Here’s some recent audio:
Angus Graham: A Profile
Last modified on 2010-06-04 19:42:14 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Tada! The first new audio I’m posting here for quite a while: Angus Graham, A Profile.
Angus Graham (1919 – 1991) was professor of Classical Chinese at SOAS. For more on him, please listen to the programme :-)
The intended audience is Sinologists; scholars with a knowledge of pre-modern Chinese or Chinese philosophy.
I’ve made this to mark the start of the AC Graham Memorial Lecture series at SOAS. It’s being hosted by OpenAir.fm. The blurb there will relate directly to the programme and the audience.
I’ve learned quite a lot making this doc. From nitty gritty about techniques in Soundtrack Pro (like using zero crossings), to another step on my long road to the use of music.
I was on the home stretch when I had the pleasure of hosting an informal Q & A with Francesca Pannetta and Alein Dein at In The Dark. They have a fair smattering of Sony’s between them, and in particular Francesca’s description of layering, not just sounds but also narrative, gave me food for thought. I couldn’t see how to add additional, subtle narrative beyond the basic chronology I have there. That is however a new goal for me, for projects yet to come.
And the other big learning point has been towards the end. I’ve had it ready for a few days, but have been sitting on it, figuring out the best way to export it and so on. It’s been a few years since I carried out this role at the BBC Chinese Service, and that was only ever for 14:30 programmes, not 42 minutes as here. I’d welcome any guidance on this!
Oh and 15 years after I bought the LP in a junk shop, I’ve been able to use Chu Chin Chow in a programme!
Some tech notes: most interviews were recorded over Skype, one was in the OpenAir Studio and two were in offices in SOAS. For those, I held a Beyerdynamic M58 and Sennheiser MKH-60 in one hand, each recording to their own channel on a Fostex FR-2LE.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:00 — 19.4MB)
Here’s a recent radio blog-post:
In The Dark @ LIDF
Last modified on 2010-05-04 16:27:20 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
If you ignore me, you’ll not know I’m a thrilled volunteer for In The Dark Radio.
Well, I is.
Listening to five excellent long-form documentaries and a handful of shorts, is good for your sense of radio. Being forced by the situation to focus on the audio is good for your sense of radio. Listening to Alan Hall discuss the programmes with the producers is good for your sense of radio. And hanging out with them in the bar afterwards, cross-introducing friends and colleagues, is good all round.
Hearing great montage work, for instance, has had me going back to items I have on this here website, and thinking Gaaghbuluegh. “It’s a demo for news people” isn’t much of an excuse, I now reckon, coz they are humans and will prefer to hear something good and moving and – wait for it – effective.
The finest learning experience, for me, was Little Women – What Now? by Berit Hedemann. The techniques had been widely spoken of, especially in the UK with its po-faced, unintelligent understanding of journalism. The best known are the very close micing of the lead character, and the distant micing of a group who, as it happens, don’t win much sympathy from us. But there was another technique.
She gave a group of 11 years old girls a microphone, and left the room. In a few hours, she had tape you couldn’t dream of. Then meeting her in the bar afterwards, I was struck at how keen she was for people to try new things, how she wished young recruits to NRK’s features unit weren’t intimidated by the reputation but rather tore up the rules and created newness. Properly inspirational.
Other, less professional, high points included: being normal around Alan Hall so not seeing like the brown-nose I would have if I were to say how much I like his work; meeting a real live Radiolab fan (I claimed my first in the wild, though as World Service SM Lisa Hack pointed out, this was more like in the zoo); catching up with radio peeps I’ve not met for years; and hearing Nina Perry’s experiences of working with Radiolab at the World Memory Championships.