Recommended listening

This project took a long time in the making ... I supervised Jess as she produced this work for her honours year at RMIT - am very proud and pleased to see it find airtime and make it to the end of the full circle.

ONE BLOOD

The story of William Cooper: a voice raised in the silence

First broadcast: 5 December 2009

In late 1938 an elderly, statesmanlike Aboriginal man called William Cooper delivered a letter of protest to the German consulate in Melbourne over the persecution of the Jews on the notorious Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass. He was one of very few voices of protest – nationally and internationally.

Freelance producer, Jessica Noske-Turner, has produced a documentary about William Cooper (1861 – 1941) and his passionate advocacy for human rights. She was captivated by the spirit and humanity of the man from Cummeragunga, the former Aboriginal mission station on the Murray River in Victoria.

The documentary, One Blood, will feature during ABC Radio National’s Awaye! program on 5 December at 6pm and will include readings from Cooper’s letter, as well as a journey back to his final resting place, the cemetery at Cummeragunga and beautifully recorded audio from a ceremony in the Forest of Martyrs in Israel, where trees were planted in his memory of with water and soil from the Murray River.

A complementary feature website will also be available from the Awaye! website at abc.net.au/rn/awaye . The website will include the audio from the program to stream and download, copies of original documents including notes in William Cooper’s hand, photographs and video of the tree-planting ceremony in Israel.

Action on Radio Active Space

My final year radio students have (finally) uploaded their radiophonic mash-ups and audio features to the ABC's Pool ... check them out HERE

Notes on Nigel Dick's lecture on Australian FTA Television - past, present and future

Had a great lecture from the the venerable Nigel Dick who has held many key influential positions in the Australian television industry - including as senior executive and then general manager of GTV9, director of Crawford Productions and deputy chairman and founding board member of the Victorian Film Corporation, now FilmVic.

Nigel set the scene with an overview of the history of free to air television in Australia and then launched into a discussion about advertising/revenue growth patters - the snapshot doesn't look great - a couple of his slides below:

He made the point that while media outlets have multiplied (ie. between 1993-2008 we have 104 new radio stations) "additional services had no effect on increasing advertising revenue"... so the cake remains the same, the slices of it just get smaller.

He also spoke about Australian television drama - it's huge popularity with local audiences and its high expense compared with purchasing overseas programs... and it's importance in fostering the Australian film industry...

These two points resonate with an ABC Television Media Watch story called The Future of Teleivision view the segment or read the transcript HERE - it's from October 2008, but many of the issues and concerns are still current

Student Success

Heard some good news from my students recently... makes me feel all proud 'n' stuff...

The fabulous Jessica Noske-Turner, has had her radio documentary In the Wake of Genocide picked up by ABC Radio National's Awaye. It's a beautiful program about Aborigianal rights activist William Cooper. I worked with Jess in Broadcast Media and then supervised her honours project in 2008.

and...

The indomitable Jonathon Hutchinson has just been awarded the position of research assistant for ABC's Pool funded by QUT's Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation... which will no doubt lead onto a PhD scholarship... read more HERE. I'm supervising Jonathon's honours project this year - and before that, he was part of my Radio Active Space studio and I also taught him in Broadcast Media...

Finding, selecting and editing music in radio documentaries

Music is a powerful texture in an audio documentary. Its functions are many and varied - from creating drive and momentum to enhancing the emotional subtext to carrying key story information – so, finding the right track is key.

A primary use of music is to articulate structure; at a basic level ‘intro’ and ‘outro’ music tells us the feature is beginning or ending. In magazine-style programs a music ‘sting’ or breaker is used to signify a change in story or topic. The music acts as a highlighter pen because the change in texture pricks our ears and makes us listen closely – at these points we listen for and read ‘more meaning’ in the story. So, my usual advice to students is to make sure the last words before/after music are strong and meaningful – not to let them dribble off into something a little bit irrelevant…

In addition to turning the listener on music can be used to switch them off. The classic - ‘music sting’ as transition – also gives the listener a chance to think and digest the information they have just heard. The art of ‘talking to many’ in a time-based media is keeping them with you – so, especially in a long form piece, you need to let the material ‘breathe’ – and music is good at clearing the air of words and creating some space for your listener to think. Below is a short example of a music 'breaker' in a program I made for All in the Mind:

Extract from SPEAKING OF MUSIC by kylabrettle

Probably the most striking effects of music in documentary is how it wraps around the other sounds and makes them much more comfortable together – I’ve often got lost just listening to the different rhythms and phrases that happen between a random music tracks and words… Like a warm light,

music can make voice and montage sections sound better… the only problem is that it can get addictive – a common trap for young players is to slap it under everything – and this essentially dilutes the power of music – the rush that you get as a listener when it comes in as well as that pointed silence and stillness you feel when it fades out.

For me, one of the effects of music is to lift the voice out of the grubby reality story and make the passage seem less real – I find that the soundtrack creates a more reflective space. I did this a lot in the program Toby Guthrie Coils the Spring – juxtaposing the reflective interview material with the observation action sounds… below is a basic example:

Extract from TOBY GUTHRIE COILS THE SPRING by kylabrettle

Music also works well as a leit motif – signifying a particular character or location – this is quite handy if you want to jump back and forth between different spaces without losing the listener....below is an example:

Extract from AFFAIRS OF THE MIND by kylabrettle

Music also enhances the more… ah… musical or formal aspects of your ‘documentary composition’ – emphasising the melodic contour of the spoken word or the rhythm of the environment. A very beautiful example of this working really well is Sherre DeLys and John Jacob's program, If which juxtaposes spoken word and improvised cello.

Getting into music is usually easier than getting out of it. There are several ways to do it: either fade up or fade down, use the natural start and end to a piece and enter it in a full volume or mask the music’s entrance/exit with a transitional spot sound….

Something to remember when selecting and cutting music is to think about both the frequency or pitch of the work and also the sonic intensity and how that balances with the spoken work or other sound you want to mix it with. If the music is low and you are mixing it with a low male voice, then the close frequencies make the voice seem

muddy. Likewise a really fat musical sound with many voices like an orchestral work or big band can feel too ‘heavy’ or dense when juxtaposed with a single talking voice. Lyrics mixed over speaking voice can also be very confusing and are best avoided. If the lyrics are important to your piece, you need to give them space in the clear so the listener can hear them properly. I usually cut around lyrics – recutting the instrumental parts together and repeating a phrase here and there.

We are often drawn to well-known and popular work when thinking about the music tracks for our programs… music usually carries lots of cultural baggage as well as copyright issues. Even if you are legally allowed to use a popular work – often the song has too much history and associations on its own for you to successfully re-orient those meanings in relation to your own work and the meanings you are trying to construct. The listener ends up tuning out of your piece and tuning into their last memory of having listened to that song…and if you are unlucky the listener will turn off your documentary and play the music album… However, purposefully using the cultural associations of music as a subtext and affect in a piece can work really well – a fantastic example is the example of the intro to CBC’s The Wire, episode 5.

If you are making a project commissioned by a broadcaster, then the company pays for the use of copyrighted music – but as a general rule, if you are producing documentaries it is best to source music with a creative commons licences so you are able to exhibit your work online.

FURTHER INFO

• For sites where you can find CC and copyright-free production music - go to my delicious tag, cc_production_music

• For links on editing radio documentaries and features - see audio_editing

RELATED SUBJECTS

• For general articles, links and references about radio documentary post-production - go to my delicious tag, project_post

IMAGES: (c) Kyla Brettle and ABC Radio National

The contracting process, pitching & writing radio documentary proposals

The verbal pitch and written proposal are the tools you use to sell your radio documentary concept to a broadcaster.

While not all broadcasters programs require a full written proposal in order to commission a feature – ‘imagining the project’ and writing it out is a great exercise that helps you focus both your research and understanding of the story’s potential…. And gives you the information you need to evaluate whether or not the idea is really worth pursuing.

Before going further I want to stress that a lot of time and research goes into developing a project concept to the point where it's ready to be written into a proposal - you need to have conducted preliminary interviews, been on a RECCI (if possible), secured permissions and also researched background and context - and then critically re-evaluated the concept. You usually only get one crack at presenting the idea to a commissioning editor - so you want to give the project the best chance of getting through and being a great program. (For more on this see the post on developing program concepts)

The proposals are pretty functional and practical sorts of documents – it is a ‘working document’ that needs to:

• ‘Excite, entice and inspire’ an EP into wanting to make the program happen
• Give an EP a strong sense of the program – story, characters, how it will sound, approach, sound sources, access etc and if it is actually viable/possible in the duration in the timeframe with the available resources
• Reassure an EP you have the research, communication and program making skills to execute the project

While some broadcasters provide Freelancer Guidelines – if the show doesn’t ask for specific information – be best approach is to keep the proposal structure pretty clean and straightforward…

Make it clear what the document is and your name at the start with an indication of how long you think it should be – begin with ‘Promotional Material’ – a short synopsis of the program that should sell the idea – interest the reader. The synopsis is traditionally the ‘carrot to dangle under their nose’

Follow this up with Explanatory Material – outlines, treatments, scripts – levels of detail vary but basically you need to tease out the story, soundsources, why it’s interesting etc or other relevant information – this is more ‘bread and butter’ kind of writing that give the reader an understanding of ‘how it will work and sound’.

Provide support material in the form of preview tapes or photos or other written stuff if you feel it’s really necessary – but if the information is important then don’t let it get lost in ‘Support Materials’.

In the end ensure you have a business end to the proposal sorted – and don’t forget contact details. When you get down to the nuts and bolts of the proposal concept - you should be clear and direct about the viability and upfront with potential weaknesses.

FURTHER INFO

• Lecture Notes derived from the a lecture I give in the RMIT Media programs Broadcast Media course.

• Audio/Transcript of a short interview with producer/presenter Brent Cloughabout pitching and proposing documentary ideas to ABC Radio National feature programs
Interview with ABC Radio National's Brent Clough by kylabrettle
• Post written by longtime producer/executive producer Matthew Leonard, Notes from the Thought Police – an insiders view of the contracting process and great tips for independent contractors

• Find more resources and link under my delicious tag, pitching&proposals

RELATED SUBJECTS
• Post, On developing radio documentary program concepts

• General resources and links about generating, developing and presenting program concepts under my delicious tag project_development.

Listening to Shocking Sound

BEYOND THE SHOCK MACHINE by Gina Perry and Sharon Davis... broadcast on ABC Radio National's Hindsight

"In the summer of 1961 Stanley Milgram, a 27-year-old associate professor of psychology at Yale University, conducted a series of controversial experiments designed to test the limits of obedience. Volunteers in the experiment were told to give electric shocks to a person they could hear screaming in pain in the room next door. Seemingly ordinary people turned into torturers.

Much has been written about Milgram and his experiments. But there's a missing part to the story -- the voices of people who took part. Gina Perry goes in search of those who participated in what's been described as the most widely cited and provocative set of experiments in social psychology.

This documentary was awarded a silver medal in the history category at the 2009 New York Radio Festival Awards. It was first broadcast on ABC Radio National's Radio Eye program in October 2008."

This is a compelling audio documentary about a endlessly fascinating and disturbing subject - our capacity for obedience, brutality and doing what we know is wrong. The piece explores layers of discomfort - both the findings of the study and the ethics of the experiment itself.

If you are into psychology and all things neuroscience - you'll find it a bit of a beachy, easy-to-find subject - a famous study that's already received a lot of attention and exploration... but if you don't know much about this - the program is a great introduction.

The show is well structured and neatly put together - the ensemble of interviews is

comprehensive and satisfying - and the archival material is truly excellent. It's a very straight program - the producers maintain a safe distance from the subject and it's aurally very conservative. The online presentation of this program is pretty lame - a few bald words with no images or references - not much chop for a subject with such rich archival resources and references.

IMAGES: Obedience image http://www.mytvblog.org/?p=2735, Milgram experiment http://rogerhollander.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/questioning-a

uthority-a-rethinking-of-the-infamous-milgram-experiments/, Shock machine http://www.usu.edu/psycho101/lectures/chp14socinflu/socinflu.html