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Below you'll find links for the 2006 TCF Conference sessions. Happy listening!
General Sessions:
Presenting the 2006 TCF ShortDocs: 99 Ways to Tell a Radio Story
These are a Few of My Favorite Things, with Robert Krulwich
Breakout Sessions:
Bring Extra Batteries
Die, Mediocrity, Die!
The Invisible Narrator
Let Your Sounds Do the Talking
Mission Possible: Finding Grants for Independent Producers
Radio Norway
The Sounds of Madness: A Survey of the Bizarre, the Unconventional, and the Just-Plain-Annoying
Sources, Correspondents, Fixers: Making Radio with Bloggers
Talk the Copy
Teens With Mics
Telling Stories Far From Home
Zwerdling on Radio
Listening sessions:
Shed Your Audio Inhibitions
Audio Doctor Sessions
Group (Radio) Therapy
Click on images below for larger versions.
(All photos by Stu Mullenberg)
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| General Sessions: (all run about 90 minutes) |
Presenting the 2006 TCF ShortDocs:
99 Ways to Tell a Radio Story
(stream)
(right-click to download)
The TCF sent out the call for the 99 Ways to Tell a Radio Story project in April, challenging producers to make short audio pieces incorporating specific guidelines: an opening sentence, three sounds and a specific time mark. Cartoonist Matt Madden, who in part inspired the experiment, helps present the four “Ways” chosen to be the 2006 TCF ShortDocs, and talks to the producers who made them. Madden will also explain and show pages from his book 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style, and will present other variations on the idea of telling a single story from multiple perspectives, found in music, film and literature.
Moderated by Julie Shapiro and Matt Madden with the producers of the 2006 TCF ShortDocs: Sasha Aslanian, Zoe Irvine, Carma Jolly and Jill Summers
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These are a Few of My Favorite Things
(stream)
(right-click to download)
What inspires those who inspire us? Robert Krulwich reveals a few especially memorable pieces, presenting a sampler of radio stories that he just adores, has learned from, and wants to share. You’ll hear some old pieces and some new ones, but all of them will be, in their different ways, jawdropping...
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| Breakout Sessions: (All run about 90 minutes) |
Bring Extra Batteries
(stream)
(right-click to download)
Attention new producers! Before heading out into the world with headphones on and mic facing forward, what do you need to know? Here's where to find out. Armed with a multitude of audio examples, Rob Rosenthal will discuss story making preparations -- from research and interview planning to thinking in scenes and collecting ambient sound -- and share thoughts on making a go of radio for a living.
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Die, Mediocrity, Die!
(stream)
(right-click to download)
Do your own radio scripts ever bore you? Or frustrate, confuse and deflate you? Nancy Updike, who has written stories ranging in length from 50 seconds to 59 minutes, will present easy approaches to making your writing sharper, more memorable and more engaged with the tape. Also, learn how to make drab tape beautiful through writing, and along the way, enjoy some schadenfreude: instructive stories of mistakes and failure will be shared for the benefit of all.
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The Invisible Narrator
(stream)
(right-click to download)
This session explores "found narration" - archival tape, interviews, audio diary entries - and sound that can all be used to perform the job of the narrator. What do you gain and what do you give up when you throw away the script? Producer Joe Richman breaks down the process - from getting tape to editing to producing.
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Let Your Sounds Do the Talking
(stream)
(right-click to download)
So you're a great writer, and you've pretty much got interviewing down, but something's just... missing. Sound. The sounds we use and how we use them can say so much in a radio story, but often that potential goes untapped. Jonathan Mitchell will talk about ways to expand your sonic vocabulary, and how sound can be used to communicate ideas in a more immediate and meaningful way.
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Mission Possible: Finding Grants for Independent Production
(stream)
(right-click to download)
Nearly 68,000 foundations in the U.S. together give away more than $30 billion per year. So how can you get some of it? In this session, Amie Miller from the Development Exchange, will cover the nuts and bolts of finding grants (and doing it in a way that still leaves you time to make radio). Topics will include: why foundations fund media (or don’t), how to identify prospective funders, the art of building and maintaining positive relationships with grantmakers and how to create a compelling proposal. |
Radio Norway
(stream)
(right-click to download)
Norwegian radio features have a sound all their own. Producer Kari Hesthamar will demonstrate this by playing and talking about some of the most important elements of her own work - creating small films for listeners’ ears, capturing the true essence of a scene and producing stories that come alive through the use of the present tense.
Note! The radio pieces played in this session are not in English. Download these transcripts so you can follow along.
If It Be Your Will (excerpt)
So Long, Marianne (excerpt)
The Brown Parcel (excerpt)
Sent to Lindoy (excerpt)
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The Sounds of Madness: A Survey of the Bizarre, the Uncoventional and the Just-Plain-Annoying
(stream)
(right-click to download)
Come hear an intensive survey of sounds generally never heard on the radio (nor to be any time soon.) In this session Kenneth Goldsmith explores the audio interstices between sound art, found sound and the full gamut of the noises that humans make. Bizarre and wonderful stories, photographs and films will accompany the soundtrack in the hopes of trying to understand what has motivated certain individuals to want to do such things.
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Sources, Correspondents, Fixers: Making Radio with Bloggers
(stream)
(right-click to download)
Millions of bloggers write every day about their own towns, industries and lives. As a radio producer you can work with a nation -- a world – of storytellers to find out about everything from French politics to knitting habits in Iowa. Brendan Greeley, blogger-in-chief for PRI's Open Source, will talk about finding and collaborating with bloggers, and how to use free, user-friendly tools to build a web-based community around your work.
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Talk the Copy
(stream)
(right-click to download)
The voice of the storyteller is often overlooked but it's a vital part of making great radio. Marilyn Pittman will show you how to make your narration tracks authentic and compelling with her many tips and techniques. Learn how to mark your copy, warm-up, breath helpfully, be "in" your story and bring your best voice to each word. |
Teens with Mics
(stream)
(right-click to download)
Youth producers are creating some of the most revealing and moving work on the radio these days, and we've curated a collection of gems for you. Come listen, hear from two panels of young producers from all over the country, and learn how they respond when adults make radio about teenagers. With Sarah Levine and youth producers. |
Telling Stories Far From Home
(stream)
(right-click to download)
How can a producer prepare to make radio stories about distant lands and the people who live there, and why tell those stories anyway? Stephanie Guyer-Stevens shares her experiences working in remote areas with Outer Voices, and talks about issues ranging from the pragmatic to the philosophical. She’ll play her own work other selections of internationally focused radio that are especially effective in taking listeners “there.” |
Zwerdling on Radio
(stream)
(right-click to download)
Whether you're a radio beginner or a veteran, NPR’s Senior Correspondent Daniel Zwerdling can help you breathe new life into your pieces. Based on decades of experience and techniques used by novelists and film-makers, Zwerdling will guide you through the art of telling a story, starting with a strategy for getting the absolute best tape from your interviews.
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| Listening Sessions |
 Shed Your Audio Inhibitions
(stream)
(right-click to download)
After registration and plenty of mingling at the opening reception the founders of the Big Shed podcast treated attendees to the first listening event of the conference. Curators Shea Shackleford and Jennifer Deer shared selections from the Big Shed podcast and waxed philosophically about the power of podcasting to save radio's soul. (Big Shed is a proud member of the IndieFeed.com family)
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Audio Doctor Sessions
By now a TCF tradition, once again a limited number of conference attendees had the opportunity to bring their work (completed or in progress) and receive a counseling session with accomplished producers and editors:
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Group (Radio) Therapy
Wishing you could play some of your own work for a small group of sympathetic yet discriminating fellow producers? Or maybe you'd rather hone your critical listening skills in a group context. Here was a chance to do both. For these listening sessions Independent producer Dmae Roberts guided producers through listening to each others' work and constructive discussions about each piece. Participation was limited to 20 per group.
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| Thanks to the 2006 TCF Conference Sponsors: |
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