Week 6 - Audio Narratives and Production

I wouldn’t exactly call myself a regular listener of This American Life but as a regular NPR listener I’ve certainly tuned in many times. The broadcasts are quite memorable and always leave an impression on me.

What I especially noticed was how the stories were told by ordinary people about many of the common place things taking place in everyone’s life. The extraordinary wisdom of naïve children, embarrassing blunders and the length’s we go to cover them up, what happens when the light finally goes on in our brain. I love the way the stories are about life, and how life is full of stories. Why am I not a regular listener of this show?

While mostly focused on the story-telling I was also paying attention to the modal elements. To me I didn’t really hear a separate sound effects track. I heard interviews, people making their own sound-effects, background noise and other noises picked up by the audio recording during the interviews. Each episode is narrated; however the main narrator (Ira Glass?) was not the narrator during the segments. Each segment had its own narrator or story teller such as a producer or writer who had some involvement in the story. Each segment is moved along with music that gives emphasis as the story progresses. Music also filled in the space between stories.

Let me give some examples of sounds that I heard. I listened to “20 Stories in 60 Minutes” and “A Little Bit of Knowledge”. I heard a lot of background noise in the juvenile detention center interview as the boys conducting the interviews were in a live situation in the facility. The interviews were conducted on-the-spot, not in a sound-proof room. It gave the story more of a sense of the boys being journalists conducting an investigation – raw, gritty, unfiltered. Another juvenile detention story was the recording of a live performance that turned out to be heart-warming for the narrator. This piece also had a live feel to it, capturing the action that was taking place in the moment.

Although David Sedaris is quite famous, his stories are always about everyday life situations that become hysterical in his telling. In this short segment he tells the story of realizing that for years his sister has been talking to him on the phone while doing her business in the bathroom. He makes the sounds of her straining to open a jar – doing his own sound effects in a sense. This is why I resist reading his books. There’s no way his writing can compare to his dead-pan voice.

Robert Andrew Powell documents the year-long sabbatical of his friend Bob Berenz as he tries to disprove Einstein’s theory of relativity (E=MC²). A number of people, including Bob’s wife are interviewed so the sound of the segment varies as new people are introduced. Everything flows together as Powell narrates the story.

Most interviews and story telling seems to take place in a studio or other sound-free environment. These types of stories really benefit from having music to provide transitions between sections of the narrative. I did pay attention to the music. How music is selected to do this is quite mysterious to me. I noticed that on the web page that gives details about the episode that each segment of the broadcast has a title and song whose title fits with the them of the segment. For example, Powell’s audio documentary “Sucker MC-Squared” is accompanied by the song “Modern Physics in Five Easy Verses,” by Bruce Lesnick. Is this a song that was made up for this documentary? If not how would know a song title that matches your story would also have a sound that would match your story?

This American Life has given me confidence that my idea for a podcast is a good one because it’s a true story from someone’s life. But how will I select the music used to accent the story? I’m a little worried about that.