and came upon what would soon be my saving grace: Adobe Audtion.

After launching the Adobe cloud, a privilege I owe to Sil's email AND my sister's .Edu email (call me Parasite the way I be leenchin') I got working on Audition. For those who don't know, Audition is just like premiere Pro except you edit just sound. It's like a DJ booth for just sounds I need to edit/make for a video or movie. I googled one (1) tutorial and I followed it to the T.

Immediately, the change was HUGE. The interface was SO easy to navigate and I didn't get lost. Unlike Audacity which is a steaming hot pile of garbage.








                                                                          After, I just messed around with the settings. First, as the video did, I went to the broadcast preset and made it active which was already a huge boost. Then, I got unto the nitty gritty of sound design (it's displayed in the video but I'll run you through what I did to achieve the sound you hear):
1. Heavily compressed the bass to -6.0 (dial 1)
2. Lowered Mid-frequencies to give the broadcast a flatter, older feeling with -52 DB's (dial 2)
3. Increased lead frequencies, those being my voice, so I sound like I am speaking in an empty room with the added "bzzz" effect of the lowered Mids (dial 3)
4. Completely knocked off the treble in my voice so that there's no reverb and my voice is led by Bass, making it sound artificially deeper and for there to be no "pops" in the sound that would break from the "old-time radio" aesthetic of the sound.
5. You're now a pro-sound designer. Congrats.

So yes, I am 10000000000% a convert. Adobe audition > Audacity.

Meme made by me

Here's a sample of the new audios:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1DuKiUJVvwlCwU-MrKSmkKtXes2N1PacO

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1US39ZzwSNs2XXtL-ryWHNk1JbuVuuvJw

Anyways, now that I fixed all my sounds plus learned valuable skills. I'm ready to get shooting later this week when both me and Sil aren't busy with work shifts. Being an essential worker is #rough in this economy.
Anyways, thank y'all for your company,
This has been Gus (who still doesn't know a good phrase for signing off with).

Taking it back to 90's-50's=40's

This is just gonna be a quick post about a cool software I found. So I was googling (verbatim) "old radio host voice effect" and I found this video:

This tutorial was dope, it was easy, and Audacity was FREE???? This guy really sold me on its viability.

So, like anyone trying to make a short film would, I went ahead and downloaded Audacity.

It was a sick moment. I felt like a real sound designer and I am happy with that. Next, came actually opening her up.

So there's a lot to unpack here. That's a lie there's actually very little to unpack. This is what I first saw upon launch. I went ahead and read their manual and it is 25 pages long. No thank you. So I think just sticking to Youtube videos and intuition will help me best. 

As you can also see to the side, the interface is pretty slick, I think using audacity will be a blast. Except for that I need to learn how it works LOL.

Which is precisely why...

Google is now my best friend. Anyways, I'll get to watching videos and take this up later.

For now,

This is once again Gus, giving you your constant ambivalence about how one signs off correctly.

Coming to you live, this is...NPR

I've listened to a lot of radio broadcasts in my life. Back when I still lived in Venezuela, I was obsessed with a horror-themed public access radio show called "Nuestro insolito Universo", which was like my 10-Year-old self's version of a radio Horror "Black Mirror".  It was SICK! Then I moved here and never listened to it again...sad.

Anyways, as someone who has a lot of suburbanite liberal™️friends (even if I am admittedly more radical than they are), I have listened to a LOT of NPR when they give my rides. I even went to a Pete Buttigieg rally in, like, May of last year and they were BLASTING NPR (they'll never be as hype as Bernie rallies tho, rip the king).

Anyways, my sadness aside. I knew it was time to get the narrative crux of this short film recorded: the voice memos. First, I wanted to practice the accent. 

I looked up tutorials. I trained. I studied the blade. Adjectives. Anyways, it was too hard, so I decided "as long as I sound slightly like a New York Italian man, I think I've nailed it". So while I was over at Sil's house to help them finish editing their AS-Level opening (Hi Tstock this is me being a good representative of your helpful values), I decided "hey, I have a spare moment".

God they're ugly

So I borrowed her brother's gaming headphones that look kind of like this, connected them to my phone using the Apple inc. Certified headset-to-charging port adapter, opened up memos and went into this weird storage-style room in the middle of their house and locked the door behind me.

 So after a few minutes, I took three. Two of them I love, the other is a scrap cause I did not sound coherent or even Italian, it was like spoken-word doodles.

Here is a sample of what those sounded like:

After I got home, I decided to get ahead while I could and just go ham in downloading sounds I knew I was going to need to create my soundscape for the short film

I am becoming very passionate about sound design. Maybe it's meticulous, but even all the way back when I worked on Mirage, I always wanted it to have an intricate soundscape that was as alive as possible. Will I need more sounds? who's to say, I probably will. But for now, I am very happy I got ahead. 

Credits to the sound downloaders that made some of these youtube videos into MP3's/MP3 downloaders:

https://freemp3downloads.online/home

https://ytmp3.cc/en13/

https://www.y2mate.com/en20/youtube-mp3

Additional shoutout to old, free access radio shows for still being archived online.

Bernie Sanders has left the Presidential raceヽ( °╭∩╮°)ﾉ

I know this is not an update blog but it belongs here due to how much I've talked about him in this blog.

It happened...the dreaded day finally came :(
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/us/politics/bernie-sanders-drops-out.html

I know its quick, but I can't understate how much of an inspiration Bernie is. He was the first Politician I ever felt represented by. My family has always had struggles with healthcare accessibility, dozens of friends of mine come from working class families or backgrounds, and here was a candidate who's sole claim to fame was aiming to help us. Genuinely help us.

I want to thank Senator Bernie Sanders. Even if this is going out into the void, he deserves it. I have a lot of ideas as to what I wanna do with my life, and I know nothing is guaranteed. But thanks to Bernie, I know no matter what I do I want to help people.

To sign off his campaign, here's a collection of (like 2% of mine cause I don't mess with that 1% capitalism is evil) Bernie Sanders Media I have saved on my phone I have either saved or made:

And last, but certainly not least, my magnum opus of my Bernie collection:

This has been Gus,

Thank you Bernie. The fight goes on.

Trying to shoot w my sister: a lesson in failing

Ok so because I need to start filming, I grabbed my family's Nikon P500, I gave my sister some directions, and I tried to start shooting. 

i am going to keep this brief. It went awful. She stalled a lot of the shooting, then left 5 minutes in to go to work. I mean I have work too but she promised me she'd help. UGHGHGHGH!!!!

I asked Sil to help me, and she agreed which is great :). The one catch is that I have to wait for a week where we both have days off of work, and that could likely be two weeks from now because this week we both work every day which is rough essential labor is NOT the move right now. 

Here's some of that footage so Y'all can judge its lack of value with me:

I also got some fire B-Roll:

Anyways, when I can get going with Sil/other aspects of the project I will update, but for now I can call my shoots w my sister a bad day all around.

Once again, I don't know how to say bye.

A post on April 1st because I am a clown

This post is just to reminisce on one fact and one fact only:

*The Bernie Train has lost SO MUCH MOMENTUMMMMM :(:(

I enjoyed my first time voting but god we are getting rolled and its bad. I know it's unrelated to film but I am a clown who's put a part of the project on hold to phone bank and volunteer and it has only resulted in L's it is frustrating. Also, all my actors cancelled so I asked my sister for the favor of being in my movie and I already FEEL it won't go well. I need to:
*finish pre-plans
*finish project
*Win Bernie something
*communicate more with Jules who I have a now scarce texting relationship with which is not effective communication.

Here's how I am looking rn:

Failing to master the Adobe cloud and a fun college update :)

Thanks to Sil's email and my sister's .Edu, I have been pulling a Bong Joon-Ho on Adobe and being a Parasite to them. Which is why I wanna master more than Premiere and After effects.

Unfortunately, my computer is old as heck, It's from like, early 2015 minimum. As a result it can't do anything right. It almost accessed photoshop but it fell apart and almost destroyed my laptop so in order to move on w my life in college I will be getting a new laptop.

Speaking of college, I have good options! I won't talk too much about them here cause this is -public domain and I don't trust the government to not snoop around my personal info, but I have gotten into a handful of schools and I can start choosing now!

Am I having near daily anxiety because I haven't committed to a college? YES.

Will that go away? Hopefully!

Stay tuned y'all! Please I am losing it in quarantine!