Executive Vice President
Making a radio show is really hard. Aside from the recording and finding the clips that are relevant, the actual editing is a killer. I really invested a lot of time in this project, and im still not happy with it. I have a newfound respect for Ira Glass.
The point of my radio show is that Americans are conflicted, and it is very clear in this election season. They are not sure what they want, and the candidates are able to manipulate voters by saying what people want to hear. I have made a sort of satire of this in my radio show. I hope it is funny and makes my listeners laugh as they reflect upon the points being raised. I also wanted to give the effect of an actual radio show, so I put in some commercials to make this show seem legitimate.
Two pieces of advice I payed special attention to while making my radio show are:
“You actually have to set aside as much time for the looking for stories [as for editing your story]”(Part 2, 36 seconds in), and
“What your making is not that great… but you can tell that its still sort of crappy…. the most important thing to do is to do a lot of work. Make deadlines for yourself. “(Part 3, 1 minute in).
I found both of these insights to be true. Firstly, deciding what to make my show about took as long as editing it. And second, I am definitely able to tell that my work is still sort of crappy. But I wont give up- I will continue to draft this piece untill the revision is due, and i hope it will get better.
I think my main struggles in making this show are due to lack of experience, and i hope that it will get better in time and practice.
6 responses so far
Good job, Nomie! Your show is really funny and your point is really good! I really enjoyed listening to this!
I enjoyed listening to this, too, and I feel like I need to listen to it again. We always miss things on the first listen, and this piece is very fast-paced, so it makes it even harder to get everything. The pace makes it work even though it’s on the long side (nearly 7 minutes–a long time to sustain the radio show satire idea). It’s a bit chaotic. In part, this is good–that fast pace that works to keep the energy up and the narrative moving. And I do feel like there’s progression–between the two callers, for instance. The “I don’t know, what do you think?” is the same answer, but in the second call the caller challenges that answer and it goes in a new direction. But maybe there’s too much background noise that makes it feel somewhat chaotic. Can you edit it out? Maybe there are some key terms of ideas you could hit harder in the piece? For instance, I get neutral and conflicted as key terms, but they aren’t set up at the beginning to make them work throughout. Especially the conflicted idea. I want more sounds effects. Can you do a radio bumper? Or give us the sound of phones during the call-in? Or maybe a producer chiming in saying “you have a call on line 2.” A female voice would help break up the “they all sound the same” feel.
The ending section on being conflicted is important in emphasizing your point. Again, if you set some of those ideas up earlier, they would emerge from a more conscious narrative on how people aren’t sure what they believe and therefore we like (or need? which is it?) a politician who speaks to all possible sides of our ambivalence. I think you should bring out the reasons, and effects, of our society’s ambivalence on big issues and how it translates into political malaise–or what do you say it translates into? Maybe not political malaise as bad, indeterminate, wishy-washy politicians who just say what they think we want to hear.
Did you script that final “wrap up” section? Or was it improvised? How much of this piece did you script? I would like to get a sense of your defining, creating hand in this piece. You should address these questions about what and how much you scripted, and how much was improvised, in your reflection essay.
You would do well to address counterargument in here, and your call-in section is the perfect spot to do it in. Why not have a caller who has definitive ideas of his or her own, as well as about which politician she or he likes, and thinks the “left-hand man” idea is terrible. How would the host and guest address such a caller?
Your piece was very interesting. I loved the narrator’s enthusiasm as he talked about the various issues and the commercials that really made it feel like a radio show. As I listened to it I could practically picture this being on the radio with a passionate radio announcer. However, I feel like your project goes by too quickly and I got lost very quickly. You talk about multiple things and it was hard for your point to really come through. It becomes a little crazy when the narrator starts ranting so maybe just try to reorganize our audio a little bit. I also feel that some spacing between the talking and some more sound effects and music can make your project a lot better.
I think that the show host’s enthusiasm is great for your Audio-Essay. It seems very realistic and I like that feel. However, the show moves very fast and its hard for me to follow who is talking. The voices sound very similar and maybe that adds to your message of neutrality and being intermediate, but it is confusing. The phone calls as well, I didn’t know who the caller was and who the potential executive vice president was. The callers also gave the exact same answers, maybe do something with them so they can further develop why we need such an executive position? Not sure but I think calming things down and narrowing focus on your message and point will make things less chaotic and lead to a better project.
Haha Nomi, your brother really sounds like a politician! I looooooved it. It’s original, funny, and sardonic all at the same time. Some of the editing was abrupt though, so maybe you could fix that? Also, is “Call Me Maybe” in the background intentionally? I thought you made your point pretty clearly – you’re poking fun at wishy-washy politicians. So aside from cleaning up the background noise and maybe cutting some confusing/random things that Victor says…it rocks!
http://soundcloud.com/user113075432/shlomo-and-mendy-audio