Tag: KLCC

Story Catchers Practicum: Week 2!

Since this is only a 1 unit practicum and progress of the project is dependent on many partners including KLCC, the City of Eugne and Story Catchers, I have decided to only post every 2 weeks. This posting schedule will better reflect the pace at which this project will most likely move and thus keep me from repeating redundant information. With that said, here’s what’s happened in the first 2 weeks!

Prior to the start of the term, I met with KLCC to discuss the possibility of putting Story Catchers on the air. They were very interested and offered an opportunity to air edited versions of Story Catchers once a month on NPR’s Here & Now. Thus, I would be editing one story a month and work with KLCC to create an intro for broadcast. KLCC was worried about release of the stories and while each participant in the interviews signed a release form, they thought I should still check to see if further release was necessary. We agreed to talk again in October and thus I embarked on setting up the practicum to work on this project.

Since my main supervisor Marsha Barr will be in Spain till Janurary, it took some time figuring out the paperwork. Marsha thus suggested that I also rely on Clare Feighan as a second supervisor, because she is in Eugene and more available. I met with her this weekend and filled her in on the current state of the project and she offered her help in furthering this term’s progress. Together we decided that it would be best for me to focus on broadcast of Story Catchers interviews this term and continue the indexing when Marsha returns. Hence, we decided that my main goals for this term are to secure releases, work with KLCC to air Story Catchers and publicize the segment on Story Catcher’s website. I am currently working on figuring out the release by talking with Jan at the City and I will hopefully be meeting with KLCC next week to further discuss a plan for the broadcast. I have given Don & Tripp my example of an edited story that I made last year and Tripp has said that the story was good. I am interested to hear what other notes they have to give me. I am sure that we will have to re-tool the intro, but I don’t know yet if I will be doing the intro or if they would prefer a trained professional to do so. I plan to figure out these details in our upcoming meeting. Perhaps, if things go well, one of the stories can be aired by the end of the month! Though considering there are only 3 months to a term, this practicum is going to go by really fast. I do however, plan to continue this project through the year. Don said that overtime, they could increase the frequency of the segment. I guess we’ll have to see! So excited!

Story Catchers Practicum: Week 3

This week I listened to the stories that KLCC edited for the radio in order to get a better idea of how I should edit the stories. I was somewhat surprised to hear the interviewer in these stories. I had been imagining cutting out the interviewer in order to weave together a cohesive story. However, KLCC’s pieces were more like short interviews than complete stories. I guess using this style could make the editing process easier, especially since some of the interviewers provide context to the stories or make sounds in the background. This wouldn’t be awkward if I’m editing the stories to be a conversation. However, I still want to try to use my original idea of presenting the audio in one succinct story from the interviewee. This is the style I most appreciate when listening to podcasts and I think it better represents the mission of Story Catchers. However, if this project is to continue, it may be difficult to use this format for all stories. If we want to have a consistent style for all the stories, it may be better to use the conversation format. I will experiment with this in my audio class before coming to a conclusion.

I also officially started the indexing project this week. I got a hold of Nancy from the library who sent me some guidelines for indexing. Marsha and I met to discuss this and decided to put all the basic information in an Excel sheet and send that to the library. I have conferred with Nancy and Marsha and we have decided the basic format and categories of the index. I then spent Saturday typing up information from the written files Marsha gave me. As I’ve told Marsha, that process took longer than I expected because I had to search for information like length of interview or the appropriate keywords. Marsha and I talked about this and we’ve decided that Marsha will type up all the necessary information and send it to me digitally in order to speed up the process. I will be working more on the indexing this weekend and will better be able assess the time necessary for this project with the new system. Depending on this time commitment, I will determine how possible editing multiple stories this term will be. I may be continuing this part of the project into the summer, especially if KLCC is interested. Regardless, we will still meet our goals this term!