I had the honour of interviewing a new young business owner, finding out the struggles of letting go of financial support, and the stability of a standard 9 to 5 job at Domino’s and leaping into the unknown of a Personal Training business.

Ciarna is 20 years old, and just finished her certificate in personal training. She has been learning how to build a business through Instagram and grow clients through that platform, but she finally took the next step of quitting her old job and becoming a full-time business owner.

IN: “This is my…”
OUT: “…to be working”
DUR: 2:06

Listen to her story below.

Reflection Piece,

After creating the audio piece ‘Leap of Faith’ I realised a few things, audio is daunting, audio is raw, and audio is slightly harder to edit than writing. I have always been a writer, for my two years at university I have fiddled with audio for bits and pieces, the backing for a PowerPoint or animation. It always tends to be rushed and unfinished because I don’t like listening to my voice. Editing someone else’s voice was a lot easier, and one of the main reasons I think ‘Leap of Faith’ became easier to edit.

As of late, I have been loving, ‘My Next Guest Needs no Introduction with David Letterman’ (Bonfiglio, 2018) on Netflix, its brilliant. I watched the interview with Billie Eilish (Eilish, 2022) at the time when I was creating ‘Leap of Faith’. Her brother Finneas and Billie took Letterman through the process of making a track, and at this point, I was beginning to understand audio in more detail. So, watching how they edited songs and tracks really opened my mind to the depth of audio. Her track had over 40 different takes included in the final version of it, but the brilliance came from not being able to hear the change between takes, instead, the song flowed how a song should. I enjoyed being able to look at and appreciate it on a deeper level as it; a. motivated me to finish my own audio piece and b. helped me understand that what I am learning in creating a small 2-minute audio piece is the basic tool for all audio.

I struggled the most with adding small clips of the boxing bag audio because to me it sounded like the piece began to lose its flow. The non-diegetic sound felt like it didn’t have a place in the piece. Until I began to realise how non-diegetic sound operated. A great example of it is Darth Vader’s main entrance song (Williams). It encapsulates the audience, builds up suspense, but also allows them to guess what is coming up next. The music creates a mood and an environment for Darth to then walk into view. The boxing bags in ‘Leap of Faith’ act as the detail that sets up the main event, much like a theme song would in a show or movie. It put the listener into the environment of the gym.

Overall, putting the piece together was fun and allowed me to test and learn new skills that I had yet to do before. Listening to the piece from an audience member’s point of view I would love for them to hear the build from the piano and the little breaths in Ciarna’s voice that signal stress, relief and all of her emotion. Put together, it creates the emotional story of a young woman that has made a career for herself. I hope that after listening, people feel a sense of inspiration because that is the main goal of my emotional story.

References

Bonfiglio, M. (Director). (2018). My Next Guest Needs no Introduction with David Letterman [Motion Picture].

Eilish, B. (2022, May 20). My Next Guest Needs no Introduction with David Letterman. (D. Letterman, Interviewer)

Williams, J. (n.d.). 1980.