I finished the rough cut of the promotional video for The Young Sound Seekers camp. I sent the video to Eve to get her thoughts about it, and we are meeting tomorrow to go over it. Overall I think the video is good, but in the end, it’s not about what I think it is what Eve and the Atlantic Center for the Arts feel about it. The process I had for making this video was to divide and concur. I started by filtering the video and photos that I thought were good to include and putting them in a separate folder. Then after going through what I recorded I listened to the interviews I did with the students and find the timestamps of good statements to include. Once I had everything I needed prepared I opened up Hitfilm Express, the editing software I use, and sorted the media I had based on the location they were recorded at. Dividing up everything this was helped me a lot because it stopped me from constantly going through the files I had, and allowed me to know where everything was. Working on this video was generally pretty smooth, except for the fact my editing software would randomly crash; however, this got me into the habit of saving after nearly every action I did. One time after working for around 10 minutes without saving the software crashed and I decided that was a good time for a dinner break. This was an odd experience for me because usually when I work on Hitfilms I don’t go through this. I think what caused this problem was that were so many media files to keep track the software was struggling a bit. This road bump didn’t stop me though and I was able to finish the rough cut in a decent time.
Nearing the Deadline
Tomorrow (Monday) will be the last day that I can submit labels for the exhibit. It’s because the exhibit, named Tech Savvy, officially goes out July 23rd. I only have two more assigned labels to do, though, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get them done. Information about the exhibit was covered in the Museum of Arts and Sciences newsletter. The front cover emphasizes the exhibit with a phonograph on display and the words “Tech Savvy: Home Technology from the 1890s-1990s” written beside it. We actually have technology from the 2000s, like an iMac, which will be in the exhibit that will show “the future” aspect of technology.
The opportunity I had to get to work alongside this curation project has been so much fun. I’m so incredibly happy that I’ve had this opportunity, too, because knowing that I want to work in museums but now exactly knowing where (curation, education, etc.), getting a bunch of different experiences is exactly what I need. I’d never expect that I’d have this much fun doing a curation project, but it’s made me consider looking more in that direction for the future.
Something cool which popped up from my position here at MOAS is that in this summer newsletter, they have a section where they highlight their interns. There’s only one intern per department, so there’s me in the education department and one intern in the curation department, and we each got to turn in a photo of ourselves, as well as a paragraph about ourselves. These feature pretty early on in the newsletter and it’s super neat!
Plan of Attack
This week was a little bit of a struggle for me. On Tuesday, I got hit with a cold that made me want to rest all day, and it carried over till Thursday. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t productive though. When I was awake and had some energy I went through the moments I captured and sorted them into what would be suitable for the video. I also got some interview videos that Eve took that feature some of the counselors from the camp. I had worked all day yesterday, so I wasn’t able to go through them. For this 4th of July weekend, I plan to first put all the visual elements together in my video editor and focus on that. Once I am done compiling the visuals I will look through some of the recordings I took from the studio time to see if there are any good sound bites I can put over the video. Some ideas I had of sound to put over the video were using the recordings the students took over their time at camp. Another idea is to have their interview answers and things said while in the studio. There will be some clips that will have their audio like when the students are interviewing the park rangers that came to visit. I don’t have any plans and I am not scheduled to work till Monday, so I hope to finish a rough draft of the promotional video. Once I am done with the video I will send it over to Eve to get her thoughts on it and see what can be improved.
Week 7
This was an extremely hectic week, right from the get go. Unbeknownst to me, our resident accountant and HR representative had received a better offer for her employment on the Friday prior. Come that Monday, she had accepted it and was no longer working for us in any capacity. Without any warning, we were suddenly down a person, and as the intern, I picked up the slack before anything could go wrong. I have some new duties now, but they mostly boil down to data entry, printing and scanning documents, or just general IT, which is easy enough for me. This definitely changed how my mornings in the office went down, because before it was maybe a slow trickle before the lunchtime rush, but now, I usually get emails asking me to address things before I’ve left the house in the morning. I actually don’t mind, it just makes for more boring afternoons. The majority of the workload is now in the morning for me, and I feel like it just keeps me going and distracted until either lunch or they run out of stuff for me to do, which is a daily guarantee. I have noticed my workload steadily increasing bit by bit, so I hope something will be able to keep me occupied for a full workday. It has happened before, but it is rare. It only happened because there was a repository of receipts that I had to clean up before the day was out. I was occupied with other projects until about 2 that day, so when a coworker asked me to save and print receipts, I actually had to put it on the backlog, where pending projects go. I haven’t been able to use it all summer, but now I finally can. With that task, I was the last one out the door, and it was still only 4 when I left.
MOAS Tour Exhibits
Before officially starting at the museum, they gave me a packet for which I could get familiar with the information that pertains to two particular exhibits: The Root Family Exhibit and the Prehistoric Exhibit. The Root Family Exhibit was an exhibit donated to the museum by Chapman Root; the collection began with his grandfather, C. J. Root. The exhibit covers many things – teddy bears, train cars, classic cars, but most importantly, what ties the collection together is Coca Cola. The Root Family was instrumental into the development of the bottle that holds Coca Cola to this day. If you ever visit the museum, you will see an entire wall of bottles that were prototypes for Coca Cola but didn’t last, for one reason or another. In an adjoining gallery, the same goes for vending machines that dished out the beverage. There’s a bunch of them of them to show how they changed over the years.
The Prehistoric Gallery is another big one on tours. Kids tend to love it, because the star of the gallery is our giant ground sloth, which could stand up to thirteen feet tall. Last time I did this tour, a student asked me: “why is a dinosaur standing behind you?” It’s also a lot of fun, because the giant ground sloth and mastodon were both found and dug up in Daytona, which is a point of pride for the museum. Plus, Florida doesn’t get many giant fossil finds. Additionally, the giant ground sloth at MOAS is the most complete giant ground sloth in all of North America, so it has been used to make casts for other museums in the country. Pretty cool!
The End of Camp
Camp finished yesterday, and overall I had a great experience. Helping out at the camp was not just an enjoyable time but an educational one. Helping out CDCVI and the Atlantic Center for the Arts allowed me to understand the struggles of visually impaired people better. Meeting and talking to Andy Slater was also a great experience I had a ton of great conversations with him during the mornings when we would get coffee. I enjoyed the time I had both inside and outside the Davis lab.
Now that camp is done my next step is to work on making a promotional video for the camp. I am meeting with Eve sometime tomorrow morning to go over the things we both got. In this meeting, I would like to go over some ideas I have for the camp and create a more focused idea of what the promotional video will have. I have some ideas in mind already of what to do, but I just want to run them by someone else to get their opinions. Tomorrow and Tuesday I will go through the footage and photos to create a refined folder of what will be included in the video. I have hours of footage and hundreds of photos so going over them and sorting them will be very helpful at the end of the day. Even though the camp was very exhausting I think I was able to capture a lot of good photos and videos to edit together.
Last Day (Goodbye Stetson and YSS :( )
6/25/2022
It was sad and strangely eventful as I pack and gather my things out of the room. Being in Dorm rooms for four years, with some sounds that tend to be muffled because of my walls being covered in wall decor. There was less echo present, but when I stayed in House 2 room 15. Being reminded how the empty room always symbolized the beginning and end of my time in the room. I enjoyed working with Young Sound Seekers. I learned a lot from working with visually impaired students from how they work, the variety of abilities, etc. I would take everything that I learn and input it into my current career in the education field.
Prep for the New Exhibit
One of the biggest jobs we have going on in the office right now, apart from summer camp, is prep for the exhibit set to be open in July. Every time I go in, I’m working on another few labels for the exhibit, which has its downsides due to the lack of identifying information on items so old, but overall, it has been a lot of fun to do! I find it to be a lot of fun researching really old radios, alarm clocks, phonographs, etc. It is a super interesting topic. One of the more funny (but still interesting items) I had to research and write a label for was a 1911 vacuum. The exhibit will include a lot of old technology, such as radios, tvs, phonographs, gramophones, 90s/00s video game consoles, etc., and so I’ve been tasked to identify them, research them, and write a small blurb on them. I think it’s a lot of fun to work with the old technology. It’s always been particularly interesting to me, and now learning about it is a part of my assigned tasks!
The staff member primarily in charge of collecting items for the exhibit brought in about twenty more items from someone who previously collected and now wants to see them preserved and in an exhibit. These items alone were just radios/clocks/alarm clock radios/etc., so I spent the day going through the items, looking for brand names, model numbers, serial numbers, or anything else that would be useful in identifying what the item is. Interspersed between that task, I would work on labels for a list I was given that contains a lot of old phonographs, old home video game consoles, etc. I’d write 1-3 paragraphs going over the history, their function, how it works, and so on. All of this took about a week and I just finished (until I’m assigned more as there’s still more items), so it was a very rewarding task, especially because I’ll get to see all of my work displayed in an exhibit!
Camp Day 5- Jaguarundi
June 23, 2022
The day has been relaxing, and it’s upsetting to know that it’s the second to last day of camp. This morning, we got a chance to hear some suggestions from two members of DSV, who are visually impaired, and told their experience and information about online accessibility. There were also two park rangers from National Canaveral State Park. After the quick round table, the campers could ask the rangers their interview questions while Ranger Michelle was in room 102. I heard the most bizarre news: during the 60s, there was an escape Jaguarundi from a circus, and to this day, it lives in the State Park. I was astonished for the past two years of going to that park. That wasn’t a story that came up at all, mainly the Wild Hogs. It was interesting to hear how from the difference in sound, the ranger knew that this wasn’t a native in the area like the well-known Florida Bobcat. I love the moment of learning about these tales and how sound can help identify a different species that are out of place. It’s fascinating when I think about it.
YSS Counselor, Kelly Love
Hontoon Island State Park
June 21, 2022 (2pm – 5 PM)
It was an exciting first-time experience venturing and recording sound at HonToon State Island Park. Started off by going on a short boat trip with a local park ranger to the state park learning that the purpose of the park is on an island that helps to minimize human interference with nature. During the 5K walk, I was able to record the surrounding sound that can be found in HonToon State Park along with finding out the benefits of control prescribe fires, and how the animals and plants benefit from them. There were a lot of Biophony, Geophony and a few anthrophony sounds recorded, with exception of the motor boats, trains, and airplanes, which weren’t constant. Due to the lack of anthrophony, I was able to pick up some bird calls from a Woodpecker and Yellowthroat. There were some other faint sounds of other birds. It was quite an interesting turnout while also gaining more experience working on a Zoom-H4N recorder to be able to teach and help out the campers when they are field-recording tomorrow. I’m excited to start editing my own recordings and input the sound of nature into my final project for Dr. Boland’s class, which is a fantasy world poetry podcast.