2006 ShortDocs Challenge: 99 Ways to Tell a Radio Story

THE CREATIVE PARTNER

Starting in 2006, the ShortDocs Challenge took a new direction. We teamed up with cartoonist Matt Madden, author of the book 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style .

THE THEME

Together with Matt Madden, we built a challenge inspired by the idea of "creativity through constraint" - a notion much loved and exercised by an experimental French literary group called Oulipo.

THE RULES

Each ShortDoc had to:

• start with some manifestation of: "To begin with, they never got along"
• include a pre-recorded voice, rhythmic noise, and exclamation
• last exactly 2:30 minutes

THE RESULTS

Dozens of stories came in from around the world - in fact we surpassed 99 and ended up with 101 submissions. Four were chosen as the 2006 ShortDocs, and were presented, with producers on-hand, at the opening session of the 2006 Third Coast Conference.

Listen to the winners below, and hear all of the submissions in our audio library.