As a reminder, your scripts for the 4-5 minute radio feature are due on Wednesday, October 4. This means you will need to have already conducted your interviews by then.
IMPORTANT: When you go out and record your interviews, DON’T FORGET to record 90 seconds to two minutes of ambient sound/room tone in the location where you conducted your interview. It should become a deeply ingrained habit to wrap up the interview and say “Now if you don’t mind, I’m just going to stay here and record a couple minutes of nothing!”
In-class exercise: Script Writing
I’m going to give you the raw tape of an interview I recorded recently, and you can also use excerpts from other sources (public speeches found on YouTube etc.—this is considered fair use) to fill out the story. Give it a listen, decide on four or five sound bites of no more than about 20 seconds each (with maximum three of those coming from the interview), and write them into a short script that provides full context and background on the situation.
Download link here.
For future reference, if you intend to use any audio from these extra sources (if recent public statements by the mayor are relevant to your story, for instance), a good resource for ripping the audio is Audio Hijack. There is a free version.
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Remember that the template for writing a script looks like this:
HOST INTRO:
AMBI: (natural sounds and room tone go here)
TRACK: (your narration goes here)
ACT: [NAME]: (transcription of soundbites goes here)
TRACK: …and so on
Remember that you’re writing for the ear, which means simple sentences, conversational style, and lots of description. Be careful to write into and out of the sound bites in a way that clearly introduces the speaker and sets up what they’re going to say.
If you’re not finished writing the script by the end of class, that’s okay: just make sure you email it to me by Monday so we can look at them together in class.
Let me know if you need equipment!