Sound as a Medium Fall 2011: October 2011

Monday, October 31, 2011

questions for Amy O'Leary

Was there an "inciting incident" that made you want to get into multimedia production? Something that inspired you to make the switch from radio to something different?

Do you think news will evolve over time to favor these multimedia pieces instead of just typical news casts, text and video clips that stand alone, etc.

Do you have a rule of thumb in regard to music use in your pieces?

I've found in my own work that people seem to be more comfortable being recorded rather than photographed or videotaped, does the introduction of photography ever change the way your interviews go? Does it change the way you conduct the project if they are uncomfortable with photography?

Questions for Amy O'Leary

1. You mention how important it is to convey emotion and authenticity in your audio pieces. Are there certain ideas you look for to express these two concepts?

2. What would you say is the single most important skill that separates the amateurs from the broadcast professionals?

3. One of the most common nebulous areas today in media seems to be the Internet. What do you believe is the most effective form of grabbing and keeping peoples attention in this constantly stimulating medium?

Amy O'Leary Questions

1) you kept pushing to be a part of This American Life, what about the show do you love so much that made you decide on wanting to work there?

2) How has your "multimedia producer" position changed from 2007, when you wrote Crossing Media: from Public Radio to NYTimes.com?

3)When working on multimedia projects what questions are good to keep in mind?

1) How do you work to piece together multimedia with each part providing equally to the overall idea?

2) You've talked about how people new to audio pick stories with sound effects. What process do you use to pick stories that are about the story foremost, but are also interesting to the ear?

3) What drives your passion for multimedia?

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Questions for Amy O'Leary

1. Many times you have talked about the importance of "how to structure a story to suck somebody in." Can you describe the process you went through to become good at sucking people in?

2. Many of us have already started internships or are about to venture into the crazy world of interning. What are some of the most valuable lessons you took away from your time working as an intern?

3. Having already produced so many different styles of work throughout your career, is there anything in particular that you hope to work on the future?

Amy O'Leary Questions

1 You once said that you used to listen to hundreds of bad story pitches and that's how you learned to craft a story and a pitch worth telling. How do you decide which story is worth sharing and how do you pitch it?

2 Multimedia seems to be the up and coming media format that has yet to be fully realized--what do you think the next will be?

3 How important is transcribing an interview to you\has it helped you become a better interviewer?

Even more questions

I'm fascinated by the multimedia work Ms. O'Leary is doing with the New York Times. I have a question each for past, present future:

While there are a number of reasons I assume the decision was made to include this type of work I would love to hear more about the initial impulse as well as the questions and discussion that cropped up around this content.

Currently do you see the Multimedia content. Is it bonus material? Is it complimentary work? Is it context? Is it delving deeper? Is it a more entertaining take? How much does it depend on each piece? How much are you shaping the nature of what you do with a given piece? How many pieces do you do a year? How much does the scale of the piece vary? How does it differ from Televised News?

With this kind of work seeming relatively new to both practitioners and audiences how far in the future can you see? What will it look like in five years, ten years. etc? How do you want it to evolve? Will it supplant other forms of journalism? To what extent will it give more of a voice to people who have access to the technological tools or is it fairly accessible?

Amy O'Leary Questions

1. In the Crossing Media article you mentioned that much of the multimedia pieces were basically audio-slideshows. Since 2007, do you think multimedia creators have moved past this tendency and have created work more like the Little Rock Nine piece? Are multimedia producers doing more than just converging mediums?

2. You were very persistent and had a strong focus in becoming an intern for This American Life. Have you used those same tactics to publish certain stories for the New York Times?

3. You mentioned that online pieces should be no longer than 3 minutes to keep the attention of listeners. When editing, do you ever feel pressured to cut a story down when there is great material? Are there any stories you wished you would have published, if time was not an issue?

Questions for Amy O' Leary

As newspaper move more towards online content, do you think the need for multimedia producers and journalists will increase in the future? What are your thoughts on a journalist being able to do everything? Write, photograph, gather audio, and shoot video? Do you think its risky to spread your skills and talents too wide? Or do you think it will be more competitive for us? What is one piece of advice you will give someone graduating with multimedia skills looking for a job?

When you are producing a multimedia piece, how difficult is it collaborating with the photographer, reporter, or videographer. Because you mentioned that you spend part of your time training them on how to get great audio, do you have conflicts and if so, how do you resolve them? We all have our own different views, as an editor how do you defend your view and how do you deal with it?

Coming from This American Life, the radio world, how difficult was it for you to produce multimedia at the New York Times, integrating stills and video with audio (something that you are comfortable with) How was your transition from being a radio journalist to producing multimedia content for a newspaper like the New York Times? And now working with multimedia, which medium best tells a story? You mentioned in an interview that you sound best describe emotion and feeling.

What are some of your inspirations for your stories? How do you come up with story ideas and structure them?

Questions

1) Are you personally, or is anyone you know, working to raise awareness concerning the importance of real audio professionals working on multimedia projects?

2) Were there any stories aired on This American Life that really had an impact on you when you listened to them?

3) Is there a passion project that you would love to do yourself or be involved with sometime in the future?

Questions

1. Do you think media producers picking up other types of media (for instance, photographers learning sound) potentially takes away from the quality of the individual parts?

2. How can one medium overpower another?

3. What do you look for when you search through different stories to find one that would be appropriate to tell through "multimedia"?

For Amy O'Leary

1. Brian Storm has suggested that the role of the photojournalist has changed because they are now responsible for audio as well as visuals, as a baseline requirement for their reporting. Because of that, he said that photojournalists now have to ditch the "fly on the wall" tactic and instead have an increased presence with their sources. Do you think this changing role of photojournalists is true? Why or why not?

2. Do you think there are elements of a story that make for a better stand-alone audio story, vs. an audio and visual story, or a video story? What are the elements of a story that make it better suited to a specific multimedia format?

3. You mentioned in your 2007 article, Crossing Media: from Public Radio to NYTimes.com, "with emerging jobs like multimedia, it pays to be thinking ahead of the organization that might need your talents." What do you see for the future of multimedia at the New York Times? Is there a certain direction multimedia is moving towards -- for example, favoring audio over visuals, or video over everything?

Amy O'Leary Questions

1. How did attending salt and having a journalistic background create and/orchange your image of sound, and how has it changed since you've gotten more experience with sound?

2. What is it about sound do you think that makes it so emotionally strong and makes the listener connect?

3. How do you see multimedia changing in the next 5-10 years?

Questions for Amy O’Leary

Questions:

From the Nieman Narrative Conference...

1. Why do you feel that it is important for internet audio pieces to be only 3 minutes long? Personally, the only radio I listen to is over the internet and every piece that I have listened to has been anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours long.

In general..

2. What sound editing software do you typically work with. Is there one that you prefer? (If yes, why?)

3. When working on an audio piece whether for the internet or for the radio etc., what would you say is the most important thing to remember or keep in mind?

In other words...

[3.] Is there any one rule that you feel is the most important thing to always remember and/or follow?

Questions for Amy O'Leary

1) what was one of the most rewarding experiences working in Radio Lab?
2) Do you think the face of radio will change because of the merging of social media sites and multimedia outlets?
3) Any advice for gaining more experience and knowledge with interviewing or radio equipment outside of class or work rooms?

Questions for Amy O'Leary

1.) What are some guidelines or "rules of thumbs" that you follow with every interview or project that you conduct? If any.

2.) Do you have any certain preferences of audio equipment that you use? Is there any particular piece of equipment that you feel most comfortable with, and why?

3.) Where do you stand with the use of music in your productions? Do you create your own or do you use samples from other artists?

Questions for Amy O'Leary

In your article Crossing Media: from Public Radio to NY Times you talked about how multimedia was starting to evolve to cross other one medium to another, but at the time, (2007) social media wasn't nearly as big of a player as it is today.

1) What is your opinion on the integration of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. in the distribution of the product you create?

2) What was the most valuable lesson/skill you learned while at the Saltcast institute?

3) One more about new technology: I personally have recently started listening to a lot of NPR and other public radio from my phone, instead of at the car or at home from my computer. Do you think there is any major change coming about in how this type of multi-media work can/will be distributed on cellphones or other portable media devices in the future?

Questions for Amy O’Leary

1) In what ways did being involved with This American Life influence your story structure and overall audio pieces?

2) In Crossing Media, you said that things were changing for multimedia. This was in 2007, how have things changed in the past 4 years and how do you see them changing in the future?

3) What is the most rewarding part for you about working with multimedia pieces?

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Amy O'Leary questions

Some questions:

1. How many people work on one of the multimedia projects done by The New York Times, and how much more time/effort does it take to create a news piece for the web compared to just print?

Do you think this could present challenges for news companies because it requires more resources to make a multimedia product rather than a print story?

2. In one of your talks, you said something along the lines of, "Try to make slide shows standalone pieces of journalism, as opposed to simple recap of a longer written story."

But you also said, "Internet audio pieces don’t succeed if they’re longer than 3 minutes (about 600 words)."

Is this the reason most New York Times slideshow pieces are broken into many tiny chunks, rather than one continuous video? What do you think a viewer gains from this type of viewing format?

3. In your written piece, "Crossing Media," you describe part of your NYT job as, "On some days it means training The Times' reporters and photographers to gather audio in the field." Are you trying to add a multimedia component to most print stories at The Times now? How many reporters are being converted into not only journalists or photographers, but also sound recordists for multimedia pieces?

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Reality Radio: the show

I keep forgetting to post this.

This is an hour-long radio version of our Reality Radio book, with Jay Allison, Ira Glass, and the Kitchen Sisters. You need to register at PRX to listen. Totally worth the listen.

http://www.prx.org/pieces/56154-reality-radio-telling-true-stories-in-sound