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I (22F) have been procrastinating my final project in audio production for several days now. For context, I allotted two weeks for the preparation phase which includes writing the script and preparing my recording room (acoustic treatment, microphone accessories, and the like). A week has passed and I have no progress so far. Technically, I am still in the clear---I still have a week to go though I would have to condense my preparation and practice phase. This is my second time taking this class and admittedly I have been putting it at the bottom of my priorities because I assume I can do it better the second time around.
I might be wrong. I might be right. I hope it's the latter.
MMS 172
Midpoint Blog
I have been obsessed with reddit stories recently so I hope you enjoyed that silly goofy intro that glossed over how I'm doing so far in this course. Yes, I am the ******* for procrastinating. I am perhaps underestimating how heavy this production is going to be, especially on top of other responsibilities both within and outside university.
I don't remember much from the beginning of the term. All I remember is that I couldn't wait to get to this point of the course---the midpoint. As I mentioned, this is my second time enrolling in MMS 172. Last year, I only accomplished outputs up until the midpoint blog. The rest were abandoned. So for this term, I looked forward mostly on the production part because that's what I failed to do last year.
I am excited to finally experience the things I missed out on the first time around.
At this point, every missed F2F session comes with a blog filled with "I wish I attended" so I will spare you the redundant articulation of regret and instead focus on what I can control moving forward: collaboration. Now, I will not limit myself to classmates even though I understand the importance of collaboration, even though I would love to connect with my peers and build a community. I would like to entertain the idea of collaborating with someone on an audio project; it's actually something me and my friends have been thinking of doing for a while. We have been wanting to produce a podcast because we all have a lot to say even during the most random discussions you can think of. But since I can't really trust my friends with pushing through ideas like these, I love the idea of collaborating with fellow BAMS students especially since we're all taking the same degree program and have similar experiences when it comes to production.
an excerpt from my midpoint blog last year,
I forgot which discussion forum it was, but Prof Al linked a bunch of project plans from a previous class so we could get an idea of how our assignment 2 should resemble. Being the nosy person that I am, I not only looked at their project plans but also their final projects. There are no words to describe how impressed (and envious) I was by their creations. They were clearly polished down to the millisecond. I expected myself to sink in self-deprecation because I felt way too inferior to them (surprise surprise I did!). I had to take a break and make sure to let go of these thoughts first. I reassessed everything I had within my grasp and started there. A few hours later I somehow magically conjured up a final project idea out of nowhere. And it turned out to be something I'm actually excited to see the completion of.
I don't think I'm the type of person who gets fired up by the idea of competition. I don't delight in making sure I surpass other people's magnum opus. Comparing my work to others can get too consuming, too draining, all too fast. Especially in a production class, where not only creative skills are under fire, but also technical skills. I am surrounded by incredibly talented people and it's very easy to fall into the rabbit hole of constantly worrying how I will match their pace and current standpoint. I'd much rather be around people who share my pace so we could witness each other's growth.
Sadly, I do have the tendency to slip into my cocoon at first contact with pressure and I don't exactly view that as something that will eventually turn positive. There is no good pressure for me. Only pressure. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy challenging myself. I see myself in a race where my only competition is the person I was before, so if I tell you that I'm up for a challenge, then this is the challenge I will be speaking of.
the last ever output I submitted for the class before dropping it.
I still stand by what I previously said. I am competing with the person I was before, who, honestly, not to look down on myself from last year, is not a big competition at all. They didn't even get to finish the class so, truly, my bare minimum right now to surpass them is to finish my final project.
Of course, it would still be against my principles to not take this project seriously. I am completely and utterly against submitting just for the sake of submitting. I treat every project as an opportunity to grow and maximize my limits. I want to be able to look back at my projects and see how much I tried and how much I grew since.
A lot of things has changed since.
★ I now have a microphone. Last year, my equipment (or lack thereof) has put a lot of pressure on me to perform better. I knew I was at a disadvantage owning only a headset microphone so I had to try a lot harder to make sure I submit or create an audio project with good quality sound. I tried, failed a couple times, and eventually decided that (along with other problems I was also dealing with), I couldn't push through with audio production.
★ My project plan is much easier now. To be honest, I was a bit ambitious before. I still am---it's my fatal flaw at this point. I wanted to go all in or nothing. Challenge myself. Do the impossible. I did have a backup plan in case everything falls apart, but then my backup plan also didn't work out so... now I learned my lesson. My project plan now is simpler and easier to execute, but it is still, for my standards, creative and representative of who I am as an artist.
★ I had a better relationship with writing before. I am currently in a writing slump which is maybe the primary reason I can't start writing the script now. Actually, I have started writing it but I can't finish the first draft because I keep editing and editing and editing which is a bad thing to do if you're a writer trying to finish your work. To add to that, the story I chose to tackle is a bit too personal especially with how I'm progressing (or not progressing) with my responsibilities now. It's harder to talk about my struggles when I am still in the process of struggling.
Overall, I can't wait to see how I'm going to move forward from my failure during the first week. There are still a few weeks to go and I still have so much time to get back on my feet.
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