Script Writing Exercise
Write a very brief practice script with only 2-3 sound bites taken from the short practice interview you did. Post your practice script to the class blog by the end of today’s class time, and record your narration by class time on Tuesday. You will need your raw interview, your script, and your narration for an audio editing exercise in class that day.
Here’s my example script based on a very short interview I did with another professor back in the spring. Note some of the different elements of script writing:
- Host intro serves essentially as your nut graf: gives the overall who/what/where/when/why of the story and puts it in a larger context
- First-person narration in the present tense
- Visual/descriptive, paint a picture to add context to the natural sounds
- Set up sound bites by introducing the person by their full name and often by paraphrasing or hinting at what they’re about to say.
- Avoid long, rambling, complicated sentences.
- End with a final line of narration that looks to the future in some way.
HOST INTRO: With CUNY schools transitioning to online learning this week amid the coronavirus outbreak, professors across New York City are getting creative. Emily Johnson spoke to one CUNY adjunct about what it’s like trying to teach during a pandemic.
AMBI: Nat sounds of tea kettle boiling (FADE DOWN AS TRACK BEGINS)
TRACK: I’m here with Anna Ficek in her Brooklyn apartment, watching her make tea while she works from home. She’s a PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center and when she’s not working on her dissertation she teaches art history at Baruch College and Borough of Manhattan Community College, or BMCC.
ACT: ANNA: When I found out that everything was getting shut down and especially CUNY I felt extremely sad. Because CUNY is such a big part of my life, such a great community that it was hard to feel that kind of dissipating.
TRACK: She says teaching from home has been a real challenge because of the way she runs her classes.
ACT: ANNA: It’s been very difficult to adapt to teaching remotely just because I really value the discussion I have with my students.
TRACK: Still, she’s trying to see this as an opportunity.
ACT: ANNA: What I’m hoping to get out of this is more time to really focus on what’s important both in terms of teaching and my own dissertation and my own research and trying to figure out creative problem solving ways to deal with these new issues that are going to come around like libraries being closed and inaccessibility to archives and how myself as an academic and as a researcher can get around that. So challenges, but also good challenges!
TRACK: CUNY schools will continue with distance learning for at least the remainder of the spring semester. For Baruch College, I’m Emily Johnson.
Recording Narration
Finally, record the narration you wrote in your practice script. You don’t need to send this to me yet; just make sure it’s accessible to you on Tuesday because you will use it in a sound editing/mixing exercise that day.
You’ll need to record your narration in a quiet place with sound-absorbing surfaces. Some people use their closet as a makeshift studio; others just throw a blanket over their head. If your room is carpeted, has curtains and lots of plush surfaces, the sound quality should be decent.
It’s best not to drink or eat dairy products right before recording narration; it makes your voice sound thick.
Try not to speak from high up in your throat. Speak from lower in your belly.
Good posture is important.
Some people in the radio world warm up their voices by singing, stretching, and/or doing tongue twisters.
Upcoming Due Dates
Rough draft of script is due Thursday, Nov. 2. On this day, we won’t have class as normal; you will all sign up for a one-on-one editing session with me over Zoom. I’ll send out a sign-up sheet as it gets closer.
Final radio story is due Thursday, Nov. 7.