Convergence: Improving radio reporting

After an intense few weeks of photography, my convergence course has moved onto audio reporting and learned how to use Zoom recorders to capture interviews and natural sound. Our first assignment was to compile soundbites, but next we were challenged to put together an NPR-style story with natural soundbites and two interviews.

I've been reporting on the musical Annie held in Columbia, Mo. as a co-production between Performing Arts in Children's Education (PACE) and Columbia Entertainment Company (CEC). For my story, I interviewed Liz, the 12-year-old actress who plays Annie, and Angela, the show's director. Both interviews went well and I had a good experience putting the piece together by teaching myself to storyboard it out, decide which story I wanted to tell and cut and edit the audio sound after.

In the future, the biggest improvement I want to make is writing my questions in a manner that elicits the sources to tell stories. This will make the story more interesting, connect the dots and let me as the narrator write good transitions that build up to a good overall piece. I'll continue to put effort into storyboarding out what I want to tell, and writing good narration. Last class, the most powerful advice we received was that the end of an audio story is just as important as the lede of a print story. I will incorporate these best practices and look forward to combining audio and visual skills this next week with video reporting and learning FinalCutPro!