Inspired. And a bit nervous to begin.

Goddamn I’m awash in ideas and inspiration right now! In addition to the activist-interview project I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’m also decided on attempting an audio slide show piece about the boulevard-food-gardening project we’re embarking on with our neighbourhood grant this summer ($1300!). This will feed both my need to learn some new multimedia skills, as well as provide a nice document that could be used to convince the city to continue with this small grant program. (Brian went to the cheque-awarding last night and apparently more than 60% of the grants were handed out to neighbourhood food security projects of some incredible diversity).

So I’ve dusted off the digital recorder I bought two years ago (and haven’t used) and am taking it away this weekend to practice interviewing and recording with Brian. And I’m trying not to get pre-emptively frustrated by my rustiness at interviewing or crafting audio stories. It’s been so long since I took those sound courses in university, and even then it was all analog.

So far my plans look a little like this: 1) take lots of photos of everything related to my two project themes this summer, 2) get people to answer a series of questions via Facebook status updates for inspiration and ideas, 3) start getting people to do short interviews with me on one of my project themes, 4) start researching archival stills on my project themes. Oh – and yes, I need to learn all about the software to edit the audio and then the slideshow.

Good summer projects? It’s just investigating stuff I’m interested in already, so I’m hoping it doesn’t become too onerous.

For those who missed it last week, I posted about the boulevard grant at Among the Weeds. Additionally, I posted a bit of a rant at Viaduct yesterday about the crazy fighting over Grandvew Park.