Sound School Podcast

By Rob Rosenthal/PRX/Transom.org

The Backstory to Great Audio Storytelling, hosted by Rob Rosenthal, for Transom and PRX.

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4.9

283283 ratings

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FAQs about Sound School Podcast:

How many episodes does Sound School Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 595 episodes available.

Sound School Podcast episodes:

June 16, 2015 A Matter Of Ethics - HowSound
I have a collection of go-to stories produced by students that I regularly play in class at the Transom Story Workshop. The stories are well-produced, well-told, and tend to prompt questions — questions about writing, field recording, narrative, and ethics. Dyana, Goddess of the Moose Hunt by Jamie Yuenger falls into the ethics category.
Wait until you hear what Jamie did in order to “get the story.” I don’t want to give it away here — you’ll have to listen — but, I think you’ll find yourself saying “Whoa, would I do that?!” At the same time, you’ll be amazed at the tape she got that she couldn’t possibly of recorded if she’d “followed the rules.”
Jamie now runs StoryKeep, a company in New York City that records family history.
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19min
June 16, 2015 A Matter Of Ethics
In 2008, student producer Jamie Yuenger recorded a remarkably private moment during a moose hunt. How she got that recording may cause you to raise your "ethics eyebrow."
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19min
June 02, 2015 Radio Luck And The Gift Of Character Change
In a character driven story, producer Hillary Frank says the story will be more satisfying if the character changes, evolves. Hillary got "radio lucky" when the kids in her story "Real Teens, Fake Babies" shifted 180 degrees.
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23min
June 02, 2015 Radio Luck And The Gift Of Character Change - HowSound
I’ll make a bet with you. I bet you’ll say “Wait, what??!” at least five times when you listen to Hillary Frank’s story “Real Teens, Fake Babies.” The story is that good, that surprising.
“Real Teens, Fake Babies” was produced for Hillary’s podcast The Longest, Shortest Time. It also aired on This American Life.
For the story, Hillary followed two teens — Rachel and Paige — in Baby Think It Over, a sex-education/parenting program for high school students who are given robot babies for 48 hours. The babies are remarkably lifelike and so is the experience of taking care of them.
The characters, the scenes, the plot twists in the story are remarkable. Actually, now that I think about it, I bet you’ll say “Wait, what??!” at least seven times. And, I bet you’ll say “No way!” when the characters change in the story; they shift their point of view, significantly.
In fact, Hillary says the character change in the story is the centerpiece. She structured the story around that moment.
In addition to radio and podcasting, Hillary writes young adult novels. She says that character change is so important in her writing, she’ll actually map out the arc of a character. In the chart, Hillary plotted out the ups and down of Ellie and her relationship with Nate from her book Better Than Running at Night. And, even though she didn’t draw a similar chart for the characters in “Real Teens, Fake Babies,” she did create an outline that accomplished the same thing.
I don’t feature the entirety of “Real Teens, Fake Babies” in HowSound. So, to get the full effect of all the “Wait, what!??” moments, I suggest you take a listen and subscribe to The Longest Shortest Time while you’re at it.
*photo of Hillary Frank by Natalie Chitwood.
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23min
June 02, 2015 Radio Luck And The Gift Of Character Change
In a character driven story, producer Hillary Frank says the story will be more satisfying if the character changes, evolves. Hillary got "radio lucky" when the kids in her story "Real Teens, Fake Babies" shifted 180 degrees.
...more
23min
May 19, 2015 Foils And Other First Person Tricks
Neenah Ellis talks with Rob Rosenthal about her series "One Hundred Years of Stories" and she shares some of her tips for first-person stories.
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24min
May 19, 2015 Foils And Other First Person Tricks - HowSound
Years ago, my students didn’t have access to the first person. I’d keep the pronoun “I” under lock and key. A first person perspective by a reporter was dangerous, I thought. To gain access to “I,” students would have to prove it would help tell the story – and the bar was high.
I was much too afraid students would write about themselves and listeners would lose sight of the characters in the stories they were producing. “It’s not about you,” I would say. Besides, I figured, there was always a way to avoid writing a story with “I.”
I still have those worries, but I’m much less rigid about the first person today. “I” is no longer locked up.
What changed? One Hundred Years of Stories – a year-long series about the lives of centenarians, people 100 years or older. Neenah Ellis produced by this series in 2000. Her adroit use of “I” was a game changer for me. In fact, fifteen years after the series aired on NPR, I still play the opening story as an excellent example of how to use the first person.
Neenah was like me, initially. She shied away from bringing herself into stories. It was contrary to her training in journalism. One Hundred Years of Stories was a major departure for her. And she jumped into the first-person deep-end. The stories needed it, she says.
Neenah’s use of “I” wasn’t casual. For instance, she didn’t simply say things like, “Jane Doe showed me into her kitchen” and then we never hear “I” again. Instead, Neenah used practically every trick in the first-person book: she’s a foil setting herself as an opposite of the characters in the stories, she goes on a journey, she synthesizes and interprets, etc., all in service to the story.
In addition to these reasons for writing in the first person, Neenah says she got close to the centenarians, friendly even. If she had written at a more “reporterly: distance, she would have sounded out of synch with the tape and the relationships she’d built.
Neenah, who reported the series over the course of a year or so, says that eventually the restraint she felt about the use of first person loosened. You can hear how far she came in the final episode.
On this edition of HowSound, Neenah talks about the series and what she learned about using “I” when reporting a story. And, we play lots of great examples from several of the stories. By the way, this is also the 100th episode of HowSound. Please raise a glass in our general direction!
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24min
May 19, 2015 Foils And Other First Person Tricks
Neenah Ellis talks with Rob Rosenthal about her series "One Hundred Years of Stories" and she shares some of her tips for first-person stories.
...more
24min
May 05, 2015 The Path To Primary Care
In this episode of HowSound, Rob Rosenthal talks with producer Karen Brown about her piece, "The Path to Primary Care: Who Will Be the Next Generation of Frontline Doctors." A local piece with national appeal.
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18min
May 05, 2015 The Path To Primary Care - HowSound
It’s not talked about much by broadcasters these days, but radio stations are licensed to operate “in the public interest, convenience, and necessity.” It’s a requirement; one that dates back to the 1920s. Arguably, it’s in broadcasting’s DNA.
What does “in the public interest” sound like? One answer is “The Path to Primary Care,” a radio documentary produced in 2015 by Karen Brown at New England Public Radio in Amherst, Massachusetts. To my mind, the story meets the “public interest” test because it tackles an issue of community concern — the serious lack of primary care physicians.
The full name of the documentary is “The Path to Primary Care: Who Will Be the Next Generation of Frontline Doctors.” And, another way the report meets the test is because it’s local, though the subject matter has national appeal. Historically, broadcasters defined “public interest,” in part, as local. In fact, local programming was so important to “public interest” it was a philosophy – “localism.” Community first.
On top of all this, the documentary is very simply a good story, well told. That, too, serves audiences.
So, a tip of the radio hat to Karen, my guest on HowSound today, and New England Public Radio for their commitment to broadcasting’s core value: operating in the public interest, convenience, and necessity.
We only feature excerpts from the documentary on HowSound. To hear the entire story, listen at PRX.
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18min

FAQs about Sound School Podcast:

How many episodes does Sound School Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 595 episodes available.

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