Guest Speaker
Please join me in welcoming our distinguished visiting journalist David Gonzalez.
Discussion.
Script Writing Exercise
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:
- Visual/descriptive, paints a picture to add context to the natural sounds
- Sets up sound bites by introducing the person by their full name and often by paraphrasing or hinting at what they’re about to say.
- No long, rambling, complicated sentences.
- Ends 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 Grad 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
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.
Homework due by next class (Wednesday 3/17)
- Write a short script, about the same length as my sample script above (a host intro, three sound bites, narration and a sign-off) based off of the interview you did for homework.
- Record your narration.
- Download Audacity, the free audio editing software, before next class. You don’t have to edit anything yet. You’ll be using your audio interviews and your scripts in an audio editing exercise on Wednesday where you’ll put the whole practice radio assignment together.