Tag: practicum

Radio Redux Practicum: Week 2!

While I didn’t meet Fred Crafts till the Community Partners Reception, I had been hoping to work with him on Radio Redux since I heard of it last year. And thanks to some persistence and fortune, I will be!

Radio Redux is a live radio show focusing on the Golden Age of Radio. They are a resident company at the Wildish Theater in Springfield and put on a variety of shows each season that stem from 1940s radio. I am super excited to be working with Radio Redux, because this will give me an opportunity to learn more about radio history, how live radio is done and combine some of my favorite things: radio, theater and storytelling! Since my main interests as an arts administrator are event planning and outreach, this practicum will also give me the chance to apply those skills to the radio field. Hence, why I’m looking forward to being Radio Redux’s Special Events Coordinator!

Fred and I met before the beginning of the term to discuss where Radio Redux needs help. While there were many appealing options, obviously working on special events appealed to me the most. Fred has a lot of ideas for special events including lecture or film series, performances or receptions in people’s homes, and after parties with musicians. It will be my job to figure out a plan for these ideas and started implementing them! Though the preference is that I start working on a fundraiser first and especially since someone has approached him who is also interested in putting together a fundraiser for Radio Redux. I have asked Fred to introduce to me to this person, but considering Radio Redux’s first show of the season is this weekend, we will probably work on setting up that connection next week. I also included in my goals for this practicum to observe the process and do informational interviews with Fred. This means I’ll get to sit in on the rehearsals and learn from Fred about all his radio expertise!

Speaking of Radio Redux’s first show this season, I went to see it this Friday! It was a mystery caper called Sam Spade, which is a follow-up to the Maltese Falcon. I had a ton of fun and it was great to see how the show is done. They had about 6 mics and I think 8 cast members who played a variety of parts. There was a sound effects man who did some live sound effects like the opening of a door or walking feet, while some of the sounds were pre-mixed on a computer. It was really interesting to watch a production that you would usually just listen to. There were definitely parts that were supposed to be serious, but became comical because we could see the behind the scenes. I wish I could go behind the scenes of all my favorite radio shows. One thing I noticed was there was a lot of back story to this piece that definitely could have been helped by an accompanying lecture. Perhaps holding a preface to the show will be a good special event for the future. And what’s more, opening night had a full house! There are definitely a lot of people interested in this show. And I was very impressed by the professional quality of not only the acting, but the organization of the event. I hope that I can help provide even more entertainment to their audience! The next show is It’s a Wonderful Life in December. Let’s if we can pull together some special events by then! I got some ideas!

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 7

This week I focused on editing the stories Marsha gave me to clean-up. This has allowed me to hone my audio editing skills such as cutting and adjusting volume, so that I will be even more prepared for creating stories next year. Although many of the cds Marsha gave me where blank, which delayed the project somewhat. Hopefully we will meet this week to discuss this issue. I also emailed Nancy to check in on the indexing project. I have informed her that the indexing will probably not be finished by the end of the term and so we will have to pick it up again next year. I believe this will be fine since there was no set deadline. This will also give us time to perfect the audio of the collection.

In general, it’s pretty easy to use Audacity. I would like to eventually learn more its complicated features, but overall the program is intuitive. I’m not sure how many more stories there will be to edit, but I will hopefully finish those this term along with Alito’s story. I have not made the intro to his story yet, but I will be working on it this week. Then I can finally contact KLCC and get that conversation going for next year!

Story Catchers Practicum: Week 5

This week I continued indexing. We have now reached half-way! If we keep up with this pace, we will definitely be done with the index by the end of the term. I’m thinking I will send the current index to Nancy soon to check that it fits the library’s standards, so that we have time to edit if necessary. I also had a presentation from the Lane County History Society recently and I thought it might be a good idea to contact them to see if they would also want to hold this archive. I think the Story Catcher’s collection would be a perfect edition to their oral history archive. Plus, holding the stories at the Historical Society will legitimize the project and probably allow people interested in Eugene history to more easily find the information. If Marsha agrees, I will ask the Historical Society if they would want to house the archive.

I also met with my friend who showed me some audio editing techniques. We went over some simple functions of Audacity including cutting, boosting and importing. The process seems fairly simple. Audacity is mostly used for basic editing such us cutting out sound and adding simple effects. I learned that one difference between Audacity and more professional audio editing software like ProTools is that ProTools keeps the original sound file and adds onto it, while Audacity permanently changes the audio file in order to save space. I will be downloading Audacity next week and officially start editing! Since there is only 4 weeks of the term left, I am thinking that I may not be able to edit enough stories to start a program with KLCC. I’m thinking I will edit Alito Alessi’s story and show it to KLCC as an example. Hopefully, this will start a conversation for next year when I can edit stories more regularly for the radio. So, I’m thinking I will only edit one full story this term, but that I could spend the rest of the quarter cleaning up the stories before giving them to the library to be archived. This could give me good practice and is probably a better use of my time based on the timeline. This way we can at least get the project archived this year and then focus on getting the stories on the radio next year.