Figurative Music Video -- Adele "Rolling in the Deep"

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What I found to be figurative in this music video is that Adele is talking about a heartbreak, but rather than show her leaving her former lover, it just shows things breaking. I found this to be symbolic of her heart breaking.

Ira Glass reflection

In part 1 at about a minute in, Ira Glass discusses the transgression of the story in explaining how one thing leads to another. This is a concept that I have used in my story already when I'm talking about funny memories from camp, and then go into my interview with Sydney about the time I fell in the mud. Something that I plan on revising with this is making it more of a surprise. Rather than me saying "that time I fell in the mud", it might be more effective to have her just go right into the story so the audience doesn't know what to expect.

In part 3 of Glass's series, he talks about taste. This is really relevant to my audio story because starting out I feel like I had a certain idea but as we progressed through workshops and revisions, I realized that it wasn't what I had expected it to be. There were different elements that I kept uncovering that I didn't necessarily love anymore but I knew there were ways in which I could improve. There are a lot of parts of my story that I need to revise and rework now so that my story mirrors my initial vision. It's hard to replicate what your envision in your head into the actual story.

Ira Glass On Storytelling

Ira Glass brings so many great building blocks in creating a great successful story. I believe that my story has potential to be great but it is missing some crucial elements. Ira talks about the anecdote and the importance of having a series of actions leading up to a moment of reflection. I think that my anecdote is good because I am constantly bringing up new actions so it keeps the listener involved and curious. At the end of my story I have an interesting twist that leaves the story pretty open ended which leaves the listener to reflect upon what they heard. My story falls short of emphasizing this moment of reflection. There is a huge underlying metaphor in my story that I think needs to be more obvious or else the listener will have no idea what it is or how to figure it out. I think what I will do is use more use of questions in my moment of reflection so that listeners will be able to figure out what the underlying metaphor is that I am trying to portray.

Ira Glass On Storytelling

After listening once again to Ira Glass speak on storytelling, I thoroughly listened to my audio file for the fifth time and yet again found things that he could help me to change. Obviously, I place emphasis on specific words throughout the piece and invoke long pauses in order to properly portray to the audience the importance of the moment. I went back once again and realized that it would be even more effective if I only use those dramatic moments at a very extremely key points, dispersed throughout.

When I also went back, I decided to pay attention to the way that I spoke to the audience. When I re-recorded my piece, I did so in front of my sister, telling her the story in order to make sure that it was conversational, yet also genuine and full of the necessary passion to get the point across. I was able to listen and make sure that those underlying, subtle messages also came across in the right way, while also leaving room for personal interpretations. Indirectly giving my thoughts on the questions I pose is the way that I want to go about this piece. Music has no certain interpretation and that is exactly why it has such an insane, universal hold on every different culture, race, and both genders alike. That is how I want my piece to be taken.

The last thing that I noted was the way that he speaks about using other queues in our piece. Throughout the next few days, I hope to find a way to properly involve the music that I love, while making it enjoyable for those who may not enjoy the same music.

Ira Glass on Storytelling

As I re-listened to Ira speak about the elements of storytelling and how to make your own interesting and exciting, I remembered which bits of advice I originally took and worked into my story. I knew that I needed to add more of a linear storyline to my abstract piece about the roof, but wasn't sure entirely how to go about it. Thus, I focused on telling the story of Firefist and White Peacock in a mostly linear way, and adding suspense at some points (such as when we would find new places to explore or who exactly Firefist was).

Ira also mentioned that you want to speak as if you're having a conversation with the listener, and not as if you're on broadcast television in a news reporter voice talking to no one. I remember wanting to keep that in mind, and feel as if I did a pretty good job of that. I wanted my piece to have kind of a mystical element to it, and speaking in such a way that would make it sound like a news story would have completely killed my tone and message.

Ira said that it is a good idea to mix in both action and reflection. I believe I did that, describing the action of the places we would go while also reflecting on the relationship or what the roof meant to me as a whole. I definitely tried to incorporate as much of Ira's helpful advice as I could throughout the entirety of the piece.

Ira Glass on Storytelling

      Something that I gained from group discussion and that Ira Glass reiterated for me is that my story, in order to be interesting, should constantly be baiting listeners. To do this I played up a faux love story only to answer the ‘why?’ with something unexpected. It makes my story more entertaining to hear. I guess I came to this realization after my original story had failed. Glass mentions that this failure is important to storytelling. He says that failure is a part of success, and although he was specifically talking about interviews, it is still relevant to my audio. 

     In part three, Glass, makes fun of himself by playing an old clip in which he places emphasis on every third word. This made me revisit my story and I realized that for some words I was doing the same thing. I wanted these words to hold poetic weight, but if I had just spoken like a normal human being (as Glass says in part 4), then my story would have been more compelling. When I revised and re-recorded my story I spoke far more conversationally. I hope that it has made a difference although; I also think that my story would sound better if it appeared as though I was speaking to my group of friends and telling them all that they have done for me. With some more peer feedback I feel confident that I will be able to flesh out a story that I am happy to turn into a final project. 

Ira Glass

Ira notes the importance of raising questions and answering them throughout a story. In the first part of my audio story, I attempt to express my concern about my inability to speak Italian to my relatives. I aimed to illustrate my struggle with being able to speak a foreign language to my host parents but not to my own family. I think that this section may implicitly raise questions about the meaning of family and their different variations. As I revise I may choose to explicitly ask those questions to the audience in an effort to be clear about why my story matters. 

By the end of my most recent revised audio story, I come to the conclusion that family is family whether an ocean or a language barrier separates us or not. I came to that conclusion after I went to Italy and saw that my family accepted me and welcomed me with love regardless of my inability to speak their language.  Perhaps I need to be more clear about the evolution from my original concern to my acceptance of the situation. I think I can do a better job of asking questions and using suspense in order to keep my listener engaged.