Audio 101

A Quick and Dirty Guide to Telling Your Story with Sound

Field Recording

Wear Headphones.  OK, this may sound silly.  It obviously did to me: I reported three full length audio pieces – a couple of which have aired on real radio stations – before I realized that I could solve the mystery of background noise by wearing headphones while recording. If it’s too loud to get a decent recording, move!  Your sources will usually get a kick out of being part of the process of producing a piece for radio.

Think in shots and scenes.  Places don’t always really sound like themselves.  Sometimes you have to think about what kind of sound will help you communicate a place.  “the sound of the UW campus” might sound just like a quiet street, or a park, or an empty classroom or a bus stop.  Think about where you can get sounds of students talking, or a lively classroom, cafeteria, or student hangout.

Record Ambient Sounds.  Sometimes ambient noise will be part of a package: you won’t have a choice to have noise in the background or not.  Whenever it’s possible, though, record your interviews in a clean sound environment.  And then ask your subject to help you record other sounds to go with your interview.  Say you’re talking to a blogger.  Ask if, after the interview, you can record the sounds of them typing and muttering to themselves as they write their weekly rant.  If you’re interviewing a firefighter, talk to them in the quiet of the station office, and then ask them to take you along on a call while running the siren and narrating the action.

Choose interesting locations for interviews.  Avoid the Starbucks trap! Try for an office, a person’s home – or ask your subject to show you around a place that has something to do with the story.  If you’re talking to someone about their obsession with sailboats, ask them to take you on a tour of their local marina, and show you how the boat works.  If you’re talking to a soldier, have them take you around their base.  If you’re talking to a local schoolteacher, have them take you around their school.  Their showing you around can make wonderful clips for your audio piece, spliced in with cleaner indoor interview cuts.

Interviewing

Bring a friend. This one depends on your personal style.  But we have always found that it’s best to conduct interviews in groups of two or three.  This allows one person to focus on asking questions and responding, and another to lend more attention to the technical side.  Even if your audio equipment can depend on itself once you’ve hit record, being able to take notes and make sure you’ve still got space on your tape without worrying you’re missing something is invaluable.

Keep running your tape.  Start recording sooner than you think you should: before you even meet up with your source.  Your walking into the building, introducing yourself, or settling yourself down to talk with your source can make for interesting audio.  Don’t turn your recorder off until you’re in the car, bus, train, or taxi after the interview.  You might want to keep it on then, too, to record your reactions afterwards.  Most audio recorders let you hit “new track” or “pause,” to create a new track you can work with later.  Tape is cheap.  Getting people to say the perfect thing isn’t.  We have often found that people relax, start speaking in a new voice, or say what they really wanted to say, once they feel that the pressure of the “official interview” is over. You might get your best quotes or soundbites in that after period.  DO NOT tell people you are turning off the tape when you’re not.  Just keep it on, quietly recording, even after the most formal part of the interview is over.

Avoid Mhmmms.  This was one of the hardest things for all of the CLP to learn about audio.  We promise, it is possible to listen to your subject, and help them feel heard, without overlapping everything they say with “mhmmm” and “yes”, and “oh you’re so right”.  Be disciplined, keep your tape pure, make eye contact, smile and nod—and say your mhmms after they’ve stopped talking.

Ask open-ended questions.  Don’t let your subjects off the hook – a yes or no answer does not sound good on the radio.  Let your subject really talk through their answers.  Don’t be afraid to ask the same questions twice.  Or ask two questions at a time. Ask them to tell you how it sounded when that huge dog came running after them.   Rawr rawr rawr looks horrible in print but sounds great on the radio!

Don’t let yourself feel intimidated.  Get used to the idea of calling yourself a radio producer.  Don’t apologize for it.  Don’t tell your source you’ve never done this before.  Trust your instincts, and fake confidence if you have to.  No one wants to talk to someone who’s apologizing for their presence.

Planning

Why this story? Why are you interested? Keep asking yourself this question throughout the whole process of reporting your story. If you always have a solid answer, your story’s always going to be good.

Choose your subjects for radio.  Just because someone is the preeminent expert on a given topic, it doesn’t mean they are the right source for your radio piece.  Make sure your subjects have an interesting, intelligible voice.

Map it out.  Write up an outline of your piece.  What are the Idea, Character(s), Setting, and Action of each scene?  Is one of those elements missing?  Can you get more tape to add it in?  Is the scene unnecessary?  Does it fill in part of your narrative arc?

Listen to the radio!  Check out how other folks are using sound to tell a story.  Don’t only listen to it as your average radio listener.  Think about the tools and techniques they’ve used to get their point across, how they’re using the medium to its fullest potential.  Check out public radio shows like RadioLab, This American Life, PRX, and the Third Coast Festival.

Mix it Up.  Make sure to include both your narration and cuts of the people your story is focused on.  Don’t tell people what to think, but help them to contextualize the quote they are about to hear.  And use lots of natural sound to help paint a picture.

Writing

Write to your tape! Help us understand the sounds that we’re hearing. If we’re talking about a marketplace, play us the sound of a marketplace. Start an unusual sound playing, let it run for a second, and then explain what we’re hearing.

Don’t repeat your sources. It’s really tempting. But as you “write in” to or out of a clip from one of your interviews, say something besides what they are about to say.  Set the clip up, but don’t repeat it.

Use short, conversational sentences. In print we can understand long rambling sentences with lots of dependent clauses and long dashes – even sentences covering a few different ideas, or heading off in different directions before coming back to the point – like this one. But when we talk and listen, we crave short, direct, active speech. Don’t be afraid of periods and paragraphs. And resist the urge to throw in 64 dollar words without a good reason.

Choose the right people for voiceovers.  When you’ve got interview tape in another language, it’s ideal to find someone to read the translation in a voice that sounds like what your source would sound like in the language of your piece. Or you can do the translating – play a little clip of the person talking and then paraphrase in your own words.

Start with a lede; end with a kicker.  Don’t forget that though we are suddenly in the land of radio, we are still journalists here!  Start your piece with something striking that makes your listeners want to hear more.  End it with something they’ll remember.

Narration

Don’t try to talk like you’re on the radio.  Pretend you’re at the bar, telling your best friend about this amazing character you met the other day.  Tell your story as if it had nothing to do with the radio. Try to read your script while screaming, laughing or crying uncontrollably. Then go back to reading in your normal voice. You’ll be surprised at how different it sounds.

Those first few lines sound funny?  Try the “well Sarah” trick.  Just say ‘well, Sarah,’ before you start to read your first line. It’ll remind you how to say your sentence in a normal tone. You can chop out the ‘well Sarah’ later.

Think of it as acting.  Don’t be afraid to sound too emotional, too real, or to talk too slow.  Really picture the scene you’re describing as you read.  Talk with your hands, and try to be standing up when you record your narration.  If you can get someone else to listen on headphones so you don’t have to – even better.

Pitching

Try out www.prx.org, www.bigshed.org, audio postcards on www.npr.org, or the latest audio contest at www.thirdcoastfestival.org.  These are great places to get nontraditional audio pieces aired.  Use PRX tools to make sure your work stays in the list of recently added pieces – by changing each piece’s page, writing to the editors about the timeliness of your pieces, or adding new edits of work you’ve already done.

Identify Shows that air work similar to yours.  Don’t be afraid to search for emails, and write to producers about your work.  Make sure to tell them why they should air your piece.  The fact that it’s interesting isn’t enough.  The person you write to will usually have to talk to their boss before airing your piece, so make it easy for them!  Give your contact a couple of strong sentences about why your piece is particularly timely, interesting, fun, or surprising.  Tell them why they should air it, and why they should air it now.  The easier you make it for them to pitch it upwards, the better chance you have.

Pitch to the CLP.  Visit our submission page for details.