Sound Sausage

Radio and podcasting aren’t the only venues for creative audio storytelling. Veronica Simmonds tells us how she successfully combined a partnership with Halifax Public Libraries and a grant from Arts Nova Scotia to produce Stack Stories, a web-based audio experience. She also shares her experience creating Braidio – the radio show where she braids hair live on air.

Chris Brookes got into radio to make a little grocery money, something his theater background wasn’t really providing at the time. In the decades since then he’s become one of Canada’s most prolific and award winning independent documentary producers. Chris tells us about the recently launched Inside Outside Battery – an app packed with audio stories that play automatically as you walk around his neighbourhood in St. John’s Newfoundland. He collaborated with documentary-maker Annie McEwen and composer Jake Nicoll on the project.

Episode edited by JP Davidson.

After years producing shows for CBC Radio and TVO, Jesse Brown has turned his unique voice, sense of humour, and journalism chops to independent podcasting. His show, Canadaland, takes a critical look at the Canadian media industry, and explores other topics through long-form interviews. Jesse talks to us about media criticism, professional podcasting, and getting his show off the ground.

Episode edited by JP Davidson. Photo by Debra Friedman.

This episode of Sound Sausage features a piece about a male nude model named Buck. Hosts Kelly Jones and Sean Rasmussen speak with guest producer Andrew Norton about the making of the piece, and about his experience at the Transom Story Workshop in Cape Cod. We also talk about working with editors, voicing, and finding stories.

Andrew Norton is a multimedia producer from Toronto. He has produced radio for places like 99% Invisible, NPR and makes a monthly podcast for Greenpeace Canada where he is also the full-time audio/video guy. To see and hear more of his work visit www.andrewnortonphoto.com.

This episode edited by Sean Rasmussen.

In this episode of Sound Sausage we speak with Jeff Emtman about his piece Puke Quits Trainriding. Jeff brought his recorder along with him on an extended hitchhiking trip across the U.S.. He met many characters along the way. This is the story about a man using the alias “Puke”.

Hosts JP Davidson and Sean Rasmussen talk with Jeff about doing a non-narrated piece, trusting the interviewee, making a living at audio, composing music, and much more.

Jeff Emtman is the creator and producer of Here Be Monsters a popular podcast about fear and the unknown that received a SoundCloud fellowship.

This episode edited by Sean Rasmussen.

Episode 4 features a discussion with guest producer Brian Cauley, on the subject of designing the perfect intro for a podcast or radio show. Brian also shares his thoughts on the choices that are involved in creating sound-rich pieces. In particular, sonic ids, backgrounds and transitions.  Host’s JP Davidson and Kelly Jones play several pieces and discuss with the guest.

Brian Cauley is a Toronto-based producer, podcaster and sound designer. Some of his work includes production on Babel, a CBC summer series. He currently produces the Academy of Lions, the podcast. Check out his website for more information.

Episode three features a story by Sean Rasmussen. We talk about music choices, interviewing your friends, recording two people telling the same story…but separately, and surprise endings. “The Fifty Shades Caper” is the story of two friends and a spontaneous get-rich-quick scheme gone pretty wrong.

Sean Rasmussen is a web guy/internet marketing consultant by day and a story collector by night/weekend. He’s been making radio for 1.5 years and looks forward to a future of in-depth documentaries and radio dramas.

Episode 2 features producer JP Davidson’s radio doc Vape on the Lake,  about a Toronto lounge that lets customers smoke marijuana semi-legally.

The City of Toronto is now home to seven “vapor lounges” – places that charge admission to marijuana users looking for a safe, comfortable place to light up. Vapor lounges have existed in the city without regulation for ten years, since Hot Box Cafe opened in Kensington. The newest lounge, Vape on the Lake in Etobicoke, caters to medical and social users alike. Owner Marco Renda says police have visited several times without incident, and that indoor smoking bylaws don’t apply to marijuana, only tobacco.

The Vape on the Lake radio doc was rejected by a few public radio outlets, which is how it ended up here. This edit was produced for a Canadian Sound and Story Workshop listening event last fall.  JP, Kelly and Sean talk about the challenges that arose making the piece, sound rich production techniques, pitching stories, finding the narrative and more.

JP Davidson is a Toronto-based independent radio producer whose work can be heard on CBC and NPR. His podcast I Like You, about dating and relationships, has been downloaded over 200 000 times. He is also a co-host of  Sound Sausage and founder of the Canadian Sound and Story Workshop.

This week we hear and discuss a piece by Sound Sausage host Kelly Hardcastle Jones.

Kelly’s great-uncle Hardy devoted his life to the space program, working for years to ensure that nothing exploded on the Saturn V rockets (that wasn’t supposed to…). All of his hard work boiled down to just over two and a half minutes – between when the rocket lifted off, to when the spent first stage engines dropped away and splashed into the ocean. Here, Uncle Hardy describes what it was like to work on such short and intensely dangerous projects, and what it felt like to see his work go to the moon and back.

Kelly Hardcastle Jones has been battling a PhD dissertation, a part time job teaching radio, a rich family life, and a need for food and sleep in order to make radio for the last three years. And what a fight it’s been! Kidding. Kelly won one of the 2013 Third Coast International Short Doc Awards for a salty piece on poutine. She just got back from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and is excited to make more radio (and maybe someday get paid for it?).