Week 2

TOTAL HOURS: 14 out of 80 hours


Greetings! I tell ya, I don't think I'm ever going to get used to waking up before 7 am. I forgot that there even was a 7 am. I thought that the universe went into a sort of nothingness for around 3:30 in the morning and just snapped back to normal around 8 or so. But I digress...

With week one finished, next up was...you guessed it. Week 2! Last week, I had proofed some transcripts of their new DVD segments, making sure they matched the actual dialogue verbatim. Well, the captions were added, and this time, I had to check to make sure the captions were accurate.

This was actually much harder than it sounds. I had to do some serious sensory multitasking. At any given time, I had to hear what was being said, make sure the text on the transcript I was holding was accurate, and watch to make sure that the captions on the screen reflected both. Needless to say, much pausing and rewinding was required. Every now and then, I would stumble upon a little glitch (a missing caption, a dialogue/caption inconsistency, etc.), but most of it was good. I must say, looking up and down a mile a minute really tires you out.

Once I was done watching the videos, I got to meet these two guys, Walt and Bob. When doing audio recording, the recorders like to be able to talk back and forth between the voice actors, to give them feedback and whatnot. Well, their "Talkback" setup had not been working for about a month, so Walt and Bob helped fix it. They had to run a recording session, around 1 o' clock, and unfortunately, weren't finished in time. They had to be reduced the infamously difficult method of opening the door and talking to the talent face to face. It was nothing short of a tragedy.

But, they did finish eventually and I learned a lot by watching them. Walt was actually a very cool guy. He knows an enormous amount about sound equipment and recording. He's even made music for the Sims. We were talking a bit about different types of mics, and he was saying that they range from 50 bucks to 15 grand. Now, I don't know about you, but my ear can't hear the difference at around $314.15. I have no clue why you'd need to record with something worth thousands of dollars.

And that was more or less it for the day. Between the videos, the recording session, and the whole Walt/Bob meeting, I'd say it was a pretty satisfying day. Joan and Tom were just tidying up a few things on the Earth Day DVD, and I hope to get involved a lot more in the upcoming weeks.

Week 1

TOTAL HOURS: 7 out of 80 hours

So we meet again. You, my most welcome reader, are curious about
my Workplace Learning Experience activities. Normally, I wouldn't be so quick to divulge such information, but you did go through all the trouble of typing and clicking a few links. So, your hard work will be rewarded. Don't forget to say thanks!

This year, I am doing my internship at Shaklee Corporation, a distributer of concentrated health supplements, as well as a leader in environmentally friendly business practices. I'm working under Joan Klau, a producer in their Creative Services department. While I focused a lot on the video aspect of production last year, this year I hope to learn more about audio.

Even today, we did a recording session in their recording studio. Using a program called ProTools, we recorded a woman named Jessa, as she read the script for their new Earth Day DVD. It was cool to see all the different machines and equipment. Hearing Jessa reread her lines over and over really brought me back to the days of State of the World, when I narrated our group's documentary. If only we had the kind of resources I did today. Our sound quality would have been outstanding.

My other main task of the day involved reviewing most of the DVD segments, and checking to make sure the transcripts matched up verbatim. While I mainly had to just look at a word document the whole time, I couldn't help but be hypnotized by the video from time to time. If I were a man of less self control, the shot quality might have had me drooling. Something like it would have been PERFECT for our Campaign Ads project. Oh well. What's passed is passed.

So there you go. Those were the highlights for the day. Overall, I was pleased. I was worried that things might not go so smoothly, because it was very hard to get a hold of Joan. I was afraid with our lack of communication and planning ahead would be a liability. Thankfully, there was stuff for me to do. It's just that a major deadline is appraoching, and everyone was very busy. In a week or two, we'll have much more of a chance to plan things out. I'm starting to think about potential projects I might like to do. I don't know if it's feasible, but at this moment, I kind of like the idea of setting up some recording session. I could show my teachers how it's done, maybe get them to try it out. Something like that. It's just something to throw out there, and I'll be thinking about it more in the future. Until next week!