For this project I continue my topic of Why We Work Safely, but this time the hero family doesn’t make an appearance. I still seek to make an emotional connection; reminding employees that safety is enforced because we care about them. I sat down with my company’s safety director, Steve Brennan, and got his thoughts on safety, which were truly insightful. I’m confident that once heard, his approach to safety will resonate with our employees.
Design Approach
I started this project by thinking how I could make the topic of safety interesting. I’m a huge fan of This American Life and Ira Glass’ explanation of building blocks inspired the initial format of my story. Surely I could use both anecdotes and moments of reflection to help make safety interesting.
Initially, I considered featuring the recording of family members’ voices reminding their loved ones to work safely. Another idea was employees simply stating their reasons to work safely. As I thought about these options I started to question how employees would connect with audio that didn’t feature their own family. I think Ira would agree, there was nothing at stake for the listeners.
After comparing different formats for my story, I was influenced by my favorite podcast, Here’s The Thing with Alec Baldwin. Love him or hate him, he does great interviews with fascinating people. As I listened to an episode on my commute I thought the interview format would be great way to communicate the importance of safety.
Design Execution
The very first task I completed was asking to interview Steve. With the meeting scheduled I started outlining how I envisioned the interview going – introduction, interview back-and-forth, conclusion. Then I started doing some research into the current construction climate that I could use during the interview. Finally, I prepared about 15 questions and shared them with Steve prior to the interview.
The interview went well. My questions revealed what the most common injuries onsite are and if they can be prevented. I was also able to capture his approach to creating a safer environment which will be great for employees to hear. He also shared why he works safely, which will help make an emotional connection to the audience.
After completing the interview, my next steps were to record my speaking parts. I should note, for all of my recordings I used my iPhone. It’s a nice little recorder, however, if I decide to keep making recordings, investing in a decent microphone would be a good idea.
The final step before getting to work in Adobe Audition was sourcing some background sound effects. I wanted the listener to feel like they were on a jobsite. I found a lot of options on Freesound.org and chose a nice subtle construction sound from the user Sortan.
Technical Execution
After I gathered all my audio sources, I got to work in Adobe Audition. My use of this software has been very limited, but I’m impressed with how simple it has been to use it. I followed the setup steps from our tutorials and added all my content to the Files section.
Knowing this project needed to be 3 minutes at most, I started by placing my background sounds to serve as a guide to fit my story into. After the background sounds were placed I manipulated the volume create an intro and outro. To organize my workspace, I renamed the tracks and added each speaker and sound to their own track.
The most laborious part was editing Steve’s interview from thirty minutes to roughly two. I listened to the interview many times and used the razor tool to snip parts I could use. This proved challenging as I did not want to change his answers or implied meaning. I had so much material I didn’t include a conclusion.
After editing the entire piece down to three minutes, I exported my first draft to a MP3 file and uploaded it to sound cloud. You can check out my draft here.
Revision
When I submitted my draft I requested feedback specifically about my introduction, use of sound effects and lack of conclusion. I am thankful each of these were addressed and more. My classmates and professor provided me with more helpful suggestions to take my work to the next level.
I reworked the introduction to tighten it up and change focus from Seattle to the national construction industry. In an effort to have consistent volumes and sounds I re-recorded all my interview questions. My draft was lacking a conclusion so I spent time writing and recording that as well.
The revisions I prepared were substantial so I created a new audio file and started building it over again. I was able to experiment with some features and effects of Audition. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fix the echo in the interview with Steve which is a lesson learned in choosing an interview location. The most valuable effect I found was, match loudness, it seemed to help create a consistent volume across my different file types. After spending more time with the razor tool, the project was finished.
I hope you enjoy my interview as much as I enjoyed making it!
Audio Sources:
Construction 1.wav sourced from Freesound.org user, Sortan, licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License. http://www.freesound.org/people/sortan/sounds/220931/
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Bill Michie 
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