My feature story “The Boys in the Band” covered the origins of campus bands The Strolls and Pants Clark and offered insight into and advice on music making as a full-time student. I got to interview students band members, alumni band members, and a full-time music producer. In the end, I interviewed four students, two former students, and one outside expert. I believe I interviewed enough people to offer different perspectives for my story, although everyone fell under the same demographic of 19-30 and male, so I would have liked to interview some women as well. Each interview spanned between 20 and 50 minutes long. During each interview, I recorded both digitally and on paper, making sure to consistently ask questions and probe for as deep of information as I can get. Before each interview, I created a list of questions with follow up questions to ask, but I also asked plenty of on-the-spot questions. The accomplishment I am most proud of is my interview with the outside expert: Nick Webber, a full-time music producer. We had a 35 minute conversation over Zoom about the in-depth process of recording, mixing, and mastering music.
As I went through each interview, I created transcripts with time stamps and speaker labels, which helped me in writing my feature story. In addition to writing my article, I designed an infographic on each of The Strolls band members, their roles in the band, and their complete discography. I took the time using Canva to create a visual of different pictures, graphics, and textboxes. I borrowed a DSLR camera and attended a live The Strolls concert to take journalistic photos. I think I was able to take some interesting, dynamic photos that captured the band’s energy and style well. My biggest challenge was condensing my information to a readable article, as I was given so much interesting information from my interviews. Overall, though, I am satisfied with how my article turned out. I was able to not only gain insight into The Strolls’ origin, but also provide my readers with valuable advice and information regarding the music-making process.
Ellen Batty 