Friday, November 5, 2010
Audio Postcards
http://generation.prx.org/group/diyradioproject/forum/topics/825456:Topic:9663
An Audio Postcard is a short radio piece that tells a listener about a place without using narration. Audio Postcards have a lot of sound in the form of ambient noise, music, conversation, and more, in order to tell the story without narration. I wrote some basic instructions for making an audio postcard below. Making an Audio Postcard is the same as writing a paper postcard. Except when you send an audio postcard, you don’t need to pay postage.
When you are sifting through your mail, and you see a postcard, the first thing you look at is the picture on the front. The picture draws you in, and gives you a visual of the place the postcard is from. The first sound of your postcard should do just that. Get sounds from the setting that will enable people to visualize where you are. That sound should be first, just like the picture on the front of a postcard.
If you were going to send a postcard from Hawaii, it would have a picture of a tropical beach on the front. To give the listener that beautiful blue watered beach, record the ambient noise of the beach like waves, seagulls, etc.
Then, you flip over the postcard, and read the letter. The first sentence is usually along the lines of “Hello ____! (Place where you are) is fabulous! Find a way to let the listener know exactly where you are, and what it’s like there. In the postcard from Hawaii, a news report of the weather would serve this purpose, “it’s 77 degrees today in Hawaii.” You can ask people leading questions to get them to say certain details you might want in your postcard.
Then you go on to tell your friend about all the fabulous activities you are doing. Put in the sounds of those activities. In the Hawaiian postcard, sounds of people playing on the beach, and of a tour guide’s spiel would be good.
Then find a nice way to end the postcard. This is the part that says: “Wish you were here.” To end the Hawaii postcard, native Hawaiian music that slowly faded out would do the trick.
An audio postcard should not take more time to listen to than it would to read a postcard. If you make it too long, but don’t cover the subject in depth like you do in a story, then it will be boring.
When making an Audio Postcard, don’t limit the sounds you use. Conversations, music, ambient noise, machinery, etc., anything that will take the listener from where they are, to where the postcard is from will be good to use. If the place you are visiting doesn’t lend itself as easily a Hawaii, just remember that an audio postcard should tell the listener where you are, what it’s like, and what you are doing there.
If you would like to see an example, you can listen to the Audio Postcard I made, go to http://www.kuow.org/mp3high/mp3/Weekday_High/20070814_wehigh.mp3. The first half is a story about Dog Show training, and the second half is an audio postcard from the basketball courts on the shores on Greenlake in Seattle
An Audio Postcard is a short radio piece that tells a listener about a place without using narration. Audio Postcards have a lot of sound in the form of ambient noise, music, conversation, and more, in order to tell the story without narration. I wrote some basic instructions for making an audio postcard below. Making an Audio Postcard is the same as writing a paper postcard. Except when you send an audio postcard, you don’t need to pay postage.
When you are sifting through your mail, and you see a postcard, the first thing you look at is the picture on the front. The picture draws you in, and gives you a visual of the place the postcard is from. The first sound of your postcard should do just that. Get sounds from the setting that will enable people to visualize where you are. That sound should be first, just like the picture on the front of a postcard.
If you were going to send a postcard from Hawaii, it would have a picture of a tropical beach on the front. To give the listener that beautiful blue watered beach, record the ambient noise of the beach like waves, seagulls, etc.
Then, you flip over the postcard, and read the letter. The first sentence is usually along the lines of “Hello ____! (Place where you are) is fabulous! Find a way to let the listener know exactly where you are, and what it’s like there. In the postcard from Hawaii, a news report of the weather would serve this purpose, “it’s 77 degrees today in Hawaii.” You can ask people leading questions to get them to say certain details you might want in your postcard.
Then you go on to tell your friend about all the fabulous activities you are doing. Put in the sounds of those activities. In the Hawaiian postcard, sounds of people playing on the beach, and of a tour guide’s spiel would be good.
Then find a nice way to end the postcard. This is the part that says: “Wish you were here.” To end the Hawaii postcard, native Hawaiian music that slowly faded out would do the trick.
An audio postcard should not take more time to listen to than it would to read a postcard. If you make it too long, but don’t cover the subject in depth like you do in a story, then it will be boring.
When making an Audio Postcard, don’t limit the sounds you use. Conversations, music, ambient noise, machinery, etc., anything that will take the listener from where they are, to where the postcard is from will be good to use. If the place you are visiting doesn’t lend itself as easily a Hawaii, just remember that an audio postcard should tell the listener where you are, what it’s like, and what you are doing there.
If you would like to see an example, you can listen to the Audio Postcard I made, go to http://www.kuow.org/mp3high/mp3/Weekday_High/20070814_wehigh.mp3. The first half is a story about Dog Show training, and the second half is an audio postcard from the basketball courts on the shores on Greenlake in Seattle
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