Audio Production, Podcasting, Radio Imaging & Sound Design
I join many in the broadcast community and the world as a whole who mourn the loss of George Carlin. I also owe him a word of thanks for inspiring my favorite 60-seconds of audio I’ve produced in some time.
Thanks, George!
The only thing better than happening upon a creative concept you like when writing a radio spot, is working with a talented group of people who really bring that concept to life. Working with the students at Auburn University Theatre is such a pleasure. They bring tremendous enthusiasm and hard work to the process. The three actors for this production of The Complete History of America (abridged), Payne Hopton-Jones, Emily Stephenson, and Jim Taylor all did excellent work, but I have to admit Emily’s vocal inflection on, “Hurry!” really makes the spot for me. There was no real coaching or direction on my part. I set the actors opposite one another on the mainstage, two on one mic, one on the other and rotated them around each reading each line of the script on the individual track. The overall result was the kind of great work that happens when the voice talent really embraces and settles in with the script.
In the years to come, I think Melissa Block’s reporting from the Chengdu earthquake will become a defining moment in her career. She and Robert Siegel were in China working on an unrelated series for NPR’s All Things Considered when the earthquake struck. Block’s initial report on All Things Considered is some of the most compelling radio I have ever heard. It’s not just a matter of being on the scene as it happened. It’s not just a matter of capturing amazing sound. What makes this so striking and so memorable is the human face Block puts on the story from her amazement and wonder at the event to the horror of the scene of a collapsed middle school. I cannot imagine how difficult this report was to file and I am really in awe of the skill and grace she brought to this work.
Christopher Penn casts a long shadow in podcasting circles. For as long as I can recall being aware of podcasting, The Financial Aid Podcast has been part of the landscape. In a recent posting to his Awaken Your Superhero blog, Penn addresses the subject of my previous post regarding traditional media seeking expert commentary from new media sources. The relevant portion that caught my attention…
So what does this mean for old media? Instead of bouncers keeping out the masses, old media is evolving to become a content filter, finding decent stuff in new media and using its distribution networks to take the best stuff and bring it mainstream. The reason this model works is that advertisers provide an automatic filtering mechanism - if an old media outlet shows enough crap, people will stop tuning in to that show, to that channel, and advertising dollars will follow.
…may not exactly be what I was talking about previously, but I think it’s a valuable insight for content producers, traditional and new alike, to take to heart.
This is not, I expect, the first time this has happened, but tonight in the story “Alabama County Faces Bankruptcy” filed on NPR’s All Things Considered, WBHM’s Tanya Ott does a terrific job of pulling a highly relevant piece of sound from the derivative management services industry podcast, DerivActiv. It happens around 2:25 into the story.
I recently quietly marked the three-year anniversary of the first pitch I made to a prospective client regarding podcasting. As I looked back on my slides from that meeting, I found I had predicted that traditional media would embrace and even dominate podcasting, but there would be considerable business opportunities in enterprise podcasting. Goes to show that even when you’re right, you’re probably only guessing part of the picture. I would never have imagined the sort of on-the-spot expert commentary that an enterprise podcast could provide to traditional media.
It certainly changes the way I think about news-gathering.
With this morning’s publication of the second podcast and the first feature for week three loaded to the stream, I’m happy to announce WTTS World Class Rock Report is officially launched.
I have been providing logistical support for Morning Edition Grad School (MEGS), a project of the Local News Initiative, since shortly after its inception. I was very pleased to see a report that MEGS stations are enjoying a measurable benefit for their participation.
There is good news from stations that participated in the first four Morning Edition Grad School (MEGS) workshops. The first examination of the Morning Edition Grad School’s impact on audience shows that 80% of ‘graduating’ MEGS stations increased listener service during Morning Edition, while only 20% did not. These increases in audience service were determined by comparing listener hours to Morning Edition from Fall 2006 and Fall 2007.
Read the complete article here.
This spot is pretty straight forward, though I do have to say that I’m pleased with the spin I took on the traditional testimonial.
The real story behind the spot is a small bit of tech behind it. I came into the spot counting on the Department of Music’s ability to provide the piano recording, for which I expected we would use the set up in the recital hall. As it turns out, they recently purchased a Kawai PR-1 CD Recorder. Kawai says, You’ve never seen anything like the Kawai PR-1…” and they’re right. It sounds just great!
I complain about writing and producing 30-second radio commercials, but in the end the brevity of the format often brings out my best work. A Shayna Maidel presented an interesting challenge beginning with the title. If the listener never gets past the unfamiliarity of the title, there won’t be much hope of delivering any kind of pitch to come out and see the play. I like to think the solution I settled on gives the listener a succinct explanation while setting up the personal, emotional distance between the sisters that is at the heart of the play.
In the spring, my co-producer for the Indiana University Mini University Podcast, Gerry Bayne, joined the higher-education IT advocacy organization EDUCAUSE. His title is multimedia producer, which in this case translates to podcasting guru.
In the weeks following the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference, he was responsible for publishing dozens of podcasts drawn from the conference sessions. I provided another set of hands (and ears) making hours and hours of great content sound its best for publication. I found this session particularly interesting.
E07 Podcast: In Plain English, Please: Effective IT Communications
This 45-minute podcast recorded during the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference features Mur Muchane, Executive Director of Information Technology Services, Davidson College and Lisa Trubitt, Assistant to the CIO for Policy & Communications, University at Albany, SUNY. Their session was titled “In Plain English, Please: Effective IT Communications.”
All of the EDUCAUSE podcasts I’ve published can be found here.