What a school thinks about its library is a measure of what it feels about education.
- Harold Howe
I have a lot of feels pertaining to this assignment. A LOT of them… For our EDC 534 class we were instructed to interact with the HitRecord online community in collaborative and meaningful ways. What is HitRecord? “HitRecord is an open, community-sourced production company” (taken from HitRecord.org). Anyone can join and participate in creative and media projects. Anyone. There are opportunities for visual art, music recordings, photographs, videos, storytelling, voice acting, acting, writing, screenplays, and poetry. Challenges and projects are presented with requests for specific creations of media and anyone can share their work. Amazing, right? What an incredible opportunity to create and collaborate! When I first began wandering around the HitRecord site I was beyond excited. There were so many opportunities to share so many different kinds of art. A bit of backstory… My best friend works in theater. She has stage managed, hung lights, painted sets, sewn costumes and even acted a little, professionally. She is currently teaching theater tech at a charter school. All because when we were in high school I managed to convince her to audition for drama club with me. I had been in a couple of plays at this point, but I wanted to spend more time with my best friend and thought it would be ideal for her to be in drama club with me. Turns out, she loved it enough to make a career out of it. My two best friends and I after a performance. I convinced them both to audition. My husband has dreams of voice acting. He has an amazing speaking voice, as well as some pretty spectacular character voices. He has created and voiced many stop motion projects, and has lent his voice to other creators in their personal projects. He has also created a podcast on board games, in his spare time, and his Christmas wish list is full of audio equipment. I have no intention in being professionally involved in acting or voice acting. But… But… I’ve enjoyed both whenever I’ve had the opportunity to do either. The problem is that acting and voice acting are not “my” things. I do not possess the same level of passion for acting (voice or otherwise) as my husband or best friend. My interest is drowned out by their professional goals. My curiosity is shadowed by their immense dedication. And then along comes HitRecord… I was so excited about the opportunity to step out of my comfort zone. I immediately went to the acting challenges. A request for contributions of actors playing a receptionist who is terrified of ringing phones. A very funny script was included and I managed to ‘save’ it for later. I read lines to myself. I thought of how I could record it. I fantasized doing well with it. And then I walked away from it. It was awhile before I went back to HitRecord. But when I did, I noticed a message. This seemed odd, as I had not really participated in anything yet. I had looked at projects, had gotten a feel for the site, but had not contributed yet. I opened the message and to my absolute horror it was the creator of the acting challenge I had saved. He said that he noticed I had saved it, and was hoping I would contribute. Suddenly, I felt very overwhelmed. Had I broken expectations by saving the challenge and not contributing within a reasonable timeline? I had not considered that the creator of the challenge would be notified if someone saved the challenge. I felt exposed, as though this stranger knew something private and personal about me - that I had considered doing an ACTING challenge, of all things! Oh, you noticed that, huh? Well, for many reasons, including logistical challenges, but mostly out of insane fear, I elected not to do the acting challenge. I still wanted to challenge myself, and participate in a meaningful way, so I found a voice acting challenge with a script depicting a book and a reader ‘breaking up’ at the end of the book. It was a fun script and I read it over and over and over again. I recorded myself reading the lines. But as I was editing my audio recording I began to second guess my choices. My microphone made funny noises every once in awhile. I didn’t sound as good as the other contributors I had listened to. Shaken by the poor quality of the recording, I decided to throw in the towel part way through editing. I do still have it saved on my computer, and maybe I’ll go back another time and finish it. But for now… I decided to slowly ease myself into contributions. I wrote a list of foolish things I have done recently. I added some pictures of food I’ve eaten lately. Small things that didn’t feel like too much exposure for myself. I had plenty of pictures of food on my phone, ready to share. This was a special picture to me. I was happy to share it. This list was a great experience for me. It made me consider why each mistake may have happened, and I recognized how stress has been effecting me lately (forgetfulness, stretched too thin, impulsiveness, etc.). This class has pushed me into my wheelhouse and then torn me back outside my comfort zone, over and over again. This particular assignment, while enticing, ultimately was very overwhelming for me. I don’t feel that I really made any meaningful contribution to the community and I’m somewhat disappointed in myself. I’m sad that my self-consciousness snatched away an opportunity to explore avenues of creativity I often quietly pine for, but I’m so happy to know about this creative community. I will definitely be passing it along to the artistic and creative people in my life, and maybe one day, I will bite the bullet and challenge myself beyond my comfort zone.
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AuthorLibrary and information science graduate student at the University of Rhode Island. Feminist. Board game lover. Mom and wife. Media addict. ArchivesCategories |