this better fucking work
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/166759822″>DearBodyFinalCut</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user52261028″>Lauren Yarnall</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
final blog post
I believe I’ve talked about this before, but I’ve (almost ironically) have found myself drawn to silence in storytelling.
In storytelling, we feel the need to fill a story to the brim with detail. Having been raised in an Irish family, talking about the inane in an attempt to be interesting is something to which I have become accustomed. We often fail to talk about what is important because emotions= the devil, and so we find ourselves wrapped up in stories about things that do not matter.
I called my mother on Sunday, seeing as it was Mother’s Day, and she casually mentioned that she had yet another biopsy performed on her after her mammogram. She’s fine, but decided to keep it to herself. This is classic behavior.
The unmentionables of my family remain so, and yet, they are the things that define us, that mark our family as different from other families– though, all families are a little bit fucked up (or a lot).
I’ve become more interested in what the silence does for storytelling– the things that can be described, but are much more valuable simply by being perceived, rather than being told. Some people are masterful with their words, and thus, are able to conceal themselves and how they feel behind them. I feel that silence in storytelling makes us vulnerable– the moments when someone pauses to gather themselves, their emotions, their thoughts: these are the moments which give away the tone and true nature of the story.
That’s all I’m really thinking about tonight. I’ve learned a lot more in regards to technicality, but I realize that I can often be verbose. This is an attempt to not do that.
Pleasure,
Lauren.
blog post 12
“Every Runner Has a Reason” is a a story of coping and hope. The hope isn’t grandiose– there is no expectation that the film’s subject, Ronnie Goodman, is going to rise out of his current state of homelessness “Pursuit of Happyness” style and suddenly become a millionaire. It simply follows a man who is able to escape his situation through running. As he mentions, when he runs, is able to shed the image of homelessness that otherwises accompanies him. He simply becomes a person who is running. I know when I see people running, I assume that they have their life together, because running is The Worst and I have no idea why anybody would choose to run willingly unless they were out of their mind with happiness.
“Every Runner Has a Reason” begins with a medium shot of Ronnie running and breaks one of the basic rules of filming. Ronnie is running away from the sun, and the glare from the sunlight hits the camera and obscures Ronnie’s face as we’re being introduced to him. The following full shot shows Ronnie in his entirety, and he is well-lit, but his figure is blurred with movement. The next shot is a close up of his shoes as he runs. We do not get to see a full shot of Ronnie until 22 seconds in. This is deliberate– we do not initially know that Ronnie is homeless, something we find out about 40 seconds in. The opening narration provides how Ronnie feels during his running, and since we are unaware of his housing situation, we experience what it is like to see Ronnie without his homelessness attached to him. Once we see Ronnie carting all of his belongings, instantly we are aware that Ronnie does not have a place to live.
Interestingly enough, having recently watched Beyonce’s visual album, “Lemonade,” (Trisha, go watch it, seriously, I think you’ll love it), I found that “Lemonade” and “Every Runner Has a Reason” had similar compositional and rhetorical elements. It is also possible that I am just obsessed with Beyonce and am seeing her wherever I go. Either way, I’m going to talk about Lemonade, so just… prepare.
At around a 1:20 something seconds, we get a shot looking up at the trees. Ronnie’s talks through narration about his time in prison and how he would think about what it would be like to be able to feel the wind and enjoy nature, how it would feel to be free in the world. In “Lemonade” (which, if you haven’t watched it, here’s a brief synopsis: Beyonce (or a conceit of Beyonce, death of the author and all that) suspects, and eventually discovers, that her husband has been unfaithful. She goes through the stages of grief (not the traditional stages, mind you) and resolves to heal, both alone and in her relationship. Interwoven in this narrative is an exploration and celebration of the tenacity of Black women, heritage, and etc. (It’s got a lot of layers and is super important, WATCH IT and cry like a baby, like I did). Towards the end of this narrative, marked with “Hope,” Beyonce sings about true love, and there are several shots of the trees and the sky.
This particular shot is rhetorically hopeful for several reasons: the sky marks the passage of time throughout the day, and we know that the sun will rise each day (until it dies, but, you know, we don’t really have to worry about that now). The passage of time, while it can be sad, is hopeful in the sense that, if a person happens to be going through a particularly hard day, there is a guarantee that time will pass. In regards to Ronnie, the association of this shot while he speaks about his time in prison, is proof of the power of hope. Ronnie probably was able to watch the sky during his incarceration, and eventually, he was released.
The composition of the shot also is physically hopeful: the audience has the sensation of looking up, a position which lifts your chin into the air. You can’t possibly navel-gaze with your chin in the air. So while the audience may not have to actually lift their head towards the sky, they are able to understand that sensation.
Again, the hope here is not large, but looking through the tree branches into the sky is not particularly grand. This is something most people have the ability to do.
Thus, rhetorically, through both the story and the shots, we are able to decipher the tone of the film.
story in meow-nd
My story in sound has nothing to do with cats, ignore the title
blog post 10
Joshua Wheeler’s approach to his audio essay, “Ugly Pew” encapsulates the grief one feels, both singularly and as a group, when faced with suicide. The death of a loved one, on its own, is sad (I’m aware this is an understatement, but any other adjective feels melodramatic, so particular is the feeling that comes with death); when the dealing with suicide, however, there is an alteration to this grief. While the fate of Wheeler’s sister is not presented (though I would like to assume that she survived), the particular sense of sadness associated with this sort of event still hangs, thick, over the Wheeler family. When a person dies, you often find that their family and loved ones prefer to “celebrate their life.” This is something I have seen, when deaths are like a sudden knock on the door, from drugs or a car accident, or whether they’re slow and deliberate, the end to a long illness– despite circumstance, it is a comfort to believe in the happiness they held in life. The tragedy of suicide is that this comfort is unavailable to the family– they cannot say that their child/sister/brother/mother/father was happy, because, if they were, the death would not have occurred– not at that time, not in that way, not by their own hand. This helpless, reaching, and yet somehow resolute feeling, is present in the timbre of Wheeler’s voice as he recounts the memory. Wheeler, throughout the essay, promotes this feeling of emptiness throughout the essay, and does so through the use of pause. The introduction of the essay moves relatively quickly, in comparison to the rest, as Wheeler lists the variety of hands on the pews: “the bony hands of very old parishoners whose oxygen tanks are heavy despite the nothingness inside.” Between “despite,” and “the nothingness inside,” Wheeler takes a pause that appears to be his own attempt to replenish his own oxygen, after quickly listening descriptive accounts of all the hands that touch the pew. However, much later, when Wheeler concludes his narration, he states that, “We got comfortable on that ugly pew and stared into the worship hall, its rows and rows of pews, perfect….. and empty.”
Wheeler pauses in these moments to create tension and provide emphasis for the tone/message of his piece. The distinct pauses before mentions of emptiness make this moments significant to the ear, and makes the listener remember. In regards to the context of the piece, we come to understand that this emptiness is what resides both in his sister, seemingly structured to those around her, but unfulfilled to the point to the point where she attempted to relieve this through literal consumption, and those who are close to her, following this attempt, who are helplessly trying to ascribe some sort of meaning to this event– the drunken uncle, filling himself with booze and useless information, trying to shift this blame to an unrelated event, the mother, who describes the event to those around her as a sudden sickness.
In comparison to the other pieces we have listened to, Wheeler’s piece is much more somber in both subject and sound. However, Wheeler’s essay is still successful and allows us, as students, to recognize how to approach melancholic subject matter without sounding too dramatic. Wheeler, while obviously mournful, does not sob or scream– he retains his composure and presents his sadness through subtler means– heavy pauses, intentional breaths, varied pacing, the low tone of his voice. This piece will prove useful when looking at my own audio documentary, which may include both happy, humorous moments, and also sad, poignant moments.
blog post 9
In regards to the assigned readings, (Storycraft, Out on the Wire, and Writing for Broadcast), all three focus on the integrity and honesty of character and voice, albeit in differing ways. In Writing for Broadcast, Kern asserts what makes for a successful radio broadcast by highlighting the differences in what is written for the eye (that being text) and what is written for the ear. He writes that listeners need “bite-sized” sentences , constructed simply and with a foreshadowing of what information will be presented in the following sentence. In listing the many do’s and don’ts of writing for radio, Kern urges writers to listen to themselves, to write as they speak, to use words that are within their repertoire. This, though veiled, is an assertion of character and of voice. Kern is urging writers to be true not only to themselves, but to their own realities and the realities of those who are listening. It does not benefit anyone to swap simple language with ten-dollar words– listeners want to feel as though they are involved in a conversation, and being condescended to will only result in the listener switching the radio off. Even further, we see that Kern is telling the reader that they need to present information both honestly and accurately. Honestly, in the sense that the writer needs to speak in a way that is natural to themselves and to conversations in general, and accurately in the sense that the factors within the story need to be correct. For example, a writer may not honestly know how to pronounce a particular name, but they need to know how to do so for the broadcast in order to present the information correctly.
Similarly, in Abel’s section on character and voice in Out on the Wire, Abel interviews several people in the industry who, although often doing so in varying ways, each believe in presenting stories with honesty. Each person interviewed describes a need for a character for the audience to focus on– the character must be natural in order to be believable. Story and narrative are what are constructed in this sense– the editors must understand the formulas involved in order to the make story interesting and entertaining. However, the character the story is centered around must be honest/natural.
In Hart’s Storycraft, the need for what is natural is also apparent. Hart begins the section with describing two writers that he admires: Mary Roach and John McPhee. Their voices resonate strongly with him and are specific to them and them alone. However, as Hart describes their demeanor in person, we discover that their voices are not constructed for the benefit of distributing books– their writing voices are their actual voices, are accurate representations of themselves as they put pen to paper. As a result, their writing careers are successful– not only because they are good writers, but because they are able to properly translate their own voice into their writing voice, which presents a style that is unique and human.
Ultimately, each piece asks for humanity while writing for the ear. We want to listen to radio that resonates with us as human beings. This is why we ask for characters to anchor our narratives, why we ask for voices to sound conversational, why we tend to tune out formally-presented information– we seek for truth in what we listen to, we seek for human voices telling human stories.
With my own audio documentary, I have already taken lengths to look for human stories. Most people can understand what it is like to have parents, or at least parental figures, and what is like to have been raised in a particular way (or, not raised, which still has a large effect). In going forward, I am going to try to be more colloquial (it has been pointed out to me that sometimes I can be very liberal with my own $10 words) and make my interviews sound conversational, rather than formal. I want to be inclusive with my audience and make them feel comfortable while I am informing them. I actually hope that they don’t realize they are being informed at all.
Writing for Broadcast:
-Writing for the ear vs. writing for the eye– information served in bite-sized chunks for listener to comprehend
-Shorter sentences, looks unsophisticated on paper, sentences are structured so that the listener is prepared for the next statement
-Write the way you speak– you are communicating, at most, with 2-3 people at a time, usually just one.
-Read sentences you’ve written out loud
-Don’t use words you wouldn’t otherwise say
-Use present tense to describe things going on in the moment
Other bits:
Avoid generalities
Avoid meaningless attributions: “critics” “experts” officials”
Use titles sparingly
Keep sentences short.
Write in active voice.
Avoid rhetorical or hypothetical questions (in the beginning?)
Rewrite awkward phrases even if they are correct
Recognize cliches
Don’t overwhelm the audience with too many names
Know how to pronounce foreign words, unusual names, etc.
blog post 8
Personally (and I’m not sure if by other people’s standards this is considered a successful podcast, I’m sure it is) but Stochasticity (at least, in the beginning 20 minutes) was composed in a way that was so irritating to me, I thought about skipping yet another blog post (they are my weakness, after all), but Trisha did help me get into grad school so I owe her…
The introduction of the first story of Stochasticity (the one involving kismet and the two Lauras) was brimming with sound effects. The constant switch between sounds set my teeth on edge. I’ve found other podcasts that successfully include sound bytes, effects, etc., but this particular one reminded me of “Crazy Ira and The Douche” radio program on Parks and Rec (which, now that I think about it, incorporated Ira Glass into the name), where the show is 10% talking and 90% fart and burp sound bytes. Essentially, this podcast, for me, had too much going on for me to really care about the story. The build-up was so staged that, even though I did find the story somewhat interesting, I felt that the hosts were trying too hard to convince me of just how interesting it was, which in turn, left me wanting to just turn it off and watch Roseanne on Netflix. In all honesty, I tuned out for most of the coin-toss portion, simply because the conflicting sounds made me anxious.
While I’m not sure if this is applicable to every ear, I am a person who is very sensitive to sounds and whether they are compatible to a situation or not. I mean this in a sense of context– if I am at a party, I expect there to be plenty of conflicting noises, and so, even though there are conflicting sounds, I am not uncomfortable because of the context of the situation. In other situations, interrupting/conflicting sounds are utterly distracting to me. For example, I often meet one of my professors at a local coffee shop to discuss poetry, the class I am TAing for, etc. I am used to seeing my professor in the context of a classroom, so at the coffee shop, I often become distracted by the sounds of the blenders whirring because the combination of scholarly discussion with coffee making sounds does not compute well in my brain.
That all being said, I have listened to quite a few podcasts and have been able to stomach most of the layered sounds– the podcast and the inclusion of outside noises is a context that I can understand. This particular one, however (at least in the beginning) was so inundated with sound, I found it very hard to focus on anything else. The rest of the podcast felt a bit more balanced, but I was unimpressed. I did think that the subject matter and the relationships between each of the subjects (in the coin tossing, the chance meetings, the inclusion of gambling and discussion of Parkinson’s and dopamine levels, bacteria) was very well done. The personalities of the radio hosts was clear as well, and each person was distinguishable.
What I can take away from Stochastisty to utilize in my own audio project is to not overdo it on the sound. While it is important to vary sounds and layer them in order to keep the interest of the viewer, it is critical to distinguish what is too much and what is not enough. I will pay significant attention to this in my own composition and try to find a happy medium, where the inclusion of other sounds sound will only add to the composition, rather than overwhelm it.
In comparison, I felt Ira Glass’ “Something Only I Can See” was more successful in its layering of sound. The introduction, which is more like a non-troduction, starts off the conversation between Glass and Emtman, and introduces the subject of the entire podcast. It is only towards the end of the conversation that Glass introduces the show and tells the audience what they are going to be listening to within the next hour. Using this sort of introduction, Glass gives the listeners a taste of what they should be expecting, not only in terms of story, but in terms of the tone. The banter between Glass and Emtman is sort of genius, in that Glass describes a number of very specific situations and feelings for which there are no words for in an attempt to relate to the color that only Emtman can see, but it is also a bit meandering. However, it is understandable as to why, considering that Glass is proving that trying to describe something only you can see is a daunting task.
In particular, I felt that the music included in the pieces flowed in a way that was almost imperceptible (at least, if you weren’t trying to dissect the composition of the piece, like I’m doing now). The quirkier, more upbeat music used in the introduction with the less serious subject changed into a more contemplative tune when discussing the medical issues of Jill Viles.
Overall, I feel that, what I can take away from This American Life’s podcast is to pay close attention to the material and understand what matches it tonally.
10 ways to tell a story
lauren yarnall 