![]() ![]() The medium of radio is completely reliant on sound. Sometimes we might take it for granted. This week, on Assignment: Radio, we explore how audio can make stories come alive and take us to unexpected places. “First Friday Gallery Walk at the Paseo Arts District” “One of the reasons that I come is that every month it’s a different group of artists that are showing their work. So that’s what makes it really great.” -Ron Ferrell, regular First Friday attendee.
“Dexter Ford, Making and Remaking Electronic Music” Listen here “I really like performing music, it's very fun... I feel I’m able to get myself across of it better in that context, more creative, even powerful I guess. I like being in the center of attention, and I like doing things and having people looking at the things I'm doing or whatever.” -Dexter Ford, Music Composition major at the University of Oklahoma.
“John David Smith Playing Music with Deep Roots in the Community” Listen here “I wrote all the songs, wrote all the music, and thought, well... you know, if something were to happen to me... all these songs and stuff, my kids would just think it was poetry or something and throw it away. So, I decided to go into the studio and record it all and put it on a CD. Then I’d have something to show my kids.” - John David Smith "Behind the Scenes, Saving Lives"
According to the Oklahoma Blood Institute every two seconds, someone needs blood, yet less than ten percent of those eligible to give blood actually choose to do so. Assignment Radio’s, Trauvello Stevenson visits Little Axe High School where the OBI hopes to cultivate new and potential life-long donors. "Usually we ask if it’s the first time if you donated, you know that gives us an idea of about how nervous you are.”- Vanessa Palmer, an Oklahoma Blood Institute representative.
Listen here “My parents were children of the Depression. They thought FDR was God, and of course growing up I would hear about him. I became interested in finding out more about him until the point that he became one of my personal heroes. Now, he was no saint, none of us are. But for what he believed in, and what he did for this nation, I just think he was incredible.”
-John Hamant, FDR Impersonator.
"The Johnny Strangers" Coming up: Assignment: Radio ECU reporter Rankin Barger speaks with Dylan Stewart and Caleb Story, two members of the Oklahoma group “The Johnny Strangers” about the beginnings of the band, and the formation of their new album which will be released this winter. “Somebody who says they hate country music, who knows if Hank Williams wouldn’t sing a great song to fit their situation. I’m anti-genre. I think genres are for people who already have their ears closed...” -Dylan Stewart, musician and songwriter.
“Faith in Times of War” “I was pretty mad at God for me being home, while my soldiers weren’t home with me, but I will say that if it wasn’t for God, that I wouldn’t be here and my men wouldn’t be here.”
-Sergeant Richard Huckaby. “The Sound of Movies” Listen here “What I love about Foley is it’s all self-contained. When you’re cutting effects, you can search all day. You have to go out, maybe record a car…it’s a real pain at times. Whereas Foley it’s all within the confines of a room. Whatever you can think of or create, you can make happen.”
-Kini Kay Transcripts: The medium of radio is completely reliant on sound. Sometimes we might take it for granted. This week, on Assignment: Radio, we explore how audio can make stories come alive and take us to unexpected places. “First Friday Gallery Walk at the Paseo Arts District” Ron Ferrel: My name is Ron Ferrel. It’s about 7 o’clock, I think, on a Friday night. Ron Ferrel: I come here every art walk almost, uh i just moved from the country back into Oklahoma City I now live about two or three blocks from the Paseo district. Which in my opinion, is one of the coolest districts in Oklahoma City so I come every, every month to reconnect with friends and look at artwork. Ron Ferrel: One of the reasons that I come is that every month it’s a different group of artists that are showing their work. So that’s what makes it really great. Janine Haux: My name is Janine Haux. My mom is one of the artists in this building, her name is Shirley Haux and she’s been, wow, she’s been in this building for probably ten or fifteen years and is really involved with the Oklahoma art guild, OAG. Which most of the artists down here are part of the OAG. Janine Haux: The kind of art she does is mostly oils and watercolors. She has done some mixed media. She kind of um. My mom is the kind of person who wants to do everything so she does a lot of things but mostly. Mostly water colors and oil. Sue Hale: My name is Sue Hale. I’m actually an artist here at In Your Eye and I am one of 12 artists here in this studio and I have been here probably about 12 years. Sue Hale: Well most of my art is really very colorful. I think life is very vivid. I paint a lot of traditional paintings so most of my art has lots of purples and greens and yellows and oranges that you see everyday in everyday life. And I love different subjects um, whenever I look at my shows I think I must have attention deficit disorder because I have so many different subjects but its really a lot of fun. Sue Hale:First Friday walk is just a lot of fun and especially when we have great weather, but we get a lot of folks who get a chance to come look at the art who don’t normally come to Paseo and so all the galleries are open and its just a real party, festival, type of atmosphere and we have a lot of fun with folks. Meredith: The Paseo First Friday Gallery Walk is open from 6-10pm on Fridays and Saturdays from 12-6pm during the first weekend of every month. “Dexter Ford, Making and Remaking Electronic Music” Remixes are as popular as ever, with editing software becoming more available to consumers and sharing platforms like Soundcloud and Youtube allowing instantaneous collaboration. From autotune to mashups every recorded sound can be manipulated, reinterpreted and shared with the world. Assignment: Radio’s Cosimo Vestito speaks with one OU student who found his voice in the internet-age. Get off my back, Dad! (Garage rock piece)
Cosimo Vestito: In the living room of Dexter Ford's house in Norman, there is a big drum set, guitars and other music accessories. In his bedroom, there are two more electric guitars and composition textbooks. Dexter is a Composition major at the University of Oklahoma, in September, he made a trip to Europe to present and perform a piece for voice and live electronics, during the International Computer Music Conference of Lubjana, in Slovenia. This piece is called "Wall", and it is the final project for two-year Music Technology course.
Song: “Wall (electronic piece)”
Dexter Ford: I got in the music when I was fourteen and I heard Pink Floyd's Dark side of the moon and I was stunned because I've never heard anything in music that was so... just a complete statement. I never really heard a concept album before cause I was just totally ignorant to that sort of things, so I decided right then that I was going to learn bass and I was going to write my own songs and make my own concepts albums and I got really into progressive rock, Yes, ELP, Genesis and things, and then I got more and more into different strains of rock and other genres, and on and on it’s just been a continuing passion since then. When I was fourteen I had no idea music could be so incredible then.
Cosimo Vestito: Dexter is not only committed in the study of music in academic field, but also involved in a long series of eclectic and bizarre artistic projects like The Spooky Crew, The Beatles and the Most Ever Company. The amount of music he has been producing is vast.
Dexter Ford: This is a piece called level one that I recorded for a videogame with the software FamiTracker it's a Nintendo chip software, I just sat down and decided to make a really cool sounding piece that could be in an hypothetical videogame. I'm arranging it for woodwind quintet, for my Senior Recital that will be due this month. I don't know, I just really like videogames man.
Cosimo Vestito: For Dexter, being a composer means not merely combining melodies and sounds but also artistically expressing feelings and actions of his daily life.
Dexter Ford: Being a musician and a composer, especially a composer, I think is about being able to synthesize experiences and different relationships you have with the world into artistic forms, basically the idea of art as a constant record of where you are, so sometimes I get an idea and it will be best suited for a comic, or sometimes it will be best suited for a song or a musical piece, basically depending on the impulse decides the form which I think is important as a composer to be able to interact with different forms, and different genres and media.
Cosimo Vestito: Dexter's influences are extremely diverse, his genre is impossible to pin down as it blends together rock, electronic and classic music. Dexter even did a remix of a song featured in one of his favorite TV shows: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Song: “My Little Pony (Mashup)”
Dexter Ford: I really like performing music, it's very fun, if I'm able to do it in the right context. normally day to day, whenever I'm walking around I don't talk to a lot of people that much necessarily whenever it's in the context of a show or me performing I feel I’m able to get myself across of it better in that context, more creative, even powerful I guess. I like being in the center of attention, and I like doing things and having people looking at the things I'm doing or whatever. Song: “Owner of a Lonely heart (live performance)” Cosimo Vestito: Having Fallen in love with Europe after his trip to Slovenia, Dexter Ford strives to go back to the Old Continent, to search for new endeavors and inspirations to convey in his art. For Assignment: Radio, I'm Cosimo Vestito. “John David Smith Playing Music with Deep Roots in the Community” Shifting to a more traditional form of music from south central Oklahoma, Assignment: Radio ECU reporter Chad Woods spent some time with a country music singer whose three decade career has taken him to soaring heights without ever forgetting his roots. "Behind the Scenes, Saving Lives"
Trauvello Stevenson According to the Oklahoma Blood Institute every two seconds, someone needs blood, yet less than ten percent of those eligible to give blood actually choose to do so. Assignment Radio’s, Trauvello Stevenson visits Little Axe High School where the OBI hopes to cultivate new and potential life-long donors. Trauvello Stevenson: It’s Halloween at Little Axe High School and students are participating in what some might call a thriller. Students 16 and older who have permission from their parents are waiting to donate blood. A frightening scene for some perhaps… At least for those scared of nurses with needles. Vanessa Palmer, an Oklahoma Blood Institute representative on site is hoping that’s NOT the case. In fact, Ms. Palmer confides that fear of needles and being generally unaware of the process of donating blood are among the reasons many choose not to donate. Vanessa Palmer: “What’s your name? Bailey. How old are you? 17” Vanessa Palmer: So basically when they first come to the bed, she’s already asked her name, verified that she did sign her paper work, verified how old she is. Usually we ask if it’s the first time if you donated, you know that gives us an idea of about how nervous you are. And now the sleeve is going to find her vein. We ask that they squeeze three times and hold and then we put a tunicate on. Then she’s going to ask if she is allergic to chlorhexidine or isopropyl alcohol which is the scrub we use to make it surgically sterile. Vanessa Palmer: She’s going to make a couple of marks on her arm to give us a map of where the vein is. She’s going to start the scrub, it’s a 30 second scrub and the donor is just going to lay and relax while we do this and asked not to move bend, twist or rotate her arm or wrist. And that way the vein doesn’t move she moves her wrist, we want it in the same spot as the marks we’ve made. She checks the paper work and the bag and the tubes to make sure they all match. Vanessa Palmer: She’s going to hang her bag. She’s going to apply the tunicate again, put her gloves on. She has stated the line of the bag so no outside air can get in, there is some sterile air in the line but no outside air because we do not want any bacteria in the bag. She is instructing the donor that there’s going to be a stick and a sting and if it lasts longer than 30 seconds to let her know. Vanessa Palmer: There’s an anticoagulant on the end of the needle which usually burns for, can burn up to about 30 seconds and it just wears off. And so if it persists then we want to try and help the comfort of the donor. Now, she’s stuck…she’s filling up the small pouch which the small pouch is used for your testing tubes where as I call them the cooties tubes to make sure that your blood is good and you don’t have any cooties. The testing takes about 24hours once it gets back to the lab. She’s bleeding pretty good so she’ll go probably in about seven to ten minutes. Seven to ten. Trauvello Stevenson: The entire blood donation process from pre-screening to the juice and cookies given to donors afterwards to help re-energize them takes about 45 minutes. Nurse Traci and Vanessa Palmer says there are strict rules donors must adhere to once they have donated blood. Vanessa Palmer: We do ask for about a ten to fifteen minute recovery time in our juice and cookies area. We provide snacks for the donors as well as soda and Gatorade to drink. I is helpful to rehydrate your system after you donate to try to give yourself some extra fluids to help your body remake those red cells and then putting food on your stomach so that you don’t get afterwards. Vanessa Palmer: We ask that they leave the wrap on for at least two hours, that they have no heavy lifting, pulling, pushing or anything like that with your arm for at least two hours, that you don’t go into any smoking areas, tobacco use of any kind for at least 30 minutes. We ask that you keep the post donation sheet that we give you. It has all the instructions on it for at least two days. It also has phone number on it in case you have any problems afterwards whether it be your arm hurts or say you get sick with like the flu or something within 48 hours we need to know that because that’s already in your blood and we need to stop that blood from going out the door to a hospital. And then we also ask no alcohol consumption for four hours.
Trauvello Stevenson: Every day, the Oklahoma blood institute needs almost 750 people to give blood to meet the needs of patients in Oklahoma, North Texas and North central Arkansas. Each donation has the potential to help as many as three different patients. At the little axe high school blood drive 39 people attempted to donate blood with 34 of those being able to do so. Those donations have the potential to help over a 100 different patients.
One of the most well known phrases in American history is from this speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt after the attack on Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt: Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan… Although it has been sixty-seven years since his last day in office, FDR’s policies and views of the nation continue to make him historically relevant in the face of the recent election and the economic recession of 2008. Reporter Paige Willett speaks with a historical re-enactor who has dedicated a portion of his life to portraying FDR. Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. Bugle sound Clapping John Hamant as FDR: Isn’t this grand? This is perfect. John Hamant: My name is John Hamant and I’m here at the Oklahoma History Center at the invitation of the Historical Society to present a portrayal of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. It is a campaign speech for his fourth term as president. John Hamant as FDR: Yesterday, I had the pleasure of traveling about and seeing some of the fine work being done on behalf of the war effort. I was particularly impressed with my tour of the Douglass Aircraft Plant out by Tinker Field. Music: “G.I. Jive” John Hamant: My degrees are in theatre, and I fully expected to follow that as a career. I got my degrees from the University of Arizona many years ago, and actually started down the road of being a professional actor and got my Screen Actors Guild card and all of that business. But my hobby, which had always been history slowly took over, and going back home to Maryland, which is where I’m from originally, I became more and more enamored of the people of the past. But I always tried to find time to breathe life into someone from the past because that was my greatest joy. Now that I’m semi-retired, I have the opportunity to do that. John Hamant as FDR: Now, take a moment. Take a moment to think back to the way things were when I first took the Oath of Office in March of 1933. One quarter of the work force unemployed. Another quarter working at reduced wages. Music: “Dust Bowl Blues” John Hamant: My parents were children of the Depression. They thought FDR was God, and of course growing up I would hear about him. I became interested in finding out more about him until the point that he became one of my personal heroes. Now, he was no saint, none of us are. But for what he believed in, and what he did for this nation, I just think he was incredible. John Hamant as FDR: This nation is founded on liberty. We see the evidence that liberty is kept by men and women who are strong, self-reliant, and possessed of such wisdom as God gives to mankind; men and women who are just, men and women who are understanding and generous to others. John Hamant: I started doing FDR as almost an accident. In fact, it started out as a joke because I’m pretty good at voice. So, people would call me FDR and I would say something. And then about 20 years ago, Colonial Williamsburg decided to have a program out at Carter’s Grove on the women of Carter’s Grove, 400 Years: The Women of Carter’s Grove. One of those women was Mollie McCrea who was a personal friend of the Roosevelt’s. And so, wouldn’t it be nice if we had someone portraying Mollie McCrea and FDR? And so that’s sort of where it started. And since then, as I say, I read everything that I can get a hold of; critical as well as laudatory and am always reassessing and learning more. Music: “Don’t Fence Me In” John Hamant: History is the story of us. And I love it because… Initially I wanted to discover how my chapter fit into this incredible story of America. Initially when I was very young, like 12 years old, I started talking to my parents and my grandparents, and I started doing genealogical research. Not to discover who in my family were possibly great, but to understand what they had experienced and to try and put that in perspective. I think the only we will continue to make this country great is to understand not only our history but how much citizenship, the idea of being a part of something greater than yourself and joined with all other citizens of the nation, how important that is to what we are and what the founders gave us. It’s vital to our success. John Hamant as FDR: I stand before you today in a spirit of faith, a spirit of hope, a spirit of confidence. We are not going to turn back the clock. We’re going forward my friends; forward with the fighting millions of our fellow countrymen. We are going forward together. Thank you. Clapping "The Johnny Strangers" Assignment: Radio ECU reporter Rankin Barger speaks with Dylan Stewart and Caleb Story, two members of the Oklahoma group “The Johnny Strangers” about the beginnings of the band, and the formation of their new album which will be released this winter. Dylan Stewart: I got a guitar when I was twelve years old, didn’t play it for a while would kind of put it down and pick it back up. I taught myself to play; from there I started writing songs when I was about eighteen. I have kind of been playing ever since.
Dylan Stewart: I was writing all these songs, I could get a lot of little gigs like opening gigs and stuff in the beginning with no recordings or anything, but to get some of the bigger gigs I needed to have a band. So I started searching for a band. I got with Myles Stroud who’s my drummer to this day, we knew each other from long ago, and we started playing. We then acquired Caleb Story, I think I knew him for two day and he came and played bass for us for the first show. We just started jumping into it like that, that pretty much became the Johnny Strangers right there.
Dylan Stewart: I was living in Norman, Oklahoma and I was starting to write songs. That’s where I got my first gigs. I played at a place called brothers, the songs I thought they were good but looking back I don’t really play those songs anymore, they have kind of been replace by more current ones that I wrote, I was confident then but I have a lot to learn. I left Norman when I was twenty-two and went back to my hometown of Ringling, Oklahoma which is as far south in Oklahoma as you can be without being in Texas, pretty much. So, I went back to Ringling and got in touch with my roots and started writing songs about my hometown and experiences I had there. From there I tried to figure out what I wanted to do then, and I eventually embarked off to Durant, I lived in Durant for probably six months and met some really great musicians John Riley, Nick Knutson these where guys really good song writers and very influential on me as a performer. We met at this little place called the Red Barn; I have heard the Troubadours, and R.C, Edwards’s talk about the Red Barn. It’s this little Red Barn, pretty much. We would play at the open mic there on Wednesday, and that’s where all of us songwriters started to meet. It was the first time I had been around other people who were songwriter, songwriters and that’s what I want to be and what I strived for. From there, I kind of hung out for awhile and then I kind of wore out my welcome I felt like. I ended up in Ardmore, Oklahoma, actually Ada for about a weekend, then Ardmore, Oklahoma and that’s where I met Caleb, he was waiting tables.
Dylan Stewart: A friend of a friend really, just waiting tables kind of just crashing out, and played a show at the afore mentioned Red Barn, little beer bar. It went on from there.
Dylan Stewart: Yeah, I had a bass player. I was trying to build a band; I had Myles who I mentioned earlier. Yeah, I need a bass player, and Caleb, I think I saw him play once and was like your work your great, and it worked out great. The first show we didn’t have any practice and we jumped into everything. I’m glad nobody recorded it, but I think it went okay two years later. Yeah, a couple years later it turned out okay.
Dylan Stewart: So, the album, we don’t have a release date. We are actually finishing up and it’s going into mastering, it’s in Joe Hardy’s hands right now. It’s really awesome to work with Joe Hardy too, because, of course he’s worked with Steve Earle, ZZ Top, and a slew of others. But the release date, it’s going to be some time in late December or January. It’s kind of funny, Me, Caleb, and Myles, there was a couple of times where I would write a song, I think I wrote these two songs actually and we went to the studio, me and Mike laid down everything. We called Caleb and Myles the next day and was like come in you got to learn how to play drums and bass to these songs cause we are going to record them.
Caleb Story: Yeah, we had a lot of things on the spot, and for me and Myles, I know definitely for me, we had never been around people that who had made a living off of music, and almost completely re-defined a scene. It definitely lit a fire underneath us when we got into the studio. It wasn’t really hard to be ultra productive, and have intermittent sparks of creativity in the studio like that.
Dylan Stewart: I remember leaving some sessions, one session I left, I was staying at this house, it was on ninth street in Ada, Oklahoma, which is where the Boohatch is, don’t tell anybody though, but on ninth street there is a Loves or a Seven Eleven, but anyways the house was right there behind it. I was suppose to stay there, but when I got out of the session which was pretty late, it ran into probably four, probably the early morning. When I got there, of course, these people had gotten drunk and passed out. So, the door was locked and I couldn’t get in, so, I sat there and was like “what am I going to do.” I was really inspired by the session, it was a great session, I wanted to write something so I went to the store and got me something to drink, came back and sat on this porch and wrote a song on ninth street and about five in the morning after a session. That was the environment we were coming out of at the Boohatch, it was just always, you know.
Dylan Stewart: I hate genres. I think they get in the way of a lot of people view of music. Somebody who says they hate country music, who knows that Hank Williams wouldn’t sing a great song to really fit their situation. I’m anti-genre.
Caleb Story:Yeah, I think genres are for people who already have their ears closed, I think we like to play the most of what sounds good. Yeah, good songs.
My name is Sergeant Richard Huckaby. I'm in the National Guard but currently on active duty I'm an E-5. I've been in for nearly 8 years in February. Normally you only do 6, 6 years in the guard and then 2 years in active reserve. I'm gonna tell you my story about going to Afghanistan. In which I volunteered to go when I was finishing up my first IAR year so I didn't really have to go.
This would have been the very beginning of 2011 we found out we were gonna get deployed to Afghanistan and most of the guys that are below team leader level had never been deployed before, but each of us team leaders that were Sergeants and above had been deployed at least once to Iraq so we wanted to go with our boys that probably wouldn't have been as confident about what they were doing.
There were things that happened I never would have expected, although I did pray to God to seal out more than I saw in Iraq. I got what I prayed for but, thank God I also got brought home because without God I would not have made it.
I'm a 12 bravo that's a combat engineer in the U.S. Army. Basically we're infantry but we carry explosives. We also do route clearance where we uh get the bombs out of the road. We were only in Kyrgyzstan I don't know a few days getting our body armor and different things and last minute mission briefs. Then we went to Afghanistan. I won't say exactly where we went but, it was the eastern area of Afghanistan, definitely a lot of mountains around. We were not dismounted out of our trucks.
I was inside the truck and we'd been on the road for hours and our TC our Truck Commander (the guy that sits up front in the passenger seat) said "You know what maybe this year's not gonna be so bad after all."
Yeah, but about 5 minutes later we're rolling down the road we got our feet kicked up thinking it's gonna be a cake walk and then the loudest, biggest explosion I've ever seen in my entire life happened behind me. It was about 5 trucks behind mine probably no more than 50, 60 meters behind my truck. This blast is so big it split that truck in 2 from in front of the driver. It blew off the engine block and everything.
It didn't kill anybody but I'm telling you...at the time, it looked like everybody was dead. There was no movement.We learned that you've got to dismount to locate the bombs and stuff. You've got to walk like 200-300 meters in front of the trucks to try and scare off the enemy or find the wires before they get to a truck.
I'll tell you that I believe in God. I've believed in Him all my life. I would pray before every mission and I'd thank God that a few of my soldiers would..they started doing the same they would pray with me and we had faith that no matter if guys didn't have faith our faith would save them because we know the authority and power of our God. Well, I'll tell you this is just a few of the ones that were really just amazing miracles.
Why I'm here? I really don't know I guess God's got a plan for all of us because none of my guys died. All those soldiers died in the 45th infantry brigade none from my company died and we had the most dangerous job in Afghanistan. After July getting blown up 3 times we learned we had to stay dismounted like all the time. If we didn't dismount on the ground we were just gonna get blown up.
So, I guess the next biggest event to me, probably one of the scariest days of my life would have been September 11th back home. It was pretty much september 11th or 12th there cause we're like 8 or 9 hours ahead overseas. I'd been dismounted and I swapped out with some people I thought that there was an IED that went off behind me like it blew up the back end of my truck and that's where I was sitting but the blast didn't fully go off. Well after we dug up the bomb by hand we continued to walk up the road but it took so much time that it was nearly dark so we were gonna have to circle the trucks in enemy territory to stay the night, and a couple of my soldiers without telling me walked off the road to try to go find a better place to stay to put the trucks for the night.
I found a good spot that was next to one of the walls and I was like this is in the village there's no way the enemy would try and shoot our trucks up at night cause they don't want the locals not liking them anymore. So my guys call me over the radio to have me come up there and check it out. And they're like 200-300 meters away so if they got shot there was nothing I could do about it. So I was pretty mad about that but I get up there and I'm mad cause they don't have their NOS their night vision goggles they don't have their thermals, and the spot that they were looking at was not a good spot so we turn around to come back.
One of the two guys happened to walk around this building as we're walking back toward our trucks. I don't remember if he said he was going to or not but since he was behind me I didn't see him do it. Then out of no where comes automatic AK fire, and then there's M4 fire and I'm like dear God are you kidding me? I don't know how many enemy there are I don't know what's gonna happen I don't know if they kidnapped him I don't know if he's dead I don't know if he's alive. So I call the trucks up and I call for gun support cause we're getting shot at from the 9 and from the 3 o'clock.
I sent two of my guys around one side of the building and me and two of my other soldiers went around the other side of the building. We're yelling for our buddy the whole time and he's not responding. His radio's dead. What a coincidence huh?
Finally we get a weak cry "hey I'm over here I'm alright but I'm shot." he shoots off a round I guess to show us where he's at but the round went right past me. Man golly you never seen someone be so scared in my life! I jumped on top of my soldier that was next to me.
We got up to him and I pulled security on him while my other soldier put this tourniquet on his arm cause he got shot through the uh right arm. It shot through his brachial artery it shattered the bone ripped out his tricep. If we hadn't put that tourniquet on his arm he would not have lived. This is a soldier that weighs nearly 300 and something pounds with all his gear on, and when the helicopters came to land they would not land behind our trucks because they said it was too dusty.
So, they went about a quarter mile down the road and we had to pick him up and carry him about a quarter mile. I'm just saying that's a lot of weight to carry a long ways but it wasn't that hard because it was our…one of our soldiers a friend of ours. We didn't want him to die, you know? I have never experienced such an adrenaline. Anyways he made it he's home he's healing up.
The day that got me sent home was October 14th 2011. It was just me and my other buddy (who's a Sergeant as well) walking down the road. It was about an hour down the road when me and him, still dismounted and get a hit and I find a wire. Sometimes they run their wires under the road, their electrical wires, but I asked my buddy if there was one and he said there wasn't.
So I said we got a wire, so go ahead and call it up over the radio. Let's go ahead and trace this and try to catch this sucker. Now they've never done what they what they did that day. This is the first time they ever did this to us. We found the wire so they knew they weren't gonna get to blow it up on a truck.
Now there's a farm valley below and a mountain wall next to us. Well as we start to trace the wire. And we had just called it up over the radio it wasn't probably 15 or 20 seconds after we called it up. There was a huge explosion and numerous of my soldiers said they thought we were gone! They said they thought we were "pink mist" meaning we weren't going to find a part of you.
That blast blew us off the mountainside. It blew us into the farm valley below. Our trucks couldn't see us because there were trees all along the road. The enemy proceeded to shoot at us, with AK, PKM, whatever just machine guns from a long ways away on the mountains. So we had to low crawl behind cover we tried to poke up we wanted to shoot back but we knew we'd just be like a turkey it would be too easy poking that head up to get shot so we just had to lay down and crawl. Plus, we were pretty much out of it. We both had concussions and got jacked up pretty good.
Our guys couldn't shoot back from the trucks because they couldn't see us because of the trees along the road so we had to wait for our helicopters to come in and provide air support but that's when they loaded us up in the trucks and took us about a mile down the road and me and my buddy got air lifted out, and it wasn't a week later that I was back in the States. I didn't get to go back.
I was pretty mad at God for me being home but my soldiers weren't home with me but um I will say if it wasn't for God that I wouldn't be here and my men wouldn't be here. Yeah it's just a miracle. “The Sound of Movies” For modern film audiences, what they see in a movie is what they tend to remember most. The huge explosions and blood curdling screams can be memorable, but the extra work that many sound mixers and editors put into the background generally goes unnoticed, and as Assignment: Radio’s Michael Rymer explains, sometimes that work gets a little weird. For modern film audiences, what they see in a movie is what they tend to remember most. The huge explosions and blood curdling screams can be memorable, but the extra work that many sound mixers and editors put into the background generally goes unnoticed, and as Assignment: Radio’s Michael Rymer explains, sometimes that work gets a little weird. Kini Kay: The most embarrassing part of that was when I had to go buy high heels. So I had to put on a wedding dress once for a wedding scene so I could make the ruffles just right and wear high heels. It was…I hadn’t done that before. It was an odd moment. Luckily (it was) just the guys in the booth, and they knew I was doing it for professional reasons. Michael Rymer: That's Kini Kay, an Audio Production instructor at the University of Oklahoma, and these “professional reasons” involve the art of Foley. Kini Kay: Foley is synchronized sounds that can be created in a studio, in a stage. We replace, or sweeten as we’d say, all the footsteps, all the props, all the cloth movement, kisses, handshakes, pats on the back. Basically [it] mostly consists of footsteps and props, and most people don’t realize all those footsteps are recreated and edited before they hear it. Michael Rymer: In 20-10, Kay built a Foley stage for O-U on the second floor of the old Journalism building. The room has shelves full of odd trinkets and gadgets that Foley artists use to create those sounds to add to movies. Footsteps in gravel. Kini Kay: The stage also has different surfaces, called pits, to walk on and match types of footsteps. Footsteps on wood platform. Kini Kay: This would work for like a board walk or what not. Harder-soled shoes, that’ll play better. And then the…every movie you’ve ever heard that has grass is quarter inch audio tape squished together like this. Jurassic Park clip: “Don’t go into the long grass.” Michael Rymer: This example of what Kay’s talking about is from the 1997 sequel to Jurassic Park-the Lost World. In the scene, the characters run into an open field where they're trying to escape Velociraptors. Kini Kay: When producers and directors began adding sound to movies in the 1920s and 30s, microphones at the time could only record dialog and no other sounds. An innovative studio worker named Jack Foley, came up with a way to add more sounds to movies. Kini Kay: They would have him perform sometimes audience clapping and cheering and he’d be into a booth to the side and there’d be an orchestra there to do the music cues. And they’d do it all in one roll. Then that little room, as it progressed, they’d call it “Foley’s room” for Jack Foley, and then it just became known as Foley. Michael Rymer: One of those early films Jack Foley worked on was the 1931 adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula. In the film, you can hear the horses’ hooves clopping on stone, a sound achieved by hitting hollow coconuts. Dracula Audio: Horse Hooves Kini Kay: Oh, here’s one (bowl breaks). Those were my bowls by the way, but still, it’s a Foley stage. Michael Rymer: In order to protect actors from physical harm while filming, sound designers record fake punches on sides of meat on the Foley stage. In the 1972 classic, the Godfather, there is a scene where Sonny Corleone drags his brother in law out into the street and beats him up. The Godfather Audio: Fighting in Street Michael Rymer: If you watch closely, you'll see that James Caan’s fists are a good six inches away from Gianni Russo's face. But you can still hear punches landing. That's Foley. Fade Out-The Godfather Audio: Fighting in Street Michael Rymer: Kays’ start in audio design came from his eagerness to learn more about the creative process of film, and he figured out that the art of sound was a passion he didn’t know he had. Kini Kay: What I love about Foley is it’s all self-contained. When you’re cutting effects, you can search all day. You have to go out, maybe record a car…it’s a real pain at times. Whereas Foley it’s all within the confines of a room. Whatever you can think of or create, you can make happen. ![]() ![]() ![]() « back ![]() |