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General Sessions:
Talking Story
Digging In: Investigative Documentary Radio
Points on a Curve -- Radio in Its Own Time and
Place
Ear to Ear
Taking Risks in Radio
Breakout Sessions:
D.I.Y. Radio
New Voices in Radio
Keyboard Audio
Making Waves: The Impact of Radio
Audio Galleries
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The Kitchen Sisters
skillfully led this panel about creative and unusual approaches and techniques
for producing compelling radio stories. Excerpts from a variety of documentary
works that illustrate ways to build meaningful radio were played. Participants
from this session work in radio and a variety of other mediums including film
and television, and discussed how they draw from these other perspectives when
producing stories for the airwaves.
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Radio is an excellent medium for investigative reporting, so why do we hear so
little of it on the air? Reporters Stephen Smith and Michael
Montgomery of American RadioWorks described the nuts and bolts of
producing investigative projects for radio, and how to use investigative
techniques to make any radio project better.
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International guest Alan Hall focused on radio’s capacity to
evoke a sense of place that exists uniquely in a non-visual, linear dimension.
“As well as allowing for the natural unfolding of events in real time – the
real time of a broadcast – radio can also walk in step with the pace of the
listeners’ imagination as events progress, narratively or more erratically.
This can induce profound ‘impressionistic’ experiences in the ambiguous play
between the moment and the location, fact and feeling...”
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Dave Isay and Dan Collison played excerpts of
their radio documentary work, and discussed specific challenges, triumphs, and
surprises encountered while producing various stories. Questions and feedback
from the audience was encouraged, and incorporated into the dialogue.
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Producing “outside the box” is a challenge to the formulaic landscape of public
radio — whether you’re producing a sound art parody or poetic essay or a show
bent on surprising its listeners. This panel asked: What are the repercussions
of doing things differently? How to inspire experimentation? What is the role
of radio in presenting unconventional work? Why take a risk, anyway?
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Do it yourself. This session was geared toward non-professionals and young
people who want to learn more about telling stories for radio. Joe Richman
played excerpts from his Radio Diaries series and other documentaries, to
demonstrate how to make your own audio diary, get good tape, create scenes and
find the story within the story.
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Who’s talking to the next generation of public radio listeners? This session
turned the mic over to some of the young producers who are busy expanding the
audio documentary form by bringing energy and fresh ideas to the world of
radio. Youth producers from California, Illinois, Maine and New York shared
their creativity, their programming, and their thoughts on getting youth
involved in the radio landscape.
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This panel brought together producers who were among the first in public radio
and audio production to bring their innovation to the Internet, for a
conversation about translating radio stories onto the Web and creating new art
forms altogether.
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In this closing panel, three esteemed radio professionals discussed the
following points: In times of crisis the impact of radio coverage on peoples’
lives is easy to assess. But day in and day out-- how does radio touch the
communities or subjects it portrays, and the audience it reaches? How does a
producer's perspective and approach to a story affect its impact? And, most
importantly, what results are we hoping for from our work -- to entertain,
inform, change minds and/or inspire people to action?
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For all the time we spend making radio programs, we rarely have the chance to
listen and critique work in a relaxed setting. The Audio Galleries were meant
to provide just that, and offered a guided aural tour through an assortment of
thought-provoking features, essays and documentaries.
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