Professor Jill Olmsted teaches students about a variety of audio recorders and microphones.
Today students learned about the importance of audio. After Professor Olmsted described several types of audio recorders and microphones, students watched some of Professor Josh Hatch’s examples of good audio from USA Today projects. Students were then greeted by Deborah Bolling. Bolling has 20 years of experience as a film maker–she even produced music videos for Public enemy–and about 11 years experience as a journalist.
She said that people have no tolerance for bad sound, so she wanted to explain how to capture good audio. After stepping outside for a few minutes to take notes on the sounds around campus, students participated in a short creative writing exercise incorporating their notes from the quad. This exercise emphasized one of Bolling’s many pieces of advice. Be a storyteller, she said.
“Journalists are living, breathing, walking historians,” Bolling said. She suggested thinking creatively when thinking about telling a story. Be sure not to leave anyone out, and tell the story so someone else can tell it in their own words, she said.
One of the reasons why audio is important is because it can create the mood, according to Bolling. It lets the listener know where they are.
In the following clip, Bolling discusses how someone might collect sound from the beach on a dull day.
