Maker Sessions

Dive into scores of talks, workshops, and audio manifestos offering wisdom on everything from production skills to journalistic ethics from the best audio producers and makers on the planet.

Spotlight: Family Separation at the Border

In June of 2018, ProPublica released a piece of audio that would come to define one of the most critical news stories of the year: the separation and detention of families seeking asylum at the U.S. - Mexico border.

  • 2024
  • 01:03:08

Stealing: A Deconstruction of Five Women

Trying to make a story that sounds new or does something surprising is hard. The only way Chana Joffe-Walt has ever known how to try is to copy and to steal.

  • 2024
  • 0

Sex Sells

Sex sells, sure, but who gets to cash in on it? How can journalists honestly and accurately cover sex workers without sensationalizing or further stigmatizing their work? And can the answers provide meaningful & challenging insights for audio producers specifically who make stories about communities they are not a part of?

  • 2024
  • 01:23:08

Start From The Beginning

Most people can recount the facts of their situation, but how do you get them to tell you an actual story? Interviewing for narrative calls for a slightly different set of interview muscles – from the kinds of questions you ask, to helping a source tap into details and emotion of moments long past.

  • 2024
  • 01:17:02

Spotlight: ALL WORKPLACES ARE WORKPLACES ABOUT POWER

Swirling beneath every single one of this year’s breaking stories and major crises is work and labor: not only of the people in the headlines, but of the audio storytellers, ourselves.

  • 2024
  • 01:12:16

Seeing Sound

Sound editor Walter Murch (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, The English Patient), sound designer Randy Thom (The Right Stuff, The Thin Blue Line), and radio artist Joe Frank deconstruct excerpts from their work...

  • 2003
  • 01:59:27

Shop Talks (Thursday afternoon small sessions!)

Between 2pm - 4:30pm on Thursday afternoon, producers can take their first dip into the Third Coast Conference with Shop Talks. Shop Talks are a chance for producers to take part in small sessions in business, education and more.

  • 2017
  • 0

The Script Disappears

You've pitched your story; you've collected tape; you've gone through your edits; you're ready to track.

  • 2010
  • 01:28:06

The Sounds Inside

In certain radio stories, sounds exist only in the mind of the storyteller and can't be physically recorded -- like dreams, memories, and predictions. How do you create a soundscape that brings "the sounds inside" to life?

  • 2007
  • 01:22:47

The Story as Walkabout

Smartphones and other gadgets have detached our listening experiences from the radio, and are making another kind of attachment possible - to where the stories actually take place.

  • 2012
  • 01:18:18

Sources, Correspondents, Fixers: Making Radio With Bloggers

Millions of bloggers write every day about their own towns, industries, and lives. As a radio producer you can work with a nation -- a world – of storytellers to find out about everything from French politics to knitting habits in Iowa.

  • 2006
  • 01:17:02

Sound Design 101

Brendan Baker and Kaitlin Prest pull back the curtain on the alchemical process of combining stories and sound.

  • 2014
  • 01:18:04

The Sound of Breaking News

You’re sent to cover breaking news – a natural disaster or a large-scale accident or crime. You don’t have much time, or much warning. How do you bring back sound-rich, interesting tape, that makes listeners perk up their ears?

  • 2016
  • 01:15:56

Seven Things I’ve Learned

This American Life host Ira Glass talks about seven things he’s learned over the past 4 decades in radio...

  • 2017
  • 0

Sounds Loved and Sounds Lost

This session is: 1) A brief survey of field recording by that and other names, with an emphasis on non-pragmatic applications of recording technology such as musique concrete (last century) and phonography (this one);

  • 2005
  • 01:29:47

Stand Tall

The best "real time" radio sounds live and spontaneous, but requires forethought and structure. This session focuses on how to do "stand up" in the field -- what works and what doesn't.

  • 2007
  • 01:18:03

She Launched Channel Zero

In a time when commercial interests continue to stake a claim to audiences' attentions on the Internet, artists continue to explore the narrowcast as a vehicle for simultaneously cultivating an audience and developing a body of work.

  • 2007
  • 01:21:35

Secrets, Whispers, and Lies: Crafting a Personal Documentary

Everyone's telling their story these days –- in blogs, podcasts, on YouTube. But what makes one story a yawn or self-indulgent and another one compelling? How do you tell a personal story as a radio documentary?

  • 2007
  • 01:32:25

Small + Big = Dynamite

Back in 2009, one German documentary won both of Europe's most coveted radio prizes – the Prix Italia and the Prix Europa.

  • 2010
  • 01:35:39

The Sound and the Blurry

Is it true? Are photographers secretly laughing at the multimedia efforts of audio producers?

  • 2010
  • 01:39:16