The Power of Audio

In my last post, I mentioned that I have been currently taking a class with Damian Radcliffe at the University of Oregon. The title of the class is Audio Storytelling and I wanted to use this posting space to plug what has been an eye-opening experience over the course of this term. I'll admit I was skeptical of what awaited me in terms of the content. I enrolled in the class having taken Damian's Reporting II course in which I developed a rapport with him and I just wanted to take a class in which I had a professor I respected and trusted. I hesitantly trusted in his sales pitch of the audio course; "Audio is a dead medium," I thought. Well, I could not have been more wrong, Audio is alive and well and getting stronger as the years pass. Podcasting has a lot to do with the rebirth of the audio industry as it provides almost endless opportunities in terms of content. This post will act as a review of some of the key things I took away from my time in Damian's Audio Storytelling class this term.

I first became aware of the power of audio storytelling early on in the term when we listened to a recording of BBC radio’s Sherlock Holmes broadcast. We picked it apart little by little finding the intricacies that were layered into the production that made it as compelling as it was. We likened the Sherlock Holmes show to those of vintage and historical radio shows like The Lone Ranger or Orson Welle’s 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast that famously created a nationwide panic among listeners. Talk about a powerful medium: it sent one of the most powerful, not to mention educated, nations of the world into a panic in which a portion of the population actually believed an alien invasion was occurring.

The War of the Worlds induced panic was front page news for The New York Times

The fictional broadcast radio show is something that has been largely forgotten today but is making a comeback in the form of today’s podcasts. Prior to this I only had limited experiences with talk show style podcasts centering on a typical host interviewing a guest format. Our in-class listening assignment of The Message really opened my eyes to the multitude of possibilities of what a podcast can be. These types of fictional story telling podcasts are coming full circle from their early 20^th century radio counterparts in a big way and I think will only continue to grow to be more and more successful. The audio aspect of story telling can be likened to that of reading a book in that it has the potential to transport you to your own fictional world. Sure the writers of the stories build the basic story but everyone imagines these stories in their own unique way and that is where the real power of audio lies.

            

Being a journalism major and an aspiring sports writer I came to find that writing traditional prose and writing for audio are two very different processes. I like to be as descriptive as possible when writing about events or games that I am covering in sports and that generally means long imagery rich sentences. However this style of writing is not as suitable when writing for audio. On my early projects that required a script I found myself having to take large audible breaths while recording that were detrimental to the quality of my final product and made editing a lot trickier than it needed to be.

            

In order to adapt, I found that when writing for audio my sentences needed to be more concise. Writing this way can take a little longer to ensure your message is still coming through clearly while not sounding choppy either. It’s a fine line but the extra work you put in will come through in your final product. The Poynter Institute’s News U course, Writing for the Ear, did well to explain this notion and I would recommend any aspiring or beginning audio student to complete the course—it is free after all.

Poynter's News U is a plethora of journalistic information & provides free courses for a number of different journalism related topics

In addition to insights on how to structure sentences when writing for audio the Writing for the Ear course also gives advice on how to structure your entire story. For example one bit that stuck with me is to write your scenes as though you’re writing scenes for a movie. Start out with a wide shot of your subject and his or her environment and then gradually zoom in on your subject, but instead of doing it with a camera you do it with your words. Open describing the setting of where the segment is taking place, then move on to your subject from afar, finally describe what your subject is wearing or doing and use one of those aspects to set up the main theme of your story. Maybe they are wearing a necklace that symbolizes their religion and then move into an interview of them explaining what the necklace means to them.

            

Another aspect of audio storytelling that was, not foreign, but still new to me was the importance of pitching ideas not stories. And there is a big difference between the two. While it is important to have a general story you would like to pursue, you cannot pitch a raw undeveloped story. Having an idea, as opposed to a story, means that you have refined your story into a well-oiled plan of how you are going to execute your production. That means planning on who you are going to interview to add color to your piece, deciding on what production elements you are going to use—voiceovers, sound effects, natural sound, ambient sound etc.—and really narrowing down the message you are trying to relay in your piece. I found that explaining my message in one concise sentence greatly helps keep your focus during the production of the piece. Ask yourself: does this interview help relay what I am trying to accomplish? You can then apply that to every aspect of your production, right down to the use of natural sound or sound effects.

Audio is a powerful medium that some people seem to be forgetting about in our increasingly digitally and visually dominated world. However with the podcast renaissance in full swing, there have never been more examples of good audio than there are right now. There is a podcast out there that is tailor made for any one of your multitudes of interests and if there isn’t then you can produce a podcast relatively cheaply for any niche audience that you desire. Don’t be afraid that your production skills aren’t up to par; because one thing that is preached in the audio world is that a good story can overcome any technical shortcomings.