Jason's+Audio+Tour

3/31/10 I started thinking about what my audio tour was going to be about today, seeing as I had some free time for the first time in a while. I spend part of the afternoon thinking about things, and what would be fun, creative, and a learning experience, so that I can take something away from the this project. A few of the ideas that I've thought of included a tour of the internet (or a specific web page so I could narrow it down a bit), a ridiculous childhood dream house, a fictional historical city, or an actual local museum exhibit.

4/2/10 Today I actually began my research. I decided that before I actually decide on what I'm going to pick, that I should research a few audio tours, since I don't have much experience with them. I began my search like most people begin searching for something: Google. I searched "audio tours" and got sites such as http://www.tourcaster.com that wanted me to pay to download audio tours, or http://www.soundwalk.com that gave me options of tours to listen to, but only gave me information on the tours and not the actually audio part of the audio tour. Later on down the page I discovered a site called http://www.oldoregon.com/visitor-info/entry/audio-tours-of-astoria-warrenton/. This site provided streaming and downloadable access to a collection of short audio tours of specific places in Astoria and Warrenton, Oregon. These were a few good examples, though I then wanted to see about audio tours at museums, since I have heard that one of the main people that use audio tours are museums and historical sites.

On Google, sure enough, audio tours for museums was actually in the drop down menu after typing audio tours. The first site that I came across was called http://www.acoustiguide.com/. It was here were I was able to download a free audio tour of the Roman Baths in Bath, United Kingdom. This tour is a long, yet seemingly very good audio tour. It treats the listener as if they were actually at Bath, and walking around, telling them to look at this or that and then describing it. While listening to this tour, it seems like it was made for actual guests that are there but don't want to get a tour guide.

I then decided to try a new place to look for audio tours: iTunes. The iTunes store was actually much more helpful than I thought. I was able to find a lot of free audio tours available, including one of the ones that I found on http://www.soundwalk.com, an audio tour hosted by Matthew Broderick of Bryant Park in New York City. This audio tour was similar to that of the one of the Bath House in format of walking a talking about the things they saw, however, this one seemed to be set up a bit more for people who weren't there as well. In the Bryant Park audio tour, Matthew Broderick paints a very vivid picture of everything going on around you as well, inserting fictional stories as well as emotions that transport you from wherever you are, to the environment of Bryant Park. My apology for the picture, but with an AUDIO tour, pictures aren't much help.

4/11/10 I decided that for my audio tour I am going to do my ridiculous childhood dream house. I've been brainstorming a few ideas as to what I should put in the house, and so far I've come up with an indoor waterpark, an indoor treehouse, a sports arena, a room that is a ball pit, secret passages, a room full of jello, a room made of trampolines, and a few others. I started to draw the house out today so that when I give directions through the house they will be geographically accurate.

4/12/10 I finished drawing out the floorplan of the house after adding a few extra rooms and taking a few out. I've now moved on to writing the script for the house tour. Writing the script has been pretty easy so far, since its mainly a creative project, however, it does seem quite long so far. I'm worried that it might be too long, and exceed (by far the 15 hours for this project).

4/15/10 I've finished my script for the tour itself. I've had to do a lot of cuts, to keep it down to a reasonable time committment in order to accomplish. After going back and listening to some of the audio tours I gathered again, I realized that there are a lot of background sounds that they incorporate. Hopefully I would like to incorporate as many sounds as possible into my audio tour as well. But first I need to start recording my script.

4/19/10 I've recorded nearly all of my tour today. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it might be. I just used Garage Band on my Macbook to record my voice, which has surpirsingly better sound quality than I was expecting. I hope to edit this all together using Final Cut Pro, once I've downloaded the proper sound effects that I need. I also started looking into getting sound effects today. Finding these things isn't as easy as I thought it might be, at least not free anyway. There have been a lot of sites that are offering single sound effects but for very expensive prices, up to the point where some single sound effects could cost up to $6.99. I'll need to do some more research if I want to add background sounds.

5/1/10 I have decided that I probably won't use background sounds in my project. Most sites that I have found cost money, however a few that are free only have limited sounds. Another obstacle that I would have had to overcome, would be the time it would take to edit the entire project together. In order to add all of the sound effects in during editing would take much more than 15 hours by itself not counting all of the other work that I have done so far.

Otherwise my project is finished! I have already recorded everything and it is ready to be listened to. Now to just put it online.