Audio Story Draft – MHBA Promotional Audio Story: “Why Hire an MHBA Builder?”
For my audio story, I decided to create a promotional clip in which outlines the benefits of hiring an MHBA Builder member when building a brand-new home.
Background on the MHBA:
The Manitoba Home Builders’ Association is a non-profit trade association providing members and the general public information about the housing industry in the Province of Manitoba. The association is comprised of companies such as home builders, land developers, renovators, manufacturers, suppliers amongst other companies who contribute to the housing industry.
Not all home builders in the Province of Manitoba are required to be a member of the association, therefore the association strives to educate the public to put their trust in companies who are members. When hiring an MHBA builder, the customer gains the benefit of hiring a reputable company. All MHBA builders are mandated by the association to have a safety program in place, in addition to carrying a third-party warranty provider to give homeowners peach of mind.
Purpose of the Audio Story:
The purpose of the audio story is to highlight the benefits of hiring an MHBA Builder member. The target audience of this promotional audio piece are families who are seeking to build a brand-new home. The audio details the benefits of hiring an MHBA member such as Safety and Warranty, and in the end has a call to action encouraging listeners to visit the association’s website for more information. For the purposes of this assignment, I have used a made up web address.
Recording and Editing Process:
I used my iPhone’s Voice Memo recorder to record the audio. Then by using Adobe Audition, I was able to cut out the relevant audio pieces by using the “Razor Select Tool”. After I found the audio clips that I intended to use, I placed them on a separate track. I then looked for the appropriate background music using FreeSound.org – a creative commons audio website. I decided to use “Funky Upbeat Loop” by ispeakwaves as I wanted something upbeat to set the tone of the promotional piece. I placed this audio clip on the track below. Since the music audio is only a 32 second clip, I had to loop it repeatedly for the duration of my audio story.
My promotional clip starts out with the music fading in and the audio at +4.5 dB. Before the informative audio begins, the music slowly decreases to -11.4 dB while the informative audio is at +7.5 dB. Near the end of the informative audio, the music clip gradually gets louder from -11.4 dB, to +5.3 dB, then back to -11.4 dB just before the second informative clip starts. I repeat this process throughout the audio story. You will notice that after each informative clip, the music will get louder, then get softer just before the next informative clip begins. I did this in order to break up the dialogue and provide a natural ‘start’ and ‘stop’.
Cyrille McIntosh 
Posted on behalf of Wiliam McMeekin
Hi Cy, great audio story about the builder’s association. The audio clip/loop you chose achieved your goal of having an up-beat quality. I like how you manipulated the volume at certain points in your story to keep the listeners attention. Your vocal tone, cadence and diction are excellent. Having a building association professional included in your story brought not only credibility but a second layer of interest. Your iPhone did not fail you. The recording quality is excellent. I like how you included a website address for ore information. It seems like a second nature thing to include however, your placement of the site put a nice capstone on the end of the story. The length of your story is perfect as it gives pertinent background and context with out rambling on needlessly. The course instructions mandate that I provide feedback or suggestions on your project. My one and only comment is thus: you could use the razor tool to edit out some of the speaker’s “um’s” and “ah’s”. There is also some slight uneven timing in his part that could be tightened-up a bit. You did an excellent job Cy, it was difficult to find fault. Great job! William
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Posted on behalf of Chelsea Keyes
Hey Cyrille,
This is a great first draft! I appreciated your written post and how you gave background information on the Manitoba Home Builders’ Association. This audio piece sort of reminded me of a training video. The tone, music, and content was very inviting! The music itself was light, but serious enough to where it wasn’t too playful. I also thought breaking up the interview clips and narration with music helped the flow of the story. As far as improvements, there are just a couple of things that I noticed.
Audio
– At about :28 seconds it sounds like the music level increases before you finish your thought and then drops low. Try fading in the music slightly after you have it now; when you say “. . .you make” at the end of the sentence. Then leave a little more of a break (with an increased volume) until you start your next clip; “When building a home. . .”
– Something I have to work on when creating videos for work is using more than one music clip and/or creating segments where there’s no music and nat sound. That way there’s not one stagnant sound in the background for a long period of time (kind of like elevator music). This assignment is fairly short, so I wouldn’t suggest adding 2 music tracks. However, maybe adding some nat sound would be great! I’m thinking in the beginning you could add the sound of someone hammering or the jingle of a box of nails or something similar.
All in all, this was a great start and gave me some pointers about tone for my own audio piece!
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Hi group!
I thoroughly enjoyed listening to your audio clips and thank you for your critiques and comments on my first audio story. You have certainly helped me think of some great ways to improve my piece.
For my final audio story, I plan to improve on the following elements:
•Getting rid of the ‘ums’ – I received a comment from a group member advising that I should clean up the soundbites some more by deleting the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ in the clips. I did try my best to do so when doing the draft but will indeed work on cleaning up the clips some more for the final draft.
•Using another music clip – I received another comment from a group member suggesting that I should use more than one music clip and create segments with no music and some natural sound. I plan to find some “construction” sounds and use those as part of my audio piece. Perhaps placing them before the soundbites.
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