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Snyder Leads Audio Team On Paul Laurence Dunbar Documentary To Be Broadcast Nationally Across PBS Stations

blog, recording · 2017-02-16

The Ohio University Scripps College of Communication is proud to announce that the “Paul Laurence Dunbar: Beyond the Mask” documentary, a collaborative project between School of Media Arts & Studies faculty and the Central Region Humanities Center at Ohio University, has been accepted by PBS for broadcast by individual stations during Black History Month (February) and National Poetry Month (April).

“Paul Laurence Dunbar: Beyond the Mask,” a 2-hour feature, explores the life and legacy of Paul Laurence Dunbar, who was born in 1872 and died in 1906. Dunbar was the first African-American to achieve national fame as a literary artist. Born to former slaves in Dayton, Ohio, Dunbar wrote novels, plays, and essays but is known mainly for poems and short stories expressing black Americans’ voices and the challenges of their lives. He is best remembered for his poem “We Wear the Mask” and for lines from “Sympathy” that became the title of Maya Angelou’s autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” Dunbar’s story is also the story of the African American experience around the turn of the century.

The project is a collaboration between two faculty members from the Scripps College of Communication’s School of Media Arts & Studies: Professor Emeritus Joseph Slade, co-producer and executive producer and emeritus director of the Central Region Humanities Center; and Associate Professor Frederick Lewis, writer, director, and co-producer.

Kyle P. Snyder, Lecturer & Outreach Coordinator in the School of Media Arts & Studies, served as Audio Post Production Coordinator & Engineer for “Paul Laurence Dunbar: Beyond the Mask” and led a team of students in the completion of the final deliverables.

More than 25 past and present students from the School of Media Arts & Studies also assisted with archival research, production, post production and musical composition. “No one could make a documentary of this scope without extensive collaboration, and we are grateful for all the help we received,” said Slade. “It has been a long but gratifying experience, especially when we consider the end result.”

The two-hour documentary utilizes narration, sound and music, vintage images and original footage to recount Dunbar’s life in greater detail than in any previous retelling and also includes extensive discussion of his influence on and legacy for contemporary writers, artists, dancers, musicians, scholars, and students.

“Writing a documentary isn’t just writing narration and stringing sound bites together,” said Lewis. “You are writing with words, images, sound effects, music, et cetera. Everything has to work in concert. What I really wanted to develop very carefully was the structure of the documentary–weaving contemporary segments about Dunbar’s legacy in with the archival materials that provide historical context and tell his biography.”

The documentary is the capstone of the Central Region Humanities Center’s Dunbar Project, a series of public and academic events taking place in Ohio and neighboring states since 2004. The Dunbar Project was launched by the CRHC in 2001 with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ohio Humanities. Dr. Judith Yaross Lee, director of the Central Region Humanities Center and Distinguished Professor of Communication Studies, has directed the Dunbar Project since its start.

To date, “Paul Laurence Dunbar: Beyond the Mask” is scheduled to air on PBS stations in Ohio, Wisconsin, North Carolina, California, and the Virgin Islands. Locally, WOUB will broadcast the documentary on Tuesday, Feb. 14 at 8 p.m.

A free screening will be held at Case Western Reserve University on Thursday, Feb. 9 at 5 p.m. The documentary will also be shown at the Underground Railroad Museum and Freedom Center in Cincinnati on Sat., Feb. 11, at 11 a. m. Additional public screenings are being planned.

Original article by By Claire Berlin

Take A Moment To Observe World Backup Day & Evaluate Your Storage Strategies

blog, pswblog, recording, system maintenance · 2011-03-31

As some of you may have noticed, I’m far more paranoid than most about the backing up of data. However, today as we take a moment to remember (or in some cases, mourn) the passing of World Backup Day, I’m left wondering why so few people take data backup seriously.

Let me share with you a recent story from my own experience. Just yesterday, I took delivery of a shiny new RAID after my own (albeit brief) data scare. My single remaining non-RAID online drive had hesitated to mount previously in the week due to a mismatched power supply.

Thankfully, using the correct power supply immediately solved the problem. However, it left me with a sinking feeling that illustrated the importance of proper backups. After all, even those of us who backup regularly are not without fault, and I hadn’t yet made a safety of this particular project.

Surely most of you recording professionals out there have a tried-and-true backup method in place. If not, I shared some thoughts on the subject last month in Backups: So Many Storage Options Yet Only One Chance.

For a far more in depth perspective, I would encourage you all to read the the various Technical Guidelines for Producers and Engineers set forth by The Recording Academy, which are free for members and non-members alike. Especially helpful in the archive process and the explanation of various long term storage media is the Digital Audio Workstation Guidelines for Music Production (pdf), of which there is an abbreviated Quick Reference Guide (pdf).

What I find most striking as I contemplate the concept of backing up is that some of the people I know who are the most judicious about recording data backups are rather haphazard in backing up their own personal systems, or even their most critical files.

Says Kevin Purdy of Lifehacker:

Why World Backup Day? Unfortunately, it’s necessary, as BackBlaze pointed out during Backup Awareness Month last year, with only 8 percent of those surveyed backing up their data daily. Hard drives and other storage, every single device, will fail at some point, and will never provide a fair warning about it. So find a way to put your data in two extra places: one convenient and nearby, another far away from your house or office.

Sage advice, really. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there are two kinds of people – those who have experienced a hard drive failure and those who will. So on this remembrance of World Backup Day, be sure to take the opportunity and ensure that all your date is secure: both personal and professional.

Via Lifehacker.

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