kyla brettle... B L O G S

Broadcast... Music as Therapy

2011-07-30T21:51:00.000-07:00

... if you missed it on All in the Mind - hear the repeat of Music as Therapy on ABC Radio National's Into the Music!

Where am I at... in Jun_2011

2011-06-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

Hanging out with our beautiful baby boy, Arlo.

boradcast ... The Trouble with Rick on NPR

2011-03-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

Weird where your bits end up ... like HERE

A collaboration between the [Un]Observed radio magazine and the local NPR station leads to and airing of my show - only with a new name - the sounds from within...

The anchor intro is a bit of a spoiler ... but that's okay

observed by the [Un]Observed

2011-01-31T15:33:00.000-08:00

HEY 53 interviews Tania Ketenjian, editor of The [Un]Observed @theunobserved radio magazine

If you don't know about it already - do check out the [Un]Observed radio magazine - it's a very happening space for interesting audio and a great place to find good listening.

In the IV Tania gives me a mention - I was quite chuffed!

Where am I at ... in Jan_11

2011-01-25T15:16:00.000-08:00

We have now officially entered the ‘tweens’ of the new century and life is looking decidedly different. I’m pregnant. The sea-monkey is due at the end of April – and I’m guessing this will impact on my work somewhat. I’ll be going on maternity leave from RMIT from March until the end of the year.

Am currently cutting a little show for ABC Radio National’s 360documentaries – just a 10 minuter - it’s based on an entry into the My Tribe participatory project I ran last year and is a bit of a portrait of a contributor. It’s called Yusuf and the Punjab Lions and should go to air in April.

Despite trying to disentangle myself a bit from work – I’ve been roped into producing and re-designing the My Tribe project for the launch of the redesigned ABC Pool. It was just too exciting a gig to turn down – the new Pool has great potential to play with and having run the project for the past year – I have lots of ideas about how to improve it… I’m hoping that this version of the project will wrap up my postgrad research into social and participatory project production.

This idea of having a baby still doesn’t seem quite real – though my ever decreasing wardrobe tells me different.

Changing the way we think about education ...

2010-11-02T16:48:00.000-07:00

and a very nifty way of expressing it ...

My notes on Content Futures workshop at Melb Uni ...

2010-10-25T17:55:00.000-07:00

Attended ‘Content Futures’ yesterday - a very interesting all-day workshop held at Melbourne Uni. It was put together by screen producer Sue Maslin and run by IBUS (Institute for a Broadband Enabled Society) and AIMIA (Australian Interactive Media Industry Association). Lots of interesting stuff discussed and different viewpoints aired – from the capabilities and limitations of the National Broadband Network – to branding and IP rights management – from the politics and shifting power dynamics around creation to authorship and thinking around what convergent content will, ah, feel like.

Just thought I would highlight a couple of points I found rather interesting ….

David Court from AFTRS railed as against the emerging hostility towards authorship – saying that that good content is made by somebody with a vision as opposed to through community consensus or some kind of user generating process without heart, ideas or intent. I’m actually extrapolating a little here as I’m all for this point. He went onto make a very interesting statement – here are my direct notes …

Audience is the really exciting thing [about working in a new media ecology] – in heritage media audience is a statistical abstraction - ratings - box office stats – you no direct connection with them – so traditionally we reward people who have great hunches about what the audience wants or thinks – what is fascinating about new media is the opportunity to engage with audience – creators need to hold onto that relationship and not to give away to intermediaries – we need to own the relationship and build it because it is the asset. We are moving off Intellectual Property as the primary asset – the audience is now the asset – owning and maintaining that relationship is the asset – it is the new business model – it looks kind of like retail … and retail is a pretty successful model.

This idea really resonated with me and fits very neatly into my Demanding Audio project about developing online features and the role programs play in developing the culture of the show…

Meanwhile, in the workshop Sue Maslin repeated the adage that it was said that every new film was like starting up a small business (and that in cross-platform production it was like starting up several new businesses at once) … discussion bounced onto the idea that creators have to develop their brands – that creators are now creator/curators - the need to understand themselves as distributors and rights managers as well as makers …

I was also really interested in Ricky Sutton’s presentation. He is from Fairfax Digital and talked about the recent (Oct 1) launch of the Age TV http://www.theage.com.au/tv. The space has been launched in very low key way with some onsite promotion – but apparently it gets most of its recommendations via Facebook. Lots of really interesting stuff tied up in this one … developing shifts from short form to long form viewing on the site, locational audiences and IPTV as a strategy to develop strong evening audiences (the age has a fat day time audience but it’s evening audience was thin), also the sorts of rights deals negotiated and the content selection process (works popular online rather than ‘generally popular’ works, questions about context - the idea that we want to ‘think’ when we watch an internet screen and feel more like ‘being entertained’ in front of the ‘cinema style’ TV in the living room…

Too much for me to attempt to unpack here – but will just end of a great problem/solution example Ricky gave about online video …. The Age had been investing in complimentary video for stories for some time – lots of money, lots of work – a great looking video player and, says Ricky – an understanding that the video needs to offer something different to the written piece… but no one was watching. So they embedded the videos on the article pages – and bang! Big audience for the videos. My reading of this is that the problem was solved by understanding that the primary attractor for audiences are news articles and features - and then building that notion with enriched media content. Maybe in the future, if or one the Age sloughs off the image that it is newspaper it wont need these kinds of solutions.

broadcast ... Into the School of Music

2010-10-16T15:22:00.000-07:00

ABC Radio National's Into the Music re-broadcasts my show today.

It's as close as you'll probably ever get to an autobiographical piece from me - not that you would know if it wasn't pointed out. It's a story about my old school - the Victorian College of the Arts - and the contrast between what you think you will do - and what you end up doing.

000 gets a mention on Deutsche Welle

2010-10-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

Fall out from the In The Dark listening held in London ... 000 AMBULANCE gets a mention in a lovely little news feature about the event and 'the crafted audio feature' - hear Sarah Stolarz's audio story here - http://www.inthedarkradio.org/?p=1506

Get in on the ground floor as an ABC journalist

2010-09-03T00:46:00.000-07:00

This is a great opportunity for someone ...

ABC Cadetship Journalist Program 2011
Campaign No.: 491842

The ABC's News Division is offering a number of positions in its Cadet Journalist Program. The successful applicants will be offered a one-year training contract and will be trained as journalists for radio, television and online news. Salary circa $45K per annum.

Applicants should have appropriate tertiary qualifications and/or some relevant media experience and potential. Applicants must have initiative, well-developed research and writing skills and good communication skills. A broadcast quality voice is essential. A demonstrated interest in news and current affairs is required as is a familiarity with all ABC News output. You must also be able to work well in a team and take direction. People of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent are encouraged to apply.

Successful applicants may be required to relocate interstate. At completion of training and based on performance, an opportunity to join a regional newsroom may be offered.

Applications close 5pm (AEST), Friday 24 September 2010. If you are having problems applying, please contact Recruitment on (02) 8333 3334

Advertised: 27 Aug 2010 Aus. Eastern Standard Time Closing date: 24 Sep 2010 5:00pm Aus. Eastern Standard Time

2011 National Film and Sound Archive fellowships

2010-08-18T15:46:00.000-07:00

Now calling for applications.

This is a great opportunity for scholars and artists wanting to work with the archive - I think the only downside is that you have to go to Canberra.

Application deadline: September 30, 2010

See website for details http://www.nfsa.gov.au/about_us/sar.html

Where am I at... in Jul_10

2010-07-20T23:20:00.000-07:00

The year streaks ahead - a blur in a complete tizz - even just watching it can be exhausting sometimes.

Semester 2 teaching has just started. Luckily I'm out of the fray for the next six months working of a few research projects. While I enjoy teaching and generally get a lot of satisfaction out of making courses and working with students - it's good too to have a bit of a break.

I've relocated my primary office to the country - the main challenge is to resist the lure of the garden and its associated temptations of building drystone walls and weaving baskets to grow my potatoes in. Other than that, it's a great place to snug down, focus and get stuff done.

And that is, hopefully what I'll be up to over the next six months.

Does this mean I can call myself an artist?

2010-07-20T21:20:00.000-07:00

Or how about a sound designer? Maybe not, as I've already been made fun of for the pretension of calling myself a 'media practitioner'.

Whatever you call it - I've just delivered an audio piece for a work by artist, Lyndal Jones. It's called 'whispering wall' and is currently constructed over the disused fountain in Melbourne's Town Square. It looks like an untreated wooden wall with little orange holes in it (the speakers are inside the holes).

The audio was quite fun to make - Lyndal and I went off an interviewed about 50 people on the subject of climate change - and then I scurried off alone to a darkened edit suite to devise 12 tracks of audio. It was really refreshing to think of how the piece would be heard across space as well as time - and to a non-captive audience.

Do check it out if you find yourself in Melbourne city (I hear the piece will be travelling to the Sydney Museum of Contemporary art too).

000 AMBULANCE in the dark

2010-07-07T21:03:00.000-07:00

The other day I received an interesting request - an English fellow asked me if he could play my piece, 000 AMBULANCE, in a home-style 'listen in'. It was organised by an organisation called In the Dark. It was sweet of them to ask for permission as it would have been very easy to just do it without consulting me.

The whole idea of people gathering in a darkened room to listen to audio features is quite lovely ... it would be great to start up a similar club here in Australia.

Anway, it appears that the listening session has happened - as I was sent lots of very nice feedback about the program:

EXTRACTS FROM COMMENTS:

Love the rest of the pieces. particulalry ambulance. V. Moving. Felt v.
real, he was so honest and straightforward.

COMMENT:
"Really liked the evening - sitting in a room with others. Like
storytelling"

COMMENT:
000 Ambulance - Great, very moving

COMMENT:
"Utterly fantastic- I enjoyed it immensely- its so unique an experience to sit in the dark and listne other people to a doc, i've never done that before and yet I adore audio. What it forces your imagination and concentration into is completely absorbing and revelatory and JUICY.

000 or whatever the number- loved it utterly but as with almost anything it could have entered later! and left earlier. There were a
couple of natural endings before it did end. And less stuff before irish
guy emerged would have made it stronger.

COMMENT:
Gripped. morbid, but gripping. Cried all through the ambulance one.Who wasn't - and the dawning realisation that the irish man had been the ambulance center on the kids call that he had described in the third
person. Immensely moving. Looking forward to more of these.

COMMENT
this was lovely, particulalry the waxing vignette and the ambulance
piece- that lovely man carried me through. My only thought would be for a ten minute break between the documentaries.

COMMENT:
Really enjoyed that, it felt so real and so human. Its easy to feel
identified with the ambulance show people .

Student Internships at Radio National

2010-07-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

It's really nice getting to give opportunities away, it makes you feel good. I've just had an internship for a social media producer at Radio National as well as a radio producer for the Book Show to offer a student. The social media producer one went to Ross Richardson, from this years PP1 group - and I recommended ex honours student, Jessica Noske-Turner for the Book Show gig. I'm confident Jess will make the most of the opportunity as she has recently produced a strong short feature for 360documentaries.

TOBY GUTHRIE COILS THE SPRING on air

2010-06-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

Not on the airwaves but the air itself - flying high, sort of stuff.

A show I made some time ago was selected for presentation on ABC Radio National's Qantas in-flight entertainment audio channel.

A novel little windfall.

PP1.10 students present their convergent media objects to Pool

2010-06-16T22:54:00.000-07:00

Find this year's batch of Production Project 1 (COMM2322) student projects on the Pool; here. Unfortunately these are significantly weaker than they were last year.

Project My Tribe is launched!

2010-04-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

This is the participatory project I am working on.

It represents a huge and messy collaboration between me, ABC Radio National's 360documentaries, ABC Pool, Tribal Productions (aka RMIT Media Program staff and students teaching involved in the course COMM2022), Circus Media at Fed Square Screens and the research project 'Future Makers Future Markets'.

My role as an independent is to design the structure, author the project blog and make a radio show for it. I'm also the one kinda responsible for keeping it vaguely on track until it officially closes on July 30.

I'm expecting to get blog, communication and general social media fatigue - so don't be surprised if I basically stop writing here and only write there for the next few months.

THE TROUBLE WITH RICK noticed by the [un]observed

2010-03-01T03:27:00.000-08:00

A little radio show I made a couple of years ago just got picked up and published by a new radio magazine - the [un]observed ... nice to have some life breathed back into the project - but even better to have a new outlet for interesting audio on the scene.

*** thanks to Sound Rich this story gets seen and mentioned on http://hearingvoices.com/ - they describe themselves as "the largest collective of independent radio producers this side of the semi-planet Pluto."***

students make the most of opportunities on ABC radio ...

2010-02-01T02:38:00.000-08:00

2009 graduate Eliza Hull recently scored one of the few rather sought after internships with Triple J - she achieved this on the on the strength of her Production Project 1 assignment (Darwin Started it) and the industry contacts she made during the course.

Also Tom Roberts and Ariane King (2009 Broadcast Media students) will have their radio assignment 'The Sound of Fire' broadcast on ABC Radio National's 360documentaries program on Saturday Feb 6. The brief was to make a program 'suitable for broadcast on 360' - so clearly they have done very well - both are rather chuffed about being paid for a school assignment. I just ran the course and gave lectures - so congratulations also goes to their tutor, Rohan Spong.

Where am I at... in Jan_10

2010-01-27T22:03:00.000-08:00

Had a lovely summer - went on a most enjoyable trip to New Zealand and spent the rest of the time at our cottage; sitting underneath the mulberry tree imaging the wonderful things I will do with our sprawling (and not a little daunting) garden. My mother gave me some sound advice (as mothers are want to do) "start close to the house and wend your way out".

Anyway, the shrubbery is now on hold as the working year is winding up for action - I can almost hear it stretching back like a rubber band - ready to let go a big (batman-style) Ka-PoW...

In semester one I'm teaching into the RMIT course, Production Project 1 with my esteemed colleague David Carlin (always a pleasure to work with). This year students will not just be contributing to a participatory media project - but actually managing it from the inside - which is a bit of a special opportunity.

I've orchestrated a collaboration with ABC Radio National and Pool and RMIT to produce a project called 'my tribe' - it's basically a call out to the public to contribute creative works dealing with the theme of 'identity and community'. These works will be developed and exhibited on Pool and the 'best of' will be broadcast or presented as part of an online feature on RN's 360documentaries or hit the big screen at Federation Square in Melbourne. I'm hoping to get other organisations on board, but I think we have a good start.

As you can imagine, this is a HUGE thing to organise - and wouldn't really be feasible without the contributions of another great colleague, Marius Foley and the Future Makers/Future Markets project - I think I mentioned this project last year... basically, Marius and I have gained the support RMIT's Learning and Teaching Innovation Fund to revamp PP1 and do a bunch of research into learning and teaching in the public space via social media.

In addition to all that, I'll be making a feature length documentary for 360 to the theme of 'my tribe'. The show will be developed 'in the public' via a blog - upon hearing this my executive producer, Claudia Taranto said "you're brave" - I think the odds are better in thinking that I'm stupid. Anyway, I've committed to doing this now and have to give it my best shot. I'm going to make the audio program and development blog part of the project component of my postgraduate research.

... so, three birds with one stone - sounds great in theory - I'm just hoping the one stone is not too big to carry.

got me a grant!

2009-12-16T03:15:00.000-08:00

Quite excited just received some funding from RMIT's Learning and Teaching Innovation Fund for the project Future Makers/Future Markets. This is a project I've been working on with Marius Foley ... check out our project website HERE. (I took the banner image at Hong Kong airport - think the green looks quite cheery)

star student - Recommended listening

2009-12-02T14:07:00.000-08:00

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.

students vlogging for RN

2009-12-01T03:05:00.000-08:00

Radio National asked me to put forward four 'fresh young' faces to be video bloggers at the Parliament of World Religions ... Check out Annabelle, Kara, Jessie and Lisa's work ...

Action on Radio Active Space - PP2.09 students deliver to Pool

2009-11-19T13:58:00.000-08:00

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

2009-09-21T01:09:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-16T00:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-27T16:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-26T15:12:00.000-07:00

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

Where am I at... in July_09?

2009-07-13T02:36:00.000-07:00

Second semester is about to snap into action and I'm not feeling terribly prepared. Feeling a bit soft and squishy - overly relaxed, sun-drunk and vague... just spent three most enjoyable weeks Spain - along with everything else, took lots of holiday snaps, home video and audio recordings and made a series of slap-dash one minute films... good to remind myself that making media can just be about having fun.

But it's also about work - and that's what I've come back to.

Righto - so the landscape has changed a little... my gig as online producer for ABC Radio National's music unit finished up at the end of June - it was quite an amazing opportunity to step into shoes that had never been worn and be the first one to scuff and mark them... had lots of ideas, learnt a huge amount and did some good work - though perhaps thought too much as I didn't end up making as much tangible stuff as I would have liked to.

This semester I'm intending to spend a bit of time with my postgraduate project (which languished a bit last semester - squeezed, as it was, between two intense and demanding .5 jobs) . On the teaching front I'm coordinating Broadcast Media and running my third year Radio Active Space studio (aka PP2)... and I've got my number one honours student to supervise - Johnathon Hutchinson (whom I expect great things of).

So that's me in a nutshell, or an egg-shell - or rather, what's called an egg chair.

Online music and spoken word project

2009-06-11T22:03:00.001-07:00

"In Bb 2.0 is a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls.
The videos can be played simultaneously -- the soundtracks will work together, and the mix can be adjusted with the individual volume sliders."
"Participate! Create a video and send me the link!" Find it here.
[From David Carlin In Bb - very cool idea here - check it out]

Third Coast Audio Festival 2009 entry

2009-06-11T20:25:00.000-07:00

deadline approaching... Reminder below..

Hello from the Third Coast Festival... Here's your one week (plus a day or two) warning: The early deadline for the 2009 Third Coast Festival / Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition is coming right up. You have until midnight on June 19th to submit your entries online and pay the early fee: $50 or $30 for students. After that, the entry fee will increase to $70 for everyone. The late deadline for entries is midnight, July 10th.

This year's entry process is being handled entirely online through PRX.org. If you're planning to submit before the early deadline, we urge you to do this well in advance of June 19th. The process may take longer than you think - especially if you're submitting longer pieces, or multiple entries.

Convergence Culture guru Henry Jenkins on New Media Literacy Skills

2009-06-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

it looks kinda small - but click and all will be clear....

my students go live with... EVOLUTION on Pool

2009-05-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

RMIT Media Production Project one draws to an end and students upload their final projects to the Gene Pool exhibition on Pool. Some very interesting work.

Review student work on ABC's Pool or to the Production Blog

Online experiment... The Daily Planet @ Facebook

2009-05-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

As online producer for the RN Music Unit I've been looking at developing social networking projects. The idea is to uses these sorts of initiatives to develop the culture that surrounds the program, enter spaces where our audience spends time and drawing on the social glue that is networked media to turn our shows into hubs that encourage our audiences to feel connected and part of 'something bigger'.

As part of the job I've been working with The Daily Planet to help set up a Planet Facebook group. Now I don't particularly like Facebook - but it is a space where lots of people are - so that's where the program needs to go.

The DP FB page has been running for six weeks and going well in comparison with similar pages - today we have 294 fans and (for this week) have a post quality rating of 4.1/5 (this measures the percentage of fans who engage when we post content by adding their own comments or by liking/disliking things)... check out our page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Daily-Planet-ABC-Radio-National/6...

Anyway, I've extrapolated few notes below about broadcast programs running Facebook groups:

>> PROGRAM BRIEF - is Facebook right for your show? it's got a commercial feel and is not going to work for everyone... not fabulous for the more quirky or niche programs (I'd recommend a Pool group there)... But for a music program FB is great - music has universal appeal and you can have quite meaningful discussions about music with absolute strangers... it's a subject that carves out social groups anyway... but the real reason FB is good for The Daily Planet is because there are heaps and heaps of music groups/clubs there already (we need this to market our page effectively)... So, before you set up a page I recommend you cruise around looking at similar pages... bother with FB if your audience or potential audience is there and ripe for harvesting - I'd look for another tree if you have to lay the first seed

>>ACTIVE VIRAL MARKETING - I think this is pretty important on FB, it's not an environment for wall-flowers - you do need to look for ways to actively recruit fans (who aren't just your friends or friends of friends - that's a good place to start but won't get you that far)... for your active recruiting to be successful - the fans have to be there in the first place (point above) and you need the content to keep them (points below)

>>PRESENTER ENGAGEMENT - if yours is a presenter-driven show and they want to take their ball and go home - then there is no point in really starting the page... the fans need a star - FB is built around that kind of 'studio' structure. But if the presenter is willing to give it a go - they can find it is not very much work at all and that it is really quite rewarding (NB the space is not mediated but you don't seem to get much nastiness as dissatisfied users are not all that likely to become 'fans' in the first place)

>>POST/CONTENT - You really want to offer something different (but related) to your broadcast - Copying and pasting promo material is not going to cut the mustard... Users smell marketing copy and no one likes being spammed - to avoid this you might try to find an angle on the show or a part of it to feature that is a bit 'off centre'...

>> asking questions and generally giving users some kind of guidelines about what you would like them to do or contribute to is good... people find structure comforting... otherwise they just hold it in or babble about what a great show it is and neither is much of a conversation starter... encouraging simple voting of 'likes and dislikes' is a good 'on-ramp' (as JJ would say) for greater involvement... it is a way for users to contribute without sticking their necks out too much
>> presenters making a few off the cuff, casual comments about nothing much is quite good for business too (in addition to the more serious asks) again, this takes the pressure off users feeling they have to be a genius to post a comment... also responding to users comments is good ettiquite and is something users like... also maybe a behind-the-scenes note about the show or subject... it should be a relaxed but informative space - much looser than the program (but obviously upholding the ABC values)
>> getting stars and featured guests to comment is good - as is experimentation - like Lucky attempting a FB interview
>> links, links and more links flesh things out and turn your page from a limp and useless appendage (hanging off your already whole and complete and tightly sealed program) into a social nexus (open to others) and buzzing with content related to your show and relevant to your research, but not belly-button gazing at your show - links obviously take on greater significance in this space than they do on a program page (they look bigger and are given automatic images) - and they seem to be something users are very interested in... perhaps think about the FB page as being more about the subject you deal with, rather than your particular programs take on that subject...

>> POST FREQUENCY - several times a week is good - too infrequently and you lose engagement and too quick - the material doesn't get time to breath and users feel inundated... just like holding a small bird - hold it too loose and it will fly away, too tight and you will kill it

000 AMBULANCE gets a mention...

2009-05-05T17:31:00.000-07:00

in the fifth edition of Michael Rabiger's Directing the Documentary

reference... IS MUSIC A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE?

2009-05-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

This week ABC Radio National's Into the Music starts playing the CBC's six-part series, THE NERVE... about music and the human experience - it's a great series... lots of very funky sound design and great music montages.

The series is produced by Chris Brookes, Paolo Pietropaolo and Jowi Taylor - the same people who made the highly acclaimed THE WIRE series - which won prizes at both the Third Coast and Prix Italia festivals.

Anyway, I was very inspired by THE WIRE - it had a big influence on my approach to making IS MUSIC A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE? and so I stole and embedded about four seconds of their show in my show - a way to acknowledge it.

Anyway, it appears as if they have turned around and used my program as a resource, HERE.

Digital Stories... in search of the form

2009-03-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

CHECK OUT - http://www.sixtostart.com/we-tell-stories/

An interesting mix of digital stories - and ideas for digital story forms - by Penguin.

Stories range from 'choose your own adventure' to tales told through multiple blogs and micro-blogs to 'live online' tellings and a mystery grafted onto google maps.

Personally, I found the google map project the most engaging - short, concise text that reads easily online - as well as a dirty big narrative hook (always helps)... the map aspect was novel, but under-explored - the constant ariel view kept me at a distance - at odds with the intimate nature of first person narratives. In this story, I think audio would have worked better in the places the author had text.

I find 'choose your own adventure' stories a bit lame - I lose the 'suspended disbelief' you need to get wrapped up in the text - it also seems like too much work (it it requires this much effort I may as well be writing my own story rather than colouring in between the lines of someone else's) - and then there is the nut at the end you don't really get... the thing narrative structure is designed to do... the author makes some kind of point or has something to say...

I didn't give the multiple-blog or online performance story much time - the approach was confusing as I didn't know where to start or a sense of what I was getting into - and the whole thing was quite old by the time I got to it for the first time... so it felt like picking over cold, half eaten fish and chips wrapped in yesterdays newspaper.

Social Media Research - Wave 3

2009-03-30T16:46:00.000-07:00

Universal Mccann International Social Media Research Wave 3

View more presentations from mickstravellin.

I recommend this slide show research presentation for any interested in social media "online applications, platforms and media which aim to facilitate interaction, collaboration and the sharing of content."

It's the third Universal Mccann global study into the impacts of digital media and technology - 17,000 active internet users from 29 countries were surveyed.

The study encompasses the key platforms: blogging, microblogging, RSS, widgets, social networking, chat rooms, message boards, podcasts, video and photo sharing.

... a rich tub of interesting facts, observations, trends, summaries and recommendations - which concludes with the idea that social media "has to be considered for all advertisers, marketers and content producers as a core part of their communications" p.76

ABC Radio National Features Conference

2009-03-23T18:47:00.000-07:00

Went to Sydney to give a paper at the Features Conference - and go to my cousin's wedding.

The paper is about broadcast programs improving online presence and developing online projects – how distribution via a computer screen rather than a radio changes what we do and how we prioritizes things as program makers.

The shift from radio to online as a primary delivery platform is huge. Time and linearity, the two pillars grounding how radio content works, are completely unhinged in a networked environment – which is both timeless and nonlinear… And then there is negotiating this business of the screen – radio has always had a tricky relationship with vision…

Online functions differently to radio – it’s a multifunctional receptive outlet used as…

a portable media delivery/distributor - where we pick up our freshly baked media...
an information resource - search, find, surf... dig around research interests and news
an audio and multi-media player - engage with immersive and often interactive media objects
as an outlet for self-expression and social interaction - expression through participation and social media and group allegiances

We have to incorporate all think in our thinking about making and delivering programs… So, in a nutshell – the paper looks at…

(Before anything else) making sure our primary media object is spreadable – that the podcast’s ID3 tags are in order - ensuring we have the basics covered. It’s important to understand and work with how our programs live as digital bits in the world

Approaches to developing online features:

Delivery – developing features out of different ways to find and sort through archive material
Multimedia –creating media –enriched programs
Interactivity - developing participatory initiatives

Is technology the message?

2009-03-19T18:26:00.001-07:00

“Understanding several media simultaneously is the best way of approaching any one of them. Any study of one medium helps us to understand all others.”

Is technology the message?

View more presentations from Chris Chesher.

the traditional media sprawl into the digital landscape

2009-03-09T18:50:00.000-07:00

One of the things I'm being asked to think about - in both my jobs, actually - is how traditional media producers/distributors, like the national broadcaster, (can) enhance their product and reach though the employment digital media networks and platforms.

We chatted about it in class the other day - and I've put together a little bullet point list for my students...

Additions to the (broadcast radio or TV) program...

on demand or as podcast
blog
facebook
twitter
mobile phone feeds
digg
extended versions of program material - or extended previews - or extended summaries of past episodes...
extra material... including online only material like slideshows and what's being called 'digital features'
discussion boards, forums and guest books
participation or user generated content initiatives/call-outs (also called crowd-sourcing)
links and delicious tag-lists

The tricky thing, of course, is using these platforms in a sophisticated and interesting way (as opposed to simply trying to feed the program publicity through these avenues)

Anyway, beyond (my non-exhaustive list) vague platform categories... it's good to think about how broadcasters are actually using these spaces - why they are using them - and what it adds to the user experience or the quality of the core media object...

For example 'a blog'... is it a faux-blog - written in the voice of a fictional character - being used as an extension of the core story or fictional universe?... a non-fiction blog written by a star presenter giving background stories or links to further information about this weeks show (and developing their profile and audience connection)?... is the blog attached to a show or just generally connected to a network (and able do riskier stuff outside the network firewall - like speechification.com)?... is it a group-written blog (which 'they' say is hard to pull off)?... or is it a project-based transient blog that helps promote the forthcoming project while it's in production?...

After examining what broadcasters are doing - and trying to figure out why they are doing it - and evaluating how successful these attempts are... it's good to get down into a deeper, dirtier level of analysis and start asking... for what sort of 'program plus audience' would a facebook group 'work' for... what sort of programs would a twitter account not be appropriate for... how are successful UGC initiatives (on Pool, for example) framed and why do you think the unpopular initiatives are... ah, unpopular?

The ABC is having a play with different ways to use digital media... students might like to check out the following links - compare and contrast them to digital initiatives they are familiar with... what works, what doesn't and why...

blogs... ABC Digital Futures blog, All in the Mind blog, Kerri Jean blog
twitter accounts... Breakfast News, Pool, All in the Mind, 774 Melbourne
facebook accounts... All in the Mind Life Matters Triple J hottest 100
extra material for online only... Background Briefing slide show, Into the Music Wide Open Road Online Feature
Guest books and discussion forums... Life Matters Australia Talks
mobile phone... MovieTime

I'll end there - not because I've run out of stuff to talk about - but because I'm getting link-fatigue

Triple J looking for Cross-Media Journalists

2009-02-15T22:04:00.000-08:00

ABC Triple j's youth affairs program Hack has 3 vacancies for Cross Media Journalists.

Will you lead the future of journalism? Hack, triple j’s daily youth affairs show, is building a team of next-generation storytellers.

We’re seeking multi-skilled program makers to tackle stories in two environments - radio and online. The two platforms will work together. Radio stories will form the basis for a new kind of online multimedia experience.

As a cross-media journalist, you will publish stories to the flagship Hack radio show, including live crosses and multilayered field reports; you will also publish multimedia showcases to a revamped Hack website. The end result? An immersive web experience with photos, audio and video.

Your stories will originate in brave, accessible and relevant program ideas for young Australians, 18 - 24.

For further information contact James West on (02) 8333 2904.

broadcast... THE AUDITION: INTO THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC

2009-02-13T14:25:00.000-08:00

Quick note - Chicago Public Radio's Re:Sound is going to broadcast THE AUDITION... Feb 14th, 2009 - details and audio online HERE. The show is available for perpetual download HERE

broadcast... MUSIC; IS IT THERAPEUTIC?

2009-01-30T22:11:00.000-08:00

My latest audio program, Music – is it therapeutic? Will be broadcast on ABC Radio National’s All in the Mind on Saturday 31/01/09 at 1:05pm.

The synopsis runs something like this...

Music undoubtedly makes us feel good. But is it therapeutic? Does it have a place in healing the psychological, even physical, scars of illness? From the intimacy of a neonate ward to the ravages of cancer treatment - enter the world of three Australian music therapists pushing the boundaries of medicine.

The show will be repeated the following Monday at 1pm and will be streamed and downloadable for four weeks after broadcast. For more information, go HERE...

Travel Scholarship for students...

2009-01-20T14:21:00.000-08:00

WORLDNOMADS.COM 2009 TRAVEL PODCAST DOCUMENTARY SCHOLARSHIP
More info HERE
Applications close: April 5, 2009

The WorldNomads.com Scholarships program is designed to create a dynamic, experiential learning opportunity, which offers mentoring, produces exciting content and facilitates partnerships to publish/ broadcast/exhibit new work. The scholarships aim to attract those individuals who have a passion for travel and a strong desire to learn and contribute to making a difference in the world. Currently, there are 4 Travel scholarships open each year: Writing, Podcast Journalism, Photography and Film Documentary.

Executive Producers; Notes from the Thought Police | Matthew Leonard

2009-01-15T23:53:00.000-08:00

Matthew Lenoard - on pitching projects:

Here are some tips from someone who’s had twenty years with the ABC as a gatekeeper: listening to program pitches, mentoring and supporting freelancers, teaching radio and deciding whether to commission programs.

During that time I also had five years on the outside where I was pitching stories back to the ABC on a freelance basis. Hopefully these few ideas will help make your contact with the ABC easier and more satisfying.

The ABC needs its freelancers and most EPs or commissioner understand the value of good freelancers. Often programs invest a lot of time and effort in developing freelancers and would prefer to establish longer-term relationships rather than have to constantly retrain them.

All programs are slightly different and their Executive Producers will have their own nuances, but I have tried to make these few suggestions general enough to be of general use to prospective freelancers hoping to make radio for Radio National.

Be a listener. Sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how often people try and pitch (and even turn up at job interviews!) without having listened to the program. If you ARE a listener, then have some opinions about the program, don’t just say how “fabulous” the program is.

Use the ABC website to familiarise yourself with a program and network’s back catalogue. You MUST also acquaint yourself with the ABC’s editorial policies which are public documents and absolutely vital to program makers.

Don’t pitch to too many programs at once. Every program has its own program brief and may also be able to provide their own guidelines for freelancers. The “scatter gun” affect can be counterproductive and may cause confusion down the line. Most EPs or commissioning editors will try and make suggestions and redirect your proposal to a better fit for your pitch.

Establish some communication with the relevant EP or supervising producer first. Find a time to make useful contact with your potential commissioner or supervisor. Be aware that they will be a busy most of the time and may not answer emails straight away. Sometimes a few minutes to introduce yourself on the phone followed up by a more substantive email might produce better results.

Be aware of timeframes. Expecting to get a story up in the final quarter of the financial year is always hard as most programs have probably already committed their meagre freelance budgets by this time. Also your pitch may have to go to a meeting and be discussed.

Have a clear sense of the story. Give the EP a reason to choose your story over several others. Radio National is a specialist network that aspires to depth in its coverage so you’re always better off to suggest a story which aims for detail rather than survey,

Think through the layers of the story. What are its metaphors if any? Are there subplots that will enrich or enhance the main narrative?

Start to imagine how the program will sound. What perspective is it going to be coming from? Do you here music under voices? Readings or other post-production elements? What are the potential bear-traps?

Have I thought about the permissions, ethics and copyright issues implicit in the story I want to tell? Would the story be enhanced by collaboration? How much of you do you think there’ll be in the story and what’s your relationship to the material? Is your personal connection a selling point to potential commissioners or a liability?

What are your motives for doing this program? What are you doing it and why are you doing it now? Etc.

Writing down your pitch. At some point you will try and write a proposal document. I’d suggest no more than 2 double-spaced pages of A4.

Your pitch should address the following issues as much as possible:

Why you think the program you are approaching is the most appropriate outlet for the story. Provide some background.

Clearly identify the angle or line that you believe the program will follow.

As far as you can identify key locations and voices.

Incorporate some of the thinking you’ve done above in the proposal to indicate to the program you are actually thinking about these issues!

Identify the opportunities for SOUND: including location, possible archival materials or music that might be generated on location.

Anticipate realistic impact on program resources. “Is this freelancer going to be high maintenance” is one of the first questions an EP will ask. “How much hand holding will be involved in research, recording, editing and post”.

Do you think you’ll need actors, translators or other resources?

What travel costs might be involved. Be realistic.

What equipment needs do you have? Do you have your own gear or do you need to borrow. For how long? etc.

Are you going to be able to edit your own material or do you need to use an engineer? Be realistic and honest. It will all come back and bite your bum if your aren’t.

What multimedia or online content do you think the program might generate. Picture opportunities?

If you are an unknown entity to the program you will obviously need to supply a resume of some kind and samples of previous work. Suggest references if they’re appropriate and are going to say good things about you.

Where I'm at...in January_09?

2009-01-10T20:05:00.000-08:00

Hello 2009.

It's a non-teaching period at RMIT uni - no students but lots and lots of meetings. This semester will be co-teaching with the fabulous David Carlin in the subject, Production Project One (which is a fun subject to teach). We will be rolling a Radio National project into the course - so will be interesting to see how things go.

Recently finished up on a contract producing for ABC Radio National's All in the Mind with Natasha Mitchell - who is always a pleasure to work with... I made a show for the program about music therapy -will be on soon.

Will also be doing some very new stuff (for me) - Am starting a new contract as online producer for ABC Radio National's Music Unit until the end of June. It's a position half-way between editorial and online, and one that hasn't really been done before in the unit - so I get to define it, which is fun.

Also enrolled in a postgraduate course - and MA by project - my supervisor is Adrian Miles.

Hmmm - lots of stuff bubbling away

Radio Doc release forms and participant agreements

2008-10-15T23:57:00.000-07:00

In radio-land, unlike when television reporting, participant release form are not always mandatory. It is generally assumed if you look like you are recording and the participant clearly understands they are being recorded – then that basically counts as the participant giving you ‘permission to use the material’.

That said, always ask if you may record someone - sneaky recording is illegal and rude.

If you are recording something like a musical performance, however, then release forms are required. If you need an ABC participant release form your EP will let you know and provide one.

Sometimes program participants want to have the ‘final say’ or ‘veto’ over the program before broadcast. It’s an understandable desire – they have given you their voice – let you colonise their story - and it’s natural for them to feel concerned about how you will use it… And sometimes there are other legal issues involved too.

However, there is no way your commissioning broadcaster will allow the participant such a level of control over their investment – it’s just not going to happen, so don’t even toy with the idea.

In most cases there is no other way around it than to accept and acknowledge that the ‘exchange’ between program maker and documentary participant is a gift based on trust. It’s a leap of faith they either are or are not willing to take with you. I usually tell participants that I will to listen with them to the final program before broadcast and ‘seriously consider’ any concerns or suggestions they may have – I can’t give them a guarantee.

Obviously things get a lot more complicated if you are taking an adversarial approach to the program or discover something that changes things… and that opens up a whole can of worms about the relationship between maker and subject and journalistic ethics.

Reflections and Resources on 'Hate Radio'

2008-08-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

This is being developed by Radio Netherlands - link HERE

Flight of Being

2008-08-17T05:43:00.000-07:00

If, like me, you missed the 2007 Venice Biennale - recommend you check out the poor-man’s substitute of Bill Viola’s ‘Ocean Without a Shore’ on youtube - amazing piece – real ‘flight of being’ sort of stuff – blew me away... if only to be there in the flesh

LINKS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-V7in9LObI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTakwOpWqG4&feature=related

Free Sound Effects

2008-08-06T05:29:00.000-07:00

PacDV Free Sound Effects LINK

Absolute Sound Effects Archive LINK

Sound Snap LINK

Sound recording interviews for radio documentaries

2008-08-06T03:32:00.000-07:00

Below are a few elementary notes on things to remember when recording interviews in field:

ALWAYS check the equipment before venturing off to record, even if the kit has been prepared for you by Operations staff – are the batteries fully charged? are the leads free of crackle? are all the bits in good working order? Obviously ensure you feel confident using the unit and understand the response curve and power source of the microphone. Also make sure you have back-up – extra… leads, tapes/recording space, batteries etc. – as well as the power supply and maybe an extension lead.

Good levels peak between -6 and -12db: this leaves you with a minimum of 4db headroom in

case the situation suddenly becomes louder. If the levels are too high and the sound distorts the material is unusable – if you record too low the sound will have an unattractive hiss when you increase the volume in post. Tip; if recording in an unpredictable situation with a single cardioid or directional mic onto a stereo track - set the channels so that one is a little lower than the other – this means that in post you can split the stereo into mono tracks and use the best one.

ALWAYS monitor levels in the headphones – and check how high the monitoring or headphone volume is – if the monitoring levels are set high then you may think you are recording good sound when you are not. If you record often, find the ‘right’ monitoring level for you and reset the unit to it every time you record – this will help train your ears.

Positioning the microphone… during an interview stay close to the sound source by default. Place the back of the microphone to the least wanted sound.

Don’t record without setting the levels and doing a sound check first.

Turn off mobile phones – both yours and the participants. Mobile phones cause interference and usually ring right at the wrong moment.

As a matter of course, get the participant to spell their name, state their position/title and repeat their phone number ‘on tape’ – while you will not use this material in the edit, it means if you lose their details you have an aural copy.

Sounds to avoid… all forms of wind noise – natural wind, wind generated by mic movement, wind from voice (the classic ‘pop’ – when a puff of breath crosses the mic). Handling noise is also unappealing – don’t fiddle with the lead or let the participant hold the mic.

Noisy Locations… if you record in a loud and recognisable location (eg a café) do it for a good reason to do with the story/piece (not just because it’s convenient at the time) – either incorporate that location into the fabric of the piece (by verbal reference, recording atmospheres and spot sounds) or go somewhere else. Also, if you record in a space with a lot of natural reverb – know the verbal material will ‘bleed’, making it a lot more difficult to edit.

Domestic Locations… if it’s a quiet home, the closest you will get to the semblance of a ‘studio sound’ is a room with a lot of soft furnishing – like a living room or bedroom. Listen out for consistent, irritating sounds like a fan or refrigerator buzz – ask the participant to turn it off – but if it’s the fridge don’t forget to remind them to turn it back on again!

Always record an atmos track after an interview – particularly when the space has a little bit of aural movement. For example, if recording outside and the odd car or distant train sounds during the interview – hang around to capture the same sort of sound at the end. For some

reason the cut you want to make in post is always across this incidental sound, so recording a ‘clean’ version enables you to mask this transition.

Recording telephone interviews on a land-line from home is easy if you have a lapel microphone – a hardwire is best but a radio mic. will do. Make a small foam pocket for the mic and use Elastoplast or athlete tape to fix it to the ear piece – secure it well so it doesn’t move around and tape the lead down the back of the handset (you will still be able to hear clearly through it). You will need a second microphone to record your voice – and ensure you record the tracks separately rather than as a stereo mix. This

technique is good if you are desperate, but obviously you will get a better sound if you record a phone interview with equipment designed to do it.

FURTHER INFO

• for delicious links and resources go to sound_recording and interviewing

RELATED SUBJECTS

• post location recording and audio floor plans

• for more general links and posts about the production period see my delicious tag, project_production

IMAGE: sourced from delamar

Developing radio documentary concepts

2008-08-02T21:10:00.000-07:00

Once you have identified a radio documentary concept with legs - the next step is to put it through its paces and develop it into something more substantial that a brainstrom cloud…

The most important thing to ascertain from the outset is where this radio documentary will end up - where it will be presented - followed quickly by the question, 'are you barking up the right tree?' As in, are you pitching the idea to the most appropriate ‘host’ program? Ensure you listen to and are familiar with the program you are pitching to – and make sure you look though their ‘past programs’ to see if they have covered the idea previously. (Check out long-time RN executive producer Matthew Leonard's post, notes from the thought police for an insiders viewpoint)

Developing the program means that you know and have identified the program:

focus
a strong hook - you know who will be interested in your story and why
characters, what they will say and do why they are interesting
story, how it unfolds and resolves, how you will capture it and why it is good
why it’s a good story for radio and how it is relevant and contributes to your host program
have a sense of how you will structure the program, its style, the best length for the piece
Know the project is doable - and have a draft production schedule and a sense of potential difficulties

Getting to this stage means you have done things like:

Research background & context
Ensure you have access to materials and program participants
Conduct a reconnaissance mission & preliminary interviews
Identify useable textures and sound materials
Sort out the logistics of the program

The program concept you propose is not ‘set in stone’ – there is room to move once the process is ‘in its stride’ – and the idea may not turn out exactly as you thought it would in the beginning… but you need to write a proposal in ‘good faith’ in the light of the best information you can gather at the time.

• the delicious links under the tag project_development

Interview with Radio National's Brent Clough

2008-08-02T04:03:00.000-07:00

Interview with ABC Radio National's Brent Clough by kylabrettle

Radio Eye and The Night Air presenter/producer Brent Clough speaks with Kyla Brettle about what Radio Eye looks for in proposals.

Brent Clough: I think what we are looking for is something someone has thought through in an audio sense pretty clearly, they have thought very clearly about what elements that are going to put into a piece and they know where they are going to record them or if they have recorded – and they have a sense of the shape and the ideas of the program.

It’s not often strictly a story – but a picture, I suppose – we call ourselves Radio Eye for the documentary show, so we want in some ways a kind of clear and interesting audio picture of some thing or some time – it’s finding something that is convincing… It’s an idea or a set of people or a place that will stand to be made into something interesting which will maintain a listeners attention for up to around forty minutes.

Kyla Brettle: How thoroughly does the idea need to be worked out?

Brent Clough: I think you need to be pretty clear about what sounds and what treatment you are going to give to those sounds. It really comes down to knowing your talent, know the possible sound sources you are going to use, whether you are going to use music, field recordings, wether you are going to structure the program in particular ways that are unusual – it may be a mixture of drama and actuality – you need to have a fairly clear grasp of the way you want to tell the story and the way you want to present the feature.

So if you are musician for instance you may well have a clear musical structure to the program and that’s something we encourage on the Night Air – and we often we work with musicians who have a very good sense of the musical approach to the piece. For Radio Eye I think you really do need to know your subject too – you need to know the are you are researching it can’t be superficial it often really needs to be quite deep

You often need quite good relationships with the people you are going to speak with too. You need to be able to get good voices and get good accounts from people – so that takes a little bit of work sometimes – yeah you need to put some effort into finding good people and places and sounds.

Kyla Brettle: How important is it that a proposal is well written?

Brent Clough: It should be well written – it’s an indication of writing skills and you are probably going to need those in the program. So, it needs to be clear, it needs to be strong, it needs to be confident and well-written. You need to be able to use language or at least convey the way you are going to make your program effectively - you may not use many voices it may be all field recordings – but you need to be able to explain and evoke what you want to do pretty clearly in the proposal, I think. It can be very simple though, a simple proposal can be fine too, but it does need to be clear and it should be pretty well written, I think.

Kyla Brettle: What makes a potential story engaging for you?

Brent Clough: For me, I suppose I’d be interested in the sound sources and seeing how rich and interesting the sound sources were. I guess that’s something I’m particularly interested in. But I know people are interested in features that show some kind of transformation – we somehow get to witness a change, some kind of transformation. That’s not necessarily saying it’s a narrative with be beginning, middle and end, but it is something that’s an experience – that you go through a listening experience that takes you somewhere and maybe changes you as a listener.

So yeah, the sense of being able to transform listeners, or have a story that often deals with transformation of characters or a place or an idea – I guess that’s very attractive in any kind of idea

Kyla Brettle: Have you got anything to say to budding young feature makers out there?

Brent Clough: Well, I’d say go for it – really listen to what’s around and what’s available – I think a lot of people don’t realise that radio can be really creative and is an art-form. There are so few examples of that kind of radio around – you hear a little bit community radio and in college radio – but people forget that the ABC is still a basion for radio drama, for innovative uses of radio, creative features – experimental forms of radio too - that’s certainly what I think The Night Air is.

So, maybe people who are radio students or working in sound – they need to listen to what is out there in radio and just go for it because there are unlimited possibilities. And it’s also weirdly more free, in some ways than images, you have the chance to be more intimate and more playful with ideas.

So it’s the medium of the imagination, I suppose and I would really encourage people – if they want to make imaginative media in some form – to listen to radio, it’s still a strong and interesting area to work for.

also posted to ABC RN Independent@gLOBE

Transom - looking for multi-media self portraits

2008-07-18T22:02:00.000-07:00

...the url is HERE if you are interested... apparently they will be paying an "honoraria" fee to the selected few - would be interesting to know how much it will be...

These kinds of 'make for us without really getting paid for it' call-outs seem to be all the rage at the moment...

Wanna 'blot & scribble' - NOW LETTER VOX - for the Book Show?

2008-07-18T21:54:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to Radio National's most recent 'prosumer' or 'user-generated-content' initiative. Now it's morphed into HERE

Where I'm at...in July_08?

2008-07-17T19:06:00.001-07:00

Righto - am now taking a few months off in-house work at Radio National to make another independent feature for Into the Music. My Executive Producer is Robyn Ravlich - she is great to produce for and very supportive of 'all things sonic'. I'm rather excited about it - intending to play with a documentary genre I'm less familiar with - because I think it's time I gave the observational thing a rest.

I'm also working (independently) as Supervising Producer on an episode of The Night Air - which is quite a crazy, experimental sound show - very playful and lots of fun. I have twelve 'emerging producers' under my charge - so will be interesting to see how it all pans out - they are all very switched on so I'm not worried (yet).

Still at RMIT Uni (have been contracted until December) - semester is about to start - so it's a rather hectic time. This term I'm back to teaching two courses I either designed or co-designed. One is a first year subject called 'Broadcast Media' that I devised in collaboration with award winning educator Rachel Wilson (who is an absolute pleasure to work with if you are ever lucky enough to get the chance) - the other is all my own and an experiment in 'work integrated learning' that is a discrete part of an umbrella subject called 'Production Project Two'... Oh, and I'm supervising two very special honors students too - and an MA by coursework student I'm yet to meet.

broadcast... LA VOCE DELLA LUNA

2008-07-04T23:23:00.000-07:00

On July 5, you will be able to hear a program I produced with Music Deli's Paul Petran on Into the Music. I was the sound engineer too.

For the next four weeks you can listen online or download "La Voce della Luna" on the Into the Music site HERE

RN success at New York Festivals

2008-06-23T00:55:00.000-07:00

A big congratulations to my friends and colleagues Natasha Mitchell and Robyn Ravlich for their success at the New York Festivals Radio Broadcasting Awards.

Natasha and her program All in the Mind won not just the Gold Medal for her section (Health/Science) - but the big kahoona as well - the Grand Award - while Robyn's Into the Music won a string of awards for in the music section. Accolades well deserved.

on Self-Assessment

2008-06-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

RMIT has a teaching policy that encourages and fosters peer and self-assessment. The idea being that by third year undergraduates are self-assessing most of their own work and practice.

When I first started teaching at RMIT I didn't really 'get it' and saw self-assessment as an easy opportunity for students to exploit. These days I think self-assessment is a really good idea because it weans students off being dependent on external affirmation and helps them develop self-confidence and independence.

Peer assessment is also good because it makes the value of a 'high distinction' or 'credit' determined by the 'student market'. Which I think is a legitimate way to go. If they slather HDs amongst themselves, it should make them wonder about the actual worth of an HD when they get one...

In industry, which is where my students are heading, you don't get a neat numerical score for your efforts and a grade that clearly marks your place in the pack - standards are relative, sometimes you appear to have done very well just because the competition is weak, quality of work can get confused with how enjoyable you are to work with – or how much they like you, or how similar your ideas/take is to their own, people rarely tell you what they think and tend not to tell you things you don’t want to hear because it makes them feel uncomfortable – sometimes the only way you know you have done poorly is because you don’t get another gig with the company, sometimes people just piss in your pocket as a way to get you to do more stuff – sometimes people don’t tell you how great your work is because they think you know this already.... Etc... And that the only way to traverse these fuzzy shifting confusing planes is to know, in yourself, what the work is ‘worth’ - both in relation to your own personal set of standards and in relation to the quality of work produced around you.

This blogging business

2008-06-08T19:42:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've been looking at blogs and thinking about how they can be an effective tool in both teaching and project management.

Students are required to blog a lot at RMIT and staff are encouraged to use new technology in both delivery and crafting of the learning environment. I've been quite into this, and after a flurry of excitement find myself with several closed collaborative project blogs to contribute to.

All of these blogs are focused around managing their different projects effectively and also act as a space or central location for the developing project... a sense of it being something before it actually is something

I've found project blogs help keep all participants on the 'same page' and threads of conversations clear. I like how all participants in the blog have admin rights and equal opportunities to contribute to the discussion and evolving project. I also find it handy having blog posting notifications entering my email inbox re-tagged with the project forum - this makes managing several projects and multiple professional communication a lot easier

The other aspect of project blogs I find really helpful is the ability to sort and filter information through tags or labels. This is becomes a crucial function when managing a mass of accrewed information. I also like the capacity to build in links and references into the blog - so it acts as a developing information resource for the project group as well as a discussion space.

This blog here is my only open personal blog. It's new and I'm still in the process of working out what it is and what it's for.

You, the radio documentary and the recording equipment

2008-05-31T07:38:00.000-07:00

I think the relationship between the 'musician and their instrument' is a really good place to start thinking about your relationship with your primary tools - the technology - audio recorders, microphones, computers and editing software...

I get a lot of students who are intimidated when they meet the technology - or setting themselves up in opposition to it - one student even gave herself the blog-slogan 'computers hate me'...

Ah, Grasshopper - you must learn to be at one with the Technology

The idea is that you compound the difference between you and your tool - you think, it does... expression is fluid... and you end up making something more like what you intended to make. That's the theory.

I don't in any way claim to have achieved this state - but it's something I try to steer towards.

A few tips of developing a good relationship with the equipment.

Grooming is a special bonding time between practitioner and equipment - don't tell it you are too tired. Care for your tools and they will be less likely to get angry and stop working for you in field. The equipment also likes routine and knowing where all it's bits are - there is no point carrying spare batteries if you haven't charged them or if you have forgotten where you put them.

Play with the instrument. The machine may look complex and difficult - but really it's just like any other tool - it can be mastered. Make it your business to know what all the buttons do, read the manual, record, listen, play with different configurations and settings... When you are in field you don't have time to work any of this stuff out.

Practice. When you are in-field there is usually a lot going on - getting great levels and choice sound isn't always easy when you have so much else to think about. Practice wearing the equipment and multi-tasking while you record - can you physically ride that bicycle and sound record at the same time without getting handling and wind noise... could this possibly be the best way to record a particular scene

Mental Practice. This is what it was called when I was playing music - you would play the piece in your mind complete with imagining you are playing it - where you breathe, where your fingers - letting your mind touch on all of it while still focusing on the sound. Translating this to field recording - stop and listen to where you are - what can you hear, what are the layers of sounds, how are they connected, what is their texture, pitch, what makes these sounds... then think about how you would represent this through a recording - what, where, how you would record this space...

Wear the technology like you mean it in field - keep it ready for action at all times. I've made documentaries for long enough to know that those moments of truth that you are out there hunting do not necessarily wait for you to set up - and that as soon as you pack the equipment away your subjects say the best stuff. It's also good to keep it on so that your subjects get used to accepting it as part of you...

So yes, whenever you are in field and the technology is not working or connecting or generally stuffing you around - take a deep breath and think - 'at one with the technology'

New Skills - Radio Production and Teaching

2008-05-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

The other day I blogged about the 'new skills radio producers require'... and today, I'm thinking lecturers and educators need to limber up with an additional skills set too.

While students are essentially a 'captive audience' - by stint of paying quite a bit of money to do a course - we still need to work a bit to keep them interested, engaged and feeling like they are part of something big, important and worthwhile - a supportive learning community. We also need to take student's hectic schedules into consideration and exploit/run with their familiarity with online environments.

One way to do this is for educators to design effective online communication forums using blogs, groups and facebook... an extension of the learning environment we already craft through face-to-face course delivery and design structure. (and obviously, to do this effectively we need to acquire a bunch of online skills)

One of the benefits of setting up these these sort of communication forums is that it equalises the inherent hierarchy of the classroom dynamic - where teacher sprouts wisdom - so that all participants in the class feel empowered to give advice and feedback to their peers outside the classroom. The idea is that the group blog or forum generates its own momentum through student use - so that students can help each other learn - and so that all the energy pushing the class forward doesn't have to come from me.

Recently, I've been setting up closed teaching blogs for my courses/students - the response has been positive and students seem to be getting into it - I gave them admin rights too, and they are moulding it to their needs and doing some quite fun things with it...

RMIT Symposium | Media is...

2008-05-27T01:57:00.000-07:00

I'm writing a paper to present at the RMIT Media is... symposium in Sorrento. At the moment I'm thinking of writing about this business of working for two different institutions at the same time resonates with me. Below is a working abstract.

“Serving Two Masters”

How can we smooth the transition for emerging radio practitioners between undergraduate education and entry-level industry positions?

In an environment where public and commercial radio industries are providing fewer training programs and early career opportunities, it is increasingly difficult for emerging producers to gain the vital ‘local knowledge’, professional networks, field experience and ‘runs on the board’ they need to kick-start their careers at an intermediate level.

In the long term tertiary education and industry need to co-produce training/education programs that reflect the changing structure of the radio sector.

In the immediate future higher education can help fill this learning gap by collaborating with industry to develop and deliver projects that generate both an acceptable broadcast product and a sound educational outcome. Such projects can give students a tangible working experience and radio credits with the level the support and mentoring they need to transition successfully.

In this paper I will examine the ‘The Night Air Project (pilot)’ as a case study for implementing and delivering cross-industry projects. I will discuss implementation, design and delivery and focus on issues surrounding ‘serving two masters’; integrating the needs and requirement of two sectors with very different concerns, aims, cultures and discourse.

TCIAF's 2008 SHORT DOCS Exhibition

2008-05-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

The Third Coast International Audio Festival is putting on another Short Docs Exhibition - this year it is called 'Radio Ephemera'.

They are asking you to respond to some quite fun and curly guidelines - and submit the 2-3 minute finished piece to be part of an exhibition on their website.

The Night Air wants your radiophonic re-mixes

2008-05-21T23:51:00.000-07:00

The Night Air is asking for contributions - official blurb from its myspace site below...

The Night Air has a new sound sharing zone in our increasingly popular podcast. Its called the Night Share and we want it to be a space for getting your remixes heard by our community. The remixes should be radiophonic text and sound, designed for the deep listening, beyond the mainstream.

What we would be most interested to include are remixes of any of the podcasts of Radio National programs abc.net.au/rn/podcast/ combined with your sounds and ideas. But its also great to be surprised!

Post your sounds on CD to The Night Air GPO Box 9994 Sydney 2001 or by using yousendit.com and emailing nightair_rn@your.abc.net.au

Also - want to make the first half hour of a TNA? See Freelance Guidelines at RN site

CALLING NOW - ABC RN Street Stories/Pool Competition

2008-05-21T23:37:00.000-07:00

Below is the official blurb about the comp...

My Street competition

As well as participating in the My Street project, you can also enter our competition.

The producer of the best My Street story, entered into the competition, will have the opportunity to work with a Street Stories producer, in their neighbourhood, to record and edit a story about their street (or another topic agreed to by the Executive Producer of Street Stories).

The final winner will be announced on Street Stories in late November, and their final program broadcast on the show at a date and time to be confirmed.

A selection of My Street competition entries suitable for radio adaptation will also be broadcast and podcast on ABC Radio National’s Street Stories. Stay tuned for broadcast dates.

Entries close 7 November 2008.

How to enter (click on each link below):

• Learn about the project (link to about page)
• Read our competition terms and conditions (link to separate page)
• Upload your story (anchor link to this sub-heading on the About page)
• Fill out the entry form (separate page)

The judging criteria

• Stories must be no longer than seven minutes’ duration (audio/video) or 700 words (text).
• Originality
• Evocation of people/place
• Storytelling
• Technical Execution

The judges

Claudia Taranto
Claudia is the Series Producer of ABC Radio National’s Street Stories. Her radio programs have been played in Australia, the UK and USA. She lives in a quiet inner-city street in Sydney, with a cantankerous cat and a boat called Quirky Waves.

Nicole Steinke
Nicole is an award-winning features producer with Street Stories and a constant traveller. She's lectured at various universities and says one of the best things about working on Street Stories is helping new producers discover their voice and begin to tell their own stories.

Ronan Sharkey
Ronan currently works as a reporter on triple j tv's Hack. It's a weekly look at current affairs about young people. Previously, Ronan spent several years on triple j radio's version of Hack, putting together stories ranging from profiles of truck drivers to riots in Redfern and working girls in Western Australia.

Further information

If you have any queries about the My Street competition, please email: streetstories_rn@your.abc.net.au

Convergence Culture and ABC Radio National

2008-05-21T21:44:00.000-07:00

Have been reading Henry Jenkin's Convergence Culture and having various conversations about convergence culture and Radio National with my RN colleagues. Made a couple of notes:

Perhaps it’s time to rethink the ‘radio’ in ABC Radio National. The RN website was initially thought of as a secondary transmission path supplementing the broadcast with little more than an electronic program guide. Statistics challenge this secondary status – last year ABC RN had 20-million downloads from the website. These numbers are set to increase as the RN website attracts a younger audience - the average audience age of the radio broadcast is 50 plus, while the online audience is under 40. Along with a shift in local audiences, international audiences are also swelling in an environment that privileges niche programming.

Perhaps it’s time to rethink the way ABC RN connects with local and international audiences and build the brand’s reach in innovative ways. The ABC brand already oozes lovemarks like sticky footprints left in the hall – but unlike Coke (aka the black waters of imperialism) it’s not about the money – the ABC sells Australian culture with its mission to “contribute to and reflect our national identity, foster creativity and the arts and encourage cultural diversity” [ABC Charter]. But with lovemarks comes reciprocal influence and audiences wanting to put their oar in and stir things up…

Perhaps it’s time to rethink the skills RN broadcasters require. With a visual medium driving change the pressure is on to create cross-platform material and craft meaningful transmedia narratives that enrich the audience’s experience and create multiple entry points to the brand. It’s not enough to be able to make great audio - we now need to be able to write and edit with still and moving images as well as written text for the net. The danger is, obviously, that without extra funding/training and ‘fresh blood’ we will muddy our high quality product with ill-made crap-TV (just as other companies fumble and experiment with online audio resulting in really bad and embarrassingly naïve ‘radio’)

The Music of the Thing

2008-05-20T01:35:00.000-07:00

Making audio features is a lot like composing music – only your scoring for an ensemble of sound textures rather than instruments.

I’ve found music-based techniques and approaches very useful when feature making… Music is a master medium at crafting on the canvas of time – it also has many subtle and varied ways of giving abstract sounds meaning… music has a lot to give, especially in terms of articulating the structure of a piece. I guess I’d say to students – ‘think about the musical elements - good composition can make a strong program great’.

A couple of notes or things to think about…

ORCHESTRATION – what instruments will you use - sounds or textures are you going to use to tell the story. When I say sound texture I guess I mean it’s sonic an associative qualities – i.e. Studio, field, phone, archival, atmospheres and spot sound, etc are distinct textures – modes of address also have a different texture – like the difference between someone speaking directly to you, or to someone else, or reading from something, talking off the cuff or in a measured way etc.

(COMPOSITIONAL)TEXTURE – how are the different voices interacting – is it counterpoint, polyphony, monody etc – I guess it’s about the relationship between the different voices

RANGE/FREQUENCY – how high or low are the sounds and how much of the possible range do you use – tip: if you want to mix lots of layers of sounds and want each to ‘carry’ and not get too ‘muddy’ – make sure the different sounds have their own space in the frequency range – as in, they are not all low or not all high etc.

SONIC INTENSITY/DYNAMICS – in broadcast radio we can’t do much creatively with dynamics or volume – it’s impractical. But you can achieve a similar effect through manipulating the sonic intensity of the sound… how dense or sparse the sound is. For example, a single naked voice feel ‘softer’ than ten voices all sounding at once - even if the volume level is the same.

RHYTHM AND PACE – think structurally as well as the beats from moments to moment

TIMBRE/ARTICULATION – again, this is all nature of the sound stuff.

PHRASING – how do your story phrases work with your sonic phrases – and does it leave time to breathe.

MOTIVIC DEVELOPMENT – this gets onto the whole business of establishing a sonic framework for a piece… too much to discuss in a blog post

location recording and audio floor plans for radio documentaries

2008-05-19T14:43:00.000-07:00

I've learnt a lot about making audio documentaries from my early years writing, directing and crewing for screen... (Actually, the breadth and depth of transferrable approaches is quite remarkable, I'll just jot down a few notes now and add to this post later.)

WORKING WITH 'THE FRAME'

Many filmmaking techniques and focus on this business of representing a three-dimensional subject or space in a two-dimensional medium (ie. not crossing 'the line' and 'in-depth movement' etc)

In radio we are not restricted by a frame - an objectified box on the other side of the room - we get to create a whole space and position our listeners somewhere within that.... though obviously we are usually limited by working with stereo or even just mono.

A few things to remember and try to exploit

We hear distance in sound - we distinguish between foreground, middleground and background sounds - not just because of how dominant or loud they are in the mix - but because the timbre or tone colour of recording from various distances is different... seek to use the whole spectrum of the space
We hear location in sound - atmospheric tracks impart a lot of information about where we are - the level of natural reverb on a voice indicates the size of a room or how much soft furnishing is in there... don't underestimate this information.
We hear movement in sound- indeed, movement is one of the things that usually makes sound - we hear movement happening in front of the mic and movement of the mic or rather, the listener's ear, itself - (I'm referring to usable mic movement here, not to be confused with handling sounds)... again, think of how you use movement in your programs and the information it gives the listener in terms of sound imagery and 'showing rather than telling' (eg. the sound of someone opening a fridge door is instantly recognisable - making it one less thing you have to tell the listener in words) - also, mic movement directs the listeners 'focus of attention', so point the listener at the most important thing they should be hearing right now.

A really simple example of how I approach recording distance, location and movement in an observation program... take a basic action like 'leaving the house and getting into the car'.

Recording floor-plan....

Stationary, External Wide from the door of the house - the subjects walks out of the house and into the distance, gets in the car.... sound gradually fades
Tracking shot - the same action repeated but this time following the subject - keeping them close in the balance as focus of attention
Stationary, Internal from inside the car - the same action repeated but now sounding like it is coming towards from a distance...
Spot Sound close-ups - close recording of some of the key sounds - the key unlocking the car, the rev of the engine from outside... to use as colour and pivot sounds or 'cut aways' if I need them.

Recording these different aspects gives choices in the edit suite...

If I'm exiting the scene and going someplace new - then I can let the protagonist's significant words hang in the mind of the listener while the subject drives off into the distance - then I can easily cut to a new scene with a different subject - or cut to new story scene with the subject already in the car
if the action is purely transitional and the 'in the house' and 'in the car' location material is part of the same scene - I wouldn't let the action linger and would probably run with the tracking sound - or do a quick sound transition between the internal and external shots pivoting on the door opening.
Alternatively, the action might be a good way to enter a new scene - starting with the quiet atmos of inside the car (not overly recognisable), the feint sound of closing the front door (we start to get ideas about where we are), the creuscendo of the approaching footsteps of our subject who becomes the focus of attention (the listener understands what is going on when they open the car door)...

RELATED

• post Sound recording interviews

• for related links and references about radio documentary production - go do my project_production delicious tag

broadcast... AFFIRS & TROUBLE - An unexpected rpt. on CPR

2008-05-17T01:32:00.000-07:00

Re;Sound on Chicago Public Radio is going to broadcast a repeat of AFFAIRS OF THE MIND and THE TROUBLE WITH RICK. They have called it the "Kyla Brettle Show", which is rather nice.

INTO THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC

2008-05-16T20:07:00.000-07:00

Listen to INTO THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC at ABC RN
Read the INTO THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC blurb, full credits and details

INTO THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC is an observational program that tracks the plight of aspiring musicians hoping to get accepted into one of Australia's most prestigious music schools. Recently, ABC Classic FM wanted to re-broadcast it - but Radio National wouldn't let them have it without paying for it.

Triple 'oh' - Speechification!

2008-05-16T01:51:00.000-07:00

Rather belatedly found that 000 AMBULANCE got a mention on Speechification - it's a great blog and I'm quite chuffed to discover it - and that it found me.

Dear Birthmother

2008-05-15T23:03:00.000-07:00

After waiting for Mr. Right (who has yet to arrive) and experiencing years of fertility treatments, Suzanne, a single woman in her forties, decides to adopt an African-American baby. Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister follow her for several months as she attends workshops designed to "teach white people to raise kids of color," goes on baby-shopping trips with Mom at Target, takes part in a critical rendezvous with a young mother at a pancake house, and, finally, a magical night at a suburban restaurant chain. (28:44)

Produced by Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister

Link to Listening online HERE

I think this program has a really strong concept for observational representation - there is a lot at stake for the central character, the story has clear steps or narrative milestones to get through and the program concept contains a well-defined climax/conclusion... all necessary attributes for an observational program concept worth pursuing... oh, and of course, the producers were in a position to 'catch' the story at the right stage in the process (another really important factor) - you generally need observational stories to 'unfold over time' with rather than without you (though having said this there are sneaky ways of getting around it if you arrive at the story a little late - this can sometimes produce quite a stunning effect - see Lea Redfern's Try not Breathe)

If you listen loosely there doesn't appear to be a very sophisticated use of contrasting aural texutures - it's very word-heavy and a single voice predominates... there is not much space between the words and sounds are not left to 'speak for themselves' and tell their side of the story... much more 'telling' than 'showing' (and I think 'showing' is pretty key in observational documentary)

However, if you listen closely there is actually a very complex and interesting variety of contrasting voice textures - the differences are subtle, but very effective. The differences are primarily achieved through alternating modes of address - we hear the protagonist talking to others, reading aloud from both script and letters, speaking directly to us (both scripted and improvised), speaking to an interviewer (who we don't hear)... the piece interweaves and shifts relatively quickly between these variations in timbre - I think the effect adds interest to the surface of the piece, making it kind of 'shimmer'.

Speechification

2008-05-15T21:35:00.000-07:00

Link to Speechification HERE

This is a truly excellent blog - the people who put it together comb through the various radio 'hotspots' on the net to curate what works as an 'international showcase' - some great listening

They flout copyright - highjack programs and pod them on site... I'm all for it. Often, however, the don't credit programs correctly, which I think - not so good.

If

2008-05-15T20:06:00.000-07:00

Sherre DeLys and John Jacobs

Witness to an Execution

2008-05-15T20:03:00.000-07:00

David Issay

Listen online HERE

Sound Portraits

2008-05-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

Sound Portraits website HERE

Transom.org

2008-05-15T19:34:00.000-07:00

Link to Transom.org HERE

Public Radio Exchange

2008-05-15T19:32:00.000-07:00

PRX Website HERE

Submit a proposal to Radio Eye

2008-05-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

ABC RN's Radio Eye - along with many other RN shows - accepts freelance/independent work

If you are interested check out the Guidelines for Radio Eye Freelancers

Where am I at... in May_08?

2008-05-15T02:27:00.000-07:00

The 'about' blurb is basically what I'm up to at the moment - working part-time on-staff as a lecturer in Radio at RMIT University and part-time in-house at ABC Radio National.

At RMIT this semester I'm teaching into the somewhat stodgily titled third-year subject - Production Project One (PP1_08)... it's actually really interesting - we're using Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture as a set text and getting TV, radio and network major students to respond to his ideas and theories through swift, multidisciplinary 'media objects'... teaching a course as it rolls out for the first time is much more fun (and chaotic) than trying to breathe some life into a tired old course that ran out of puff and energy a long time ago... besides that, I have an excellent group of students to work with.

At Radio National I'm trying on the new role of operator - or sound engineer - or 'tech'... while I always do the audio engineering and editing for my own shows and enjoy 'getting under the hood' so to speak, I've never officially been an 'operator' or 'technical producer' before. It's a lot of fun and great working across so many different programs. It's interesting being called an 'operator' as opposed to a 'producer' because suddenly people expect me to be able to fix things and solve their technical problems - the weird thing is, I find I actually can and know more about this stuff than I thought I did - it's amazing what a change of name/role can do.

And, of course, I've started this blog experiment - not quite sure why or what I'm going to do with it - other than vague ideas about writing posts on 'making audio' for my students and giving them some links to things I think interesting and relevant.

Pool

2008-05-15T01:48:00.000-07:00

link to Pool HERE

At Pool you create a professional profile and upload audio (and other media) for public exhibition. ABC Radio National program makers and other Pool members cruise the site and give feedback on the work. It's a great space for emerging producers looking for exposure and seeking some kind of response to their creations.

Pool is also the first place you will probably hear about any prosumer or 'user-gen' initiatives ABC Radio National is running

The space has exciting possibilities and was recently set up by ABC Radio National in collaboration with RMIT, UTS and the Univesersity of Wollongong

EMERGENCY part I - 000 AMBULANCE

2008-05-15T00:37:00.000-07:00

Listen to 000 AMBULANCE at Re;Sound online
Read the 000 AMBULANCE blurb, credits and full details

000 AMBULANCE is the first in a three part series I made on emergency health. The series tracks crisis as it filters through the system; from the phone call through the ambulance ride to ending up on a trolly in the Trauma ward.

Try not to Breathe

2008-05-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

by Lea Redfern with sound engineer Russell Stapleton

Listen to the program HERE

This is a very beautiful and chilling program - it stopped me in the middle of making a cup of tea and made me cry

EMERGENCY part III - TRAUMA

2008-05-14T00:35:00.000-07:00

Listen to TRAUMA at Soundprint
Read the 000 AMBULANCE blurb, credits and full details

TRAUMA is the final in a three part series I made on emergency health. The series tracks crisis as it filters through the system; from the phone call through the ambulance ride to ending up on a trolly in the Trauma ward.

AFFAIRS OF THE MIND

2008-05-13T00:30:00.000-07:00

Listen to AFFAIRS OF THE MIND at Third Coast Festival
Read the AFFAIRS OF THE MIND blurb, credits and full details

AFFAIRS OF THE MIND was the first radio program I made - the show explores the parameters of infidelity. The show did quite well for itself - the story rights were optioned by a prominent Australian film producer.

CALLING NOW - Third Coast Rolls around...

2008-05-12T20:25:00.000-07:00

The Third Coast International Audio Festival is accepting entries for this years competition... entries close on July 18.

For more info go to the source

listening to my shows online...

2008-05-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately only a few of my programs are available to listen online. For a comprehensive list of my audio work go HERE

ABC Radio National owns the online rights to all of them. Generally, ABC RN doesn't like other networks streaming/podcasting their stuff indefinitely - at the same time RN doesn't usually keep programs permanently accessible (INTO THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC is an exception)

They usually take their ball and go home... think this approach needs changing