radio rookies, redux!

October 22, 2009 9:44 PM

Three days, four to six kids, let's learn how to write a radio story. Go!

I'm imagining three sessions -- one where we brainstorm, settle on story ideas / interview subjects, and come up with a list of 10 questions. Second session -- field recording! Third session audio editing (with me doing a lot of the legwork, logging, setup in between, so they can go directly to editing). Something like a cross between radio rookies and 826 -- really simple and low maintenance (we're running the workshop out of our living room) -- the idea, mostly, is to give kids microphones and see what happens.

I'm really excited about this but kind of lost on the details (never done this with kids -- only sort of done it on my own -- brand new territory!). This would be with four to six kids in the 8-14 range. A few questions: 1) Does it make sense to do one story or three? (we're going to have three recorders, so they'd probably need to pair up) 2) "Stories" or "interviews"? (the second is easier -- but just doing oral history type stuff sounds kind of boring...) Ideas? 3) What to write about?? I'd love to do something where we interview random people -- a "vox pop" thing (asking a dozen people on the street the same set of questions) -- what would you do with a million dollars? Do you know your neighbors? (maybe something more awesome than that?)

Help!

posted by puckish to education (6 comments total)

If you live in the LA area, the Museum of Radio and Television in Beverly Hills has a GREAT radio drama presentation room. We went there for a friend's birthday, and performed a simple radio drama, complete with foley effects and everything! It was GREAT fun, the adults had more fun than the kids, I think!

Plus, the museum has free parking, bonus for the area!!!

And a great yogurt store across the street!
posted by Jinx of the 2nd Law at 10:08 PM on October 22

This sounds like great fun! 1) I would make three stories. The kids will all record *way* more audio than they need, and if you have to squeeze it all into a single story, they might be upset by how much gets edited out. 2) I would do stories, or at least encourage them to record atmos as well as voices. 3) The kids will bring ideas. If they get stuck, set them a broad question, like "Tell me something I don't know," or "What's special about where you live?".

You seem to have days Two and Three sorted out. I can offer a few suggestions for Day One. (Forgive me if any of this is obvious, I don't know how much recording you've done yourself. It's just what comes to mind when I think of teaching kids to make radio).

Start by talking a bit about what makes a good radio story. Maybe ask for suggestions and prompt them gently as you write their answers on the board. The main thing you want them to understand is that a good story for radio is a story for which they can capture interesting sounds. I can absolutely imagine kids being all enthusiastic and saying, "I want to do a story about princesses," or "My story's going to be about dinosaurs!" Great ideas, full of imagination, but how are you going to find a princess or a dinosaur and shove a microphone in their face at short notice? Help them to understand that every story idea is valuable, but only those ideas that can be told through sound will work well for radio

Once they've chosen some story ideas, brainstorm all the sounds they could use to tell their stories. If they're going to interview their elderly neighbour, for example, what sounds could they record? The neighbour's voice, yes but what else? How about her doorbell? The sound of the kettle boiling as she makes tea? The way her heels go 'clop, clop' as she walks down her garden path? The the sound of the needle hitting the turntable as she plays her favourite music on the record player? Think about storyboarding with sound - can you arrange the sounds so that they tell a story, even before you add the narration?

Teach them about good field recording practice. Show them how, if you put a microphone directly in front of someone's mouth, you hear all their 's' and 'p' sounds really loudly. Then show them that if you hold the microphone at a slight angle, below the chin, you'll hear the richness of the person's voice without all the sibilance and popping. Show them what happens if you don't hold your hand still while holding the microphone - do they want their carefully recorded sounds to be muffled by handling noise? There's a good guide for all this (aimed at adults, but a useful reference) in this online course from the BBC.

Finally, be prepared to log audio late into the night on Day Two. Anyone new who's to radio will gather way more audio than they need - I imagine that's doubly so for a bunch of enthusiastic kids. Oh, and make sure you have a grand presentation for family and friends on the final night - invite everyone over, turn the lights down low, ask people to close their eyes and marvel at the magic of radio :) Have fun!
posted by embrangled at 11:58 PM on October 22 [1 favorite]

Go to Transom. It's a site encouraging and enabling anyone who's interested in making audio, with lots of specific tips and guides. Totally totally great.

That said... you're way off-base in your expectations.

You mention Radio Rookies. Each minute of each story is the result of hours and hours and hours of talking about what the story is and recording stuff about the story and listening to the stuff and talking about it and asking questions and doing a rough edit and realizing that the story is something else and recording stuff about the new story and listening to the new stuff and talking about it and asking questions and doing another rough edit and realizing that the story is something else and rinse and repeat until something sticks and then there's the really finicky fussy work of the fine edit and the mix which is fun to play with until deadline.

It does not happen in three days.

But that's what you have. Here's an idea and a very rough schedule:

Day -7: Hand out copies of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Ask each kid to pick a favorite.

Day 1: Talk about the stories and their current versions, what's familiar and what's not. Write the stage directions and dialog. (YOU pick the leads.) Figure out and list SFX and music.

Day 2: Record the leads while the field team gathers SFX; log and edit. Rough mix.

Day 3: Edit, and record any needed pick-ups or SFX. Final mix, and VIOLA!

Whatever you do, give the kids some structure to work with and against. Please don't just throw them into the deep end of "see what happens."
posted by dogrose at 1:16 AM on October 23

2nding Transom.org
posted by sully75 at 10:23 AM on October 23

Thanks for the great answers so far!

Just to clarify on expectations -- yeah, three days is quick -- we're not going to be doing extensive editing (I'm basically going to be introducing them to Audition, and doing a lot of legwork in the hours between sessions) -- which I think is totally do-able, but much easier if there's a kind of overarching structure. Less radio rookies, more 826, with the emphasis on quick delivery and being able to go home with tape.

This works better, I think, when there's a central theme? embranglio gives me hope that this will sort itself out. Those are great suggestions -- mostly, I'm worried that there will be a lot of downtime and things will peter out before we get to the fun part, but yeah, there's a lot of logistical "how to tell a story" stuff that will help push that through. Editing is going to be basically just a rough cut -- you start with a page of logged tape and everyone gets an adult to sit with them at the computer and help put things in order.

I really like the idea of doing radio dramas! but have no idea how this would work -- going with documentaries or "news" stories means you can build around an interview, which works well with the three session format.
posted by puckish at 12:03 PM on October 23

I think what you're aiming for will be possible in three days - but yeah, now that I've listened to a few Radio Rookies stories, there's no way you'll be sending the kids home with stories of that standard. I think your expectations are realistic, as long as you realise the result won't be anywhere near broadcast quality.

I would focus on getting the kids excited about radio, sending them off to gather interesting sounds, and putting those sounds together to make a simple story that they can play to others and say, "I made that!" If they decide to take radio further as a career, they can learn more specialised narrative and craft skills as they need them. For now, resist any adult tendencies towards perfection and try not to bog the kids down with too many details.

If you're worried the kids will be stuck for ideas, maybe you could take the kids on a field trip and make that the story. You could take them to the zoo - each group can pick an animal, do a bit of research about its habits, interview its keepers and record the sounds it makes. Or you could take them to a local event, like a school fair or a community festival.

Once they've gathered sounds, I'd go further than just logging the audio - I would master a selection of concise grabs and individual sound effects and let the kids play with those in multi-track. Don't even give them access to the master recording - it will take them hours to work out what they want to use, even with a log sheet. I'd also give set the recorders up so that they can only fit an hour or so on the recording media - any more than that will be an editing nightmare. Good luck!
posted by embrangled at 4:36 AM on October 24