John Tynan's Daybook » radio

Learning Radio by Negative Example

John Tynan — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 08:06:10 +0000

This weekend, I learned something about writing for broadcasting. These principles were told to me several times, like most headstrong, fledgling radio reporters, I had to make this mistake on my own. And boy, it was a mistake. I was writing a segment of a podcast for NaNoWriMo and after I had polished the second draft, I send it around for people to listen.

In a quick IM session with Rene, she wondered why I wasn’t telling this story through a narrative. She said I didn’t really have a “story”. And that I only had the pattern: ABC / ABC / ABC / ABC.

I had told her two days prior, that I needed to make my own mistakes, and that’s just what I went ahead and did. I made the mistake of thinking about writing for radio in terms of writing a five paragraph essay. But I couldn’t just take her word for it that that’s what I had done. I remembered Ira Glass’ presentation from several weeks ago at the Scottsdale Center for the arts, wherein, he said explained his theory for writing for broadcasting is about writing anecdotes:

So, to fix this. Rene sat me down and helped me to transform this script for Draft 2. Notice how the highlighted text all are in alternating colors? This is because each color is a different interviewee. Rene then had me realign all the ACTs in the next Draft 3 so that I am only talking about one person at a time. See how the colors are arranged in large blocks? Rene also had me re-recording all my TRXs. And then Rene remixed the audio (while I went to my grandfather’s 99th birthday) and then, when I got home, what came out of this exercise was a completely different story using essentially the same clips. Have a listen.

Radio for YouTube – A First Draft

John Tynan — Thu, 10 May 2007 20:39:09 +0000

Visiting NPR Kroc Fellow Thomas Pierce has put together “Arizona Drought: Soil Makes All the Difference” an initial draft of “Radio for You Tube”

He’s done a great job with this! It’s interesting to note that he started with the radio story, and overlaid video that he captured during his interviews. He’s also done a good job at getting interesting visual angles and ability to think about what visuals he needs while out in the field.Among other things, we’ve also been discussing how much of the visuals could be done using still photos, and how to compile a list of “B-Roll” footage that you will want to get (visuals that you can know ahead of time that will help you tell the story). I’m sure Thomas will have more to say about his process and about the possibilities of thinking visually for radio as we discuss this here. I’m sure that through thinking about this issue there will be learning enough for us all.

My Piano Tuner

John Tynan — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 20:29:24 +0000

In addition to taking great care of my piano, my piano tuner/technician has an amazing take on his work. This story was written for bsideradio.org and produced with care by Tamara Keith. Rene added some real sparkle at the end with her performance of a piece by Kabalevsky.

My Fake Hair Replacement Ad

John Tynan — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 05:20:42 +0000

Awhile back, as part of a commentary I did for b-side on shaving my head, I asked Steve, my co-worker, to play the part of a person making a testimonial in a late-night hair replacement ad. I created the cheezy background music using ACID, Sony’s loop based music tool, then put the two together in Adobe Audition. Kind of a fun exercise, and Steve did a great job. I thought this would be a good first test of the PodPress plugin for WordPress and it looks like this software will work just right.

Spam is (not) for lovers

John Tynan — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 04:47:50 +0000

This past weekend, Rene had a story on the Splendid Table. It all started as a joke, a parody of This American Life and was meant to be more an exercise in interviewing each other than anything else — the idea of getting at a conversational interview style being more the point than the actual subject, which was kind of an ordinary event. We came up with the idea for the story while driving to Sedona for vacation, then recorded the audio the next morning simply for fun. Then the minidisk gathered dust for over a year. Last month, Rene sat down one weekend and put it together just for fun. Then the story came to life in its own way.The folks at the Splendid Table did a great job introducing the story. They chose the music at the start of the piece and it just sets everything up just right.

You can listen here. (It’s about 1/3 of the way into the show… I’m not quite sure where).

Enjoy!

Hail Spam!

John Tynan — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 08:16:51 +0000

(Photo Credit: Luis Perez)

Sometimes I can be such a dork. That’s forgivable, or at least forgettable. My flaw is that I’m not afraid to talk about it. Wait! No. my flaw is that I’m not afraid to talk about it into a microphone.

Even about the most mundane stuff. Just like Brendan or Andy was saying during the Social Media 201 session at ima2007… “People’s opinions aren’t interesting. People’s stories are.” Like in this radio story where I remember standing at the screen door, afraid to step into my own house because I cheaped out and, quite literally, didn’t bring home the bacon.

Listen to this story by Rene Gutel.