My interviewing experience

Hi guys! One of the latest assignments in class was to complete an audio interview that was five minutes long and then edit down to two minutes. I decided to interview my wife about her career path, I felt people would find this interesting because she has taken a very long winding road to becoming a kinesiology and health science major. This involved many bachelor and associates degree switches and two semi-consecutive semesters out of college. I thought that her advice and story may be interesting to college students struggling with their major.

A concern for a lot of people is to either have to record someone or to be recorded. For me the act of interviewing as well as using the recording was not awkward for me. One reason is that I spend most of my day with the person whom I interviewed. The second reason is that I have had experience conducting interviews and keeping notes via recording during my time at the Branding Iron. Because of this the interviewing experience for me was nostalgic and I enjoyed getting back into it.

Going into this assignment I had zero audio editing experience. As a whole I enjoyed the process of audio editing. Things that I found particularly interesting and enjoyable was the ability to manipulate the flow of the recording as well as fix hiccups you may not have been able to fix on the spot. The one thing that I disliked about audio editing was the amount of time it took. To cut down over five minutes of audio took me nearly an hour and a half. Despite the benefits I see in knowing how to audio edit I think that the time constraint will always be a downside for me.

It was very easy and enjoyable to get the photo for the story. I got an excuse to go on a date with my wife and talk to her about the assignment. Afterward we took the photo and tried to include her personality and use the building as background.

The part of this assignment that was the most surprising to me is that I genuinely enjoyed cutting the audio. Before starting this project I thought that I would struggle to enjoy the process of audio editing but I found that I really liked the creative and technical control over the sound, pace and feel of the recording. Even more surprising is that I would be more than open to doing similar work again.

I wish that I would have had more time to polish the recording and my interviewing skills beforehand. After editing I found some obvious mistakes that went against the rubric that I had been moving too fast too catch.

I might use audio in the future to go along with PR campaigns, blog plug ins or online news content. I am primarily PR and print journalism focused but I love the idea of experimenting with integration.

A link to the UW kinesiology program: http://www.uwyo.edu/kandh/