A youth reporter's piece about a student film called "Sexism: Where is it Now?" The reporter interviews the teens who made the film, and uses a couple of clips from the film (not yet finished.) The film tape was good - the mothers of some of the film producers have some revealing comments about the changing nature of sexism, and their own experiences growing up. The radio piece felt a bit removed from the topic at hand - it was sort of about the making of the film, and sort of about the topic of sexism. Both are hard topics to make a short radio report about. Some of the young people's impressions about the nature of sexism were revealing. Having grown up in the midst of the feminist movement, the students comments reminded me of how far things have come, but also, for better or worse, how removed the topic and even the term "sexism" is from our "national conversation" today.
This is a beautiful, important documentary and I urge program directors and station based producers to listen and consider airing it. At 29 minutes, it could stand alone, or maybe even better the doc could be played as part of (or in segments throughout) a one hour local program.
The piece works very well as a collection of voices talking about the human impact of war - a soldier who served during the civil war in Lebanon in the early 1980s, two military historians, and two psycho-trauma experts. They talk vividly, with personal and historical examples, of the real trauma and tragedy of war. To really feel the impact of this piece, you have to stop and listen, focus, concetrate. I tried playing it once while driving my kids around and once on a hectic morning - and both times I just could not appreciate what I was hearing (and also realized fast that I was not sure I wanted the kids to hear it). And then I put the program on while taking a drive through the country with a sleeping child, and I was so moved and disturbed and for days and days I kept thinking about the piece. We live in a world being ripped apart by violence and war, and this piece explores what war really means, the effect war has on people's psyches, the results for soldiers (and civilians) who live with constant, grave danger, the stress of the extremities of war. It's confusing and difficult to feel and consider the world's current tragedies as they unfold for many of us in headlines and news reports. But this piece takes you to a new place to think about the news headlines. I highly recommend you listen.
An insightful and informative piece about living with disabilities (in Great Britain). I was drawn in immediately by Victoria's story of becoming paralyzed from the neck down at the age of six (benign tumor), and now living and working with this disability. Victoria is a thoughtful, honest character who really made me think about a topic that I think is undercovered in media today. In addition to Victoria, we hear from an occupational and personal care assitant who helps people with disabilities (not clear if she works with Victoria, and I would like to know), a disability adviser at an English university, the British Minister for Disabilities, and also the producer/ interviewer. I learned something from each of these "expert" voices, but I also felt that all of these voices together did not hold together elegantly enough for a 10 minute piece. The piece felt a bit disjointed and I wanted more integration of the information and the personal story in one narrative. The way the piece is now felt a bit fragmented. I know the time and resource constraints may have been such that a deeper look at Victoria might not have been possible, but that's the story I want to hear. I'd rather know more about her, hear her in scene working, preparing for work, at home, etc.. and hear from the assistants and "experts" who are closer to her personal world to get a view of the larger topic of how people with disabilities manage, what's changed, etc.
A well constructed essay with interview tape and music about a young woman's "encounter" with heavy metal/ hardcore/ punk music. The producer gets inside these labels and offers some revealing insights. Some great tape, especially Josh, lead singer from the band Millenium Travesty, recreating the growls and grunts he makes on stage. The first growl is particulalry memorable - that was his own voice making that reverb?
At the end of the piece the producer talks about a feeling of emptiness from leaving an old life behind ... and there was a kind of heaviness to that comment that was hinted at earlier in the piece, but I never understood or got much "information" on this bigger, darker context and I was left wondering....
An experimental piece that I struggled to understand. You hear two voices - a young woman and an older man, their voices layered one after the other, on times over each other, with music and various sounds mixed in throughout the piece. I started listening without reading the information provided about the piece, so I had no "intro." An intro is necessary, but I think the piece perhaps suffers from being too "loose", and about too many topics, too many ideas. At times it was literally hard to hear the voices, and I think this was intentional at points, but as a listener I was frustrated. I felt I could not take away as much as I might from the ideas being expressed because the form got in the way. My sense is that the producers intention was to foreground "form" and play with it, and I appreciate and applaud the effort to push boundaries. But I think in this case the form was not helping as much as it could to shape the ideas of the piece, and I felt too often confused, and that the thoughts in the piece were too fragmented, too short, too often "over-juxtaposed" with other ideas. I would really like to hear the story of the older man. he clearly has a story to tell, but I think that story was lost a bit by cutting it up and putting it in contrast constantly with the younger woman's voice.
Excellent. John Biewen has, once again, found compelling personal stories to illuminate a set of critical public policy questions. This documentary is full of beautiful storytelling, thorough reporting, insightful perspectives. John is so skilled at getting right to the heart of big questions, and his reporting is fair and balanced, and at the same time provocative and probing. Your listeners will want to hear this piece.
This piece is stunning! One of the most raw, real, complex pieces I have heard in a long time... maybe ever. Listen, and you will realize how often you don't hear the darkest, deepest parts of ourselves being explored in an edgy and honest way on the radio. Derrick is 14 and his piece is about the anger, aggression and violence he experiences (and perpetrates) in his daily life, within his family, against his younger siblings. I am not sure it would be possible for him to fully comprehend how MUCH he probes in this piece. I could never have done such a thing, about such a topic, at the age of 14, and definitely not now!
The piece starts with a devastating tale of Derrick coming home to find that his brothers have killed his pet fish by putting them in a bathtub with alcohol. It goes on to talk about how much anger and frustration he feels within his family, and the piece shows us this aggression in action. Derrick is whacking his little brother at one point with his microphone. I can't reveal or re-tell all of the details, there are so many. Derrick seeks out a child psychologist to gather "information" about his own emotions and behavior. The scenes with the psychologist are just incredible. And one of the best endings I have heard in a long time - Derrick talking to a friend about what kind of father and husband he is hoping to be....
Perhaps this piece stunned me the way it did because I am a mother with two young boys, and I am thinking so much these days about anger and aggression that they sometimes act out on each other, and the anger and aggression I often feel at them too. It's so complex, and I think so human and so real, how hard it is to find ways to live with and really be consistently kind to the people that you love the most. Natural and normal feelings of anger and aggression, frustration, that most people experience, I think, are not dealt with very often in real and open ways in our culture. It seems to me that this contributes to some of the crazy and dark ways that these emotions get expressed and acted out. My congratulations to Derrick for his honesty, his willingness and ability to go right for the heart of this subject, this story. The piece itself, like the content, is kind of raw. Mic noise in places (intentional and necessary in some of those spots). It does not sound like something you would hear in a local cutaway during Morning Edition or ATC. But I encourage stations to find a way to give this piece a place where listerns can listen.
Comment for
"Right Between the Ears #004" (deleted)
This is funny! I laughed out loud many times. Great writing. A parody of politics and pop culture with a liberal bent. High production values, very well done.
I think this piece, as produced, might hold interest for the teens involved, or for an audience already familiar and invested in the school program described. I think the piece needs work to hold the interest of public radio listeners across the country. We don't learn enough about teen suicide, just that these teens want to talk about it. The interviews at the beginning, where students are talking about the program, seem like they belong in another piece. I think the focus on teen suicide needs more development. And as these students produce more pieces and do more interviews, they need more training on recording and mic handling because the tape will need to be "cleaner" to be able to be aired on most public radio stations. It sounds like a great project and that the kids are getting something out of learning to interview and use recorders, but story telling and recording skills need more work to be able to translate the stories these teens want to tell to a wider audience.
This piece contains some of the most meaningful and moving tape I have heard from American mothers talking about their children (sons in this case) in Iraq. A detail I won't forget: one mother, packing up Crystal Light to send to her son, telling us that the drinking water in Iraq is always warm, and so when her son came home the tap water made his teeth hurt because it was so cold. Also, a mother describing a goodbye to her son at a base in Germany, and the two of them looking back at each other from a distance and trying to memorize the other ones face. Beautiful, beautiful tape. Unfortunately, I think the piece gets a bit "in the way" of the tape itself. The piece has almost too much information, too much script. I wanted to hear more from the mothers, to listen to a piece that was less produced for a news slot and more focused on the emotions and tones of the mothers living through this experience.
This is a personal essay about preparing for a child's upcoming 4th birthday party. The essayist is the father, and he recounts everything that he has to do to get ready. As the mother of two little ones, I can relate to the long list of chores and errands. But I think as an essay for the radio, this piece needs more to make me care as a listener. Essay/ commentary, though seeemingly simple, is one of the hardest genres to make work on the radio, I think. So many of the essays I hear broadcast on NPR fall flat, to my ears. This piece suffers from being perhaps too detail oriented, too list-like, and the "lesson" at the end about a son's happiness does not seem like enough to pull this piece along.
This is a nice piece for stations looking for Gay Pride related material this month. Ellie was Elliott for 70 years, married four times, with five children, a Baptist minister. For the last three Elliott has been living as Ellie and performing in drag on the streets of Provincetown, MA (on Cape Cod). It's a very good interview, with some great moments like when Ellie describes how she decided to "go for broke" as a woman and dress as sexy and 25 years old. The producer has found a good subject and a good story. I think the piece itself would have benefitted from some scene shifting - we hear a lot of intimate details, and yet the entire interview is conducted outside on the street and the location takes away from the intimacy of what is being said at moments. This kind of story needs an interview in a quiet place to be mixed in with the scene on the street. Also, we hear references to the crowd and the people in Provincetown, but we never hear from them or even hear their voices, reactions. I missed that. Also, I didn't feel I got a strong enough "image" of Ellie performing, sound and writing working together to portray the scene. I wanted a moment earlier in the story to be one of the people on the streets of P-Town, coming upon her, aurally and visually all at once.
This is the second Camel's Hump show I have listened to, and again I was really impressed by the performance, the production, the adaptation. This is a great show to play if you have a spot for kids, or for storytelling/ literature on the radio. It's a show for kids, but created to impress and engage an adult audience too.
There are some really important ideas explored in this piece, and some great interview tape. It's an acts and tracks piece that includes an interview with a mother and daughter about their mixed race identities. The insights of each woman, and the reporter, are thoughtful and engaging. But I think the piece needs some motion, some action, some energy. I think I would be more interested in the ideas if I got to know these women, just a little bit, beyond the interview setting. I would love to hear them interact with each other, or hear them in a scene within their communities, whatever that might be.
Mysterious, new, engaging, provocative, confusing... all words I would use to describe this piece. It takes a few minutes of listening to get a grip on what you are hearing.... I have to admit at first I was kind of irritated, but I just let go, kept going and it paid off. You have to really listen to get anything out of this piece (duh, I know - but if you put this on the radio you'll be playing it for a lot of people who are only half listening, tuning in and out, and this piece is tough for that kind of attention).
The piece begins with a male voice recalling the US bombing of a Red Cross hospital in Afghanistan... and it goes on from there in a way I can't well enough explain. The piece is about war and violence and family and American imperialism and inequality and a whole lot of other things. I thought most of the way through that I was hearing the re-telling of an actual series of events/ encounters. But in the end, I was not so sure. This might be fiction. Either way, it's pretty damn interesting.
This is a good, well produced, thoughtful piece. But I am not sure how useable it is for other stations because it is a time and place specific story. The producer took a walk through her neighborhood in Utah and talked to neighbors about Amendment 3, a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage (though more complex than that as the piece explores). The piece refers to the election "tomorrow."
But even if you can't air the piece now, it's a good one for news and program directors to listen to as an example of a creative approach to an election story.
The producer introduces us to her neighborhood and tells us a diverse group lives there (although my impression in the end was that it was a more left of center crowd than I imagine some other neighborhoods might contain). Anyway, she takes us on a walk to meet the neighbors and hear them talk about their opinions on Amendment 3. The producer does a nice job sticking with the frame - the "walk" - and finds elegant ways to move between characters. using sound and ideas. She draws out subtle similarities and differences between opinions, and gives us personal details of the charcaters that help us understand where they are coming from. It ends up being a thoughtful conversation about gay marriage (and homosexuality). The ideas in the piece are as relevant today as when the piece was produced, but the report itself feels dated by the specificity of the impending vote.
Another small observation about making local pieces possibly relevant to a larger audience in other parts of the country - beware of "localisms." At one point in the piece, the reporter uses the term "LDS" and I was stumped. The actuality that followed helped me figure out pretty quickly that "LDS" is "Latter Day Saints." But the term stopped me briefly and took my focus away from the piece. It's a little thing that you may not think about when producing for a home audience but it's good to be aware when you are slipping into vernacular.
Overall, good piece, and good idea for a piece that another reporter or assignment editor might want to borrow next election season.
This is riveting, and devastating. An excellent choice if you're looking for an engaging, provocative, important and all around high quality hour of programming. The documentary tells the story of three survivors of torture, plus the story of a London organization (and its founder) that provides therapy and support to victims of torture. All of the stories in the piece are crucial and compelling. Prepare yourself for the third section on child torture. It took my breath away - not just the awfulness of the story (all of the stories are awful - there is no comparing or ranking), but the beauty of the way the story was told for radio. The child cannot talk about the experience of torture initially, and so the therapist uses music therapy. And the producers got access to recordings the therapist made of early sessions in this process. The tape is stunning, and the producers figured out how to use the tape to create a beautifully paced, rich, musical and journalistically solid stretch of radio. This is a really top notch piece, and an especially important one for American audiences to hear at this point in our history. I especially liked the way the producers dealt with the question of politics and political motivation in the work of the London organization assisting victims of torture. I continue to think about many of the points that were brought up in that section. Great, great work.
Two teenagers from a Colorado High School took tape recorders on a service trip to help clean up a school in New Orleans. They went on their fall break, along with other students from their high school. Their local station provided the recording equipment.
The piece starts on the bus. We meet our two guides, and then they interview their principal about how the trip came about. It's a fine start. But I felt like I got more information about the process than I needed. As a listener, I was eager to get to Louisiana! And in some ways, I ended up disappointed because I never felt like I really got there. We are on the bus and hear about where the students are headed, and then next, we are hearing our guides, in what I think is an interview back at the radio station in Colorado, talking about what the trip was like, in the past tense. What I wanted from the piece was a story to unfold before my ears, but what the piece delivered was sort of a re-cap of a trip, with the focus on the kids who went. That focus is OK, but I wanted more interaction, more action. We do get some nice clips of hurriance victims talking about their circumstances. But it was "interview" tape rather than scene tape. I wanted more scenes, more of a narrative through sound.
I think this piece has a strong foundation - a good idea, and two teen reporters/ diarists with nice presence on the air. But I think the story needed a stronger sense of beginning, middle and end. Save the interview/ reflection tape for the end of the story, and bring more scene tape into the heart of it.
This is a montage piece - all sound and voices, teenagers talking about their memories/ associations with fall and winter. It starts with a boy talking about memories of the football season, and then some halloween memories from a couple of teens, and some Thanksgiving and more halloween/ fall memories. The piece has a nice rhythm, high quality mix. My favorite moment is the end, where a young man is talking about dressing for winter - and his language plays off the sound musically. Would have loved to have that continue - a kind of rap, sound poem, about the seasons.
UPDATE 1/17/06: There is now a :59 version of this piece you can download. I encourage you to listen, and consider whether you station can make a place for this piece.
This is a "shortcut" through the news events, and then the deaths, of 2005 - entirely in sound (clips and music). It's exciting, edgy, kind of mysterious at points. It starts as a kind of news "re-cap" of the year. I love the moment when we start to hear about Hurricane Katrina through a voice-mail greeting saying your call cannot be completed "due to the hurricane in the area you are calling." There are many pretty little moments like that. After we go through main news events of the year (focus ends up a lot on hurricanes), the piece starts "paying tribute" to some of the great people we lost in 2005. At about 45 minutes in, there is a nice sequence that starts with Peter Jennings talking about WEB DuBois and the problem of the color line, to Rosa Parks as a young woman telling her story about the bus, to the Neville Brothers (I think - this piece tests my musical and cultural knowledge) singing "Thank You Miss Rosa." That sequence, in the way it makes theme related, content driven juxtapositions sort of "explains" the logic of the piece. But there are also these lovely sequences that are not as linear - where the producer is playing around with the tape, sequencing, repeating clips. I like those sequences a lot. My least favorite moments are the long clips of music in the Katrina section - verges on a little too sentimental (though my heart did swell when we went from Mayor Ray Nagin talking about what is about to happen to New Orleans, to Randy Newman (I think? - maybe Aaron Neville) singing "Louisiana 1927."
Anyway, this is a very exciting piece, exciting concept. As a program director, I think I would be challenged to figure out where to play it right now. In some ways it's "too late" for 2005, and the length is just over an hour and hard to program. But, I recommend you listen. Maybe next year a :59 minute version of the same thing, with a station break in the middle (it would be great for a host to be able to come in at some point and give the "just tuning in folks" a little bit of help understanding what is going on) could be put on PRX, and you could make a space for it. A great special for the week between Christmas and New Years, or for New Year's day. And maybe stations with a flexible enough schedule could find a way to play this one now. It's worth listening to. I listened in my car in a couple of stints. Better way to listen would be at night, lying in the dark.
Wow, Dan Collison and Elizabeth Mesiter have a phone number that is easily misdialed or confused with other numbers - or else they just have karma that attracts great stories, and then the ability to share those stories with the rest of us. This is funny, mysterious, and of course wonderfully produced. Are you doing a show that has anything to do with communication, or relationships, or technology, or language? You might find a way to squeeze this little gem into a show on a topic like that. great for a showcase show if you have one. The piece has a dated ending - referring to the new year 2006. So if you care about such things you might need to air it really soon. Or just listen and enjoy the smile it will bring to your life, and perhaps a new tenderness towards the wrong number callers who reach you (or at least a hope that they will leave a message next time).
This piece takes you inside, quickly but pretty deeply, the mind and experience of a "white collar" criminal. It's really good, one of the better pieces I've heard about white collar crime. Mark Morze was a CFO convicted of various kinds of fraud and sent to prison for 8 years. Now he's out, and this piece takes you back to how he got in trouble, and why, and the pretty thin line that he crossed (that "one" crosses) when "one" goes from being a legit business person to a criminal. Some of the best parts of the piece are when Mark is talking about what it was like to be in prison, how the other prisoners viewed the "white collar" guys. Mark says, even when he went to prison he did not see himself as a criminal, but the other prisoners showed him that he is a thief, because he did what they did, "lied to people and took their money." This is a very thoughtful, very engaging piece. Listen and see if you can find a place for it.
I just spent a number of minutes trying to figure out which "tones" to assign to this piece. None of them are quite right. This is an adaptation of Roald Dahl's story "The BFG." It's a magical story that has been adapted, performed and produced beautifully by Camel's Hump Radio. It's a children's book, but I listened all alone, an adult in the car, and I was transported dreamily into the world of the story and just thoroughly enjoyed my time there. The producers seem to really "get" how to adapt fiction for the radio, and to create a program that works well, I think, for audiences young and old. The host is great. He speaks in a way that is on a child's level, but he does not speak down to them -- and he gives context to the story that satisfies an adult curiosity. You may not have a slot for this program in your schedule. It's a half hour, and if I were a Program Director I think I would not know where to put it unless I had a storytelling or children's slot in the sked. But it really is worth a listen. I plan to play it for my kids in the car on our next trip, and download more Camel's Hump programs.
I listened to this piece for the first time over the holidays last year (2004). And now that it's holiday time again, I have been thinking of it. And so I listened again, and it's even better the second time around. This is a really, really beautiful piece of radio. The writing and the production are so graceful and thoughtful. And the story is just extraordinary. I noticed the suggestion on PRX is that this piece would be good on Mother's Day... but I would argue equally good at holiday time (or any time. This piece does not "need" a hook). I say good at holiday time because it's a time when I find myself thinking about family, and change, and the constraints and possibilities of life. The mother in this story has a brain aneurysm, and the event rearranges her chemistry somehow and she kind of morphs into another person (used to be kind of tight and constrained, now sings aloud in public. Used to hate sex, now loves it, etc, etc). And the beauty of the story is the way the daughter observes this transformation, and reports on it, nakes meaning of it, for us and for herself. A really, really terrific piece!!!
This is a great essay... originally written a few years ago, but totally timely and useable anytime. If you are doing any kind of year-ender show that includes discussion of the massive shifts in American politics this year, take a listen to this piece. It could be a little gem, a little surprise or twist within a show like that.... or any show about politics, political engagement, activism, etc. The essay basically compares marriage to patriotism... the love and hate, push and pull, ebb and flow of both of those "institutions." That description does not really do the piece justice - but maybe you get the idea. Listen - it's only a couple of minutes long!
Comment for
"Third Coast Festival Broadcast 2005" (deleted)
Review of Third Coast Festival Broadcast 2005 (deleted)
This is an excellent two hours of radio. You can't go wrong by listening, by playing it for your listeners. For Program Directors and others who need material to fill holes over the holidays, this is a perfect solution. You get to hear the Third Coast winners - excerpts in most cases, the entire 1/2 hour of the Gold Award winner. Third Coast judges give awards to such a great range of radio pieces - totally engaging narrative pieces, experimental sound pieces, unusual, surprising stuff that will help you appreciate again and again the beauty and breadth of possibility radio offers. And the two hour program is, as always, so well produced. You get to hear the producers talk about their work, and listen to their work, and it's all put together in an an engaging, elegant and thoughtful way. Two hours of listening you'll keep thinking about after it's done.....
Like the producer, I didn't know anything about Rebecca West... and she was certainly a fascinating character. A British writer, journalist, artist, feminist whose life and work spanned the 20th century. Not sure why I'd never heard of her, and it's that amazement of never having heard of this woman that propels, or initiates, this piece. The producer gets an invitation to a play about Rebecca West, googles her to figure out if he wants to see the show, and then takes us on a journey to discover who West is. There are basically three voices in this piece... the voice of Rebecca herself as played in the stage play (performance voice/ recording), the voice of the actress who plays Rebecca (interview voice), and the voice of Rebecca's great niece (interview voice) - plus sort of a fourth voice, the curious producer on a journey to discover Rebecca. It's a good piece, well produced. I learned a lot about Rebecca, and I appreciated that. But I think if a listener was not propelled by his or her own desire to know more about West, the piece might not sustain interest. In the end, the piece felt a bit long. A good idea, a nice approach to an historical figure, but perhaps not enough to sustain a half hour doc. I think it may be my American radio ears though, and my years as an editor, that I am not as able or willing to let pieces just breathe and stretch. But I am not sure if this piece would hold the attention of a lot of American public radio listeners for the full half hour. However, it's a nice piece of historical reporting, not easily done, and not heard enough on public radio in the States.
Wow! This is a FANTASTIC hour of radio. Smart, creative, exciting, complex, surprising, sound rich, thoughtful.
The only drawback, for all you program directors out there, is that the piece was made for New York at a particular point in time... so you can't just put this hour on your radio station wholesale. But, you should listen, because this is hot, cutting edge, fantastic radio, and if more public radio sounded like this, no one would be able to turn it off!
The piece addresses two questions: What is Wagner's Ring Cycle? And why does it continue to inspire people? And to answer those questions, the host takes listeners on a journey across NYC - to a class a Julliard, to a restaurant... I won't spoil it by telling you all the places you get to go and the minds you get to meet.
If you can find an hour to listen to this, do. You will be rewarded with inspiration, and images and thoughts that will keep coming back to you long after you're done.
(And don't think you need to know anything about opera or Wagner to love this piece. I knew embarrassingly little about either... and now I want to know so much more).
Review of Despues de las Guerras: Central America After the Wars (deleted)
This is a very strong series of one hour magazine style documentaries. Recommended for all of you out there with one hour special hours.
I listened to parts 1, 3 and 4. (You can read a review of Part 2 by David Swatling).
Very well produced, and very well structured and thought through as a series. A nice progression of ideas and themes from one part to the next.
Many producers were involved, and some parts are stronger than others. The first piece of Part 1 is excellent. It tells the story of a village in the rainforest of Guatemala and what happened to the people and the place during the civil wars. What happened to this one village tells the story of what happened to so many villages in Central America during the wars. It's a very personal story, including a devastating interview with a boy who watched his little sister, and other members of his family, brutally murdered. And an insightful interview with a woman who became a rebel at the age of 14. It's a really good piece, and a great beginning for what is for the most part a very strong series that takes you across Central America and through time to tell an important story about the realities and lasting impact of war.
This is an excellent piece. If you have a one hour special slot at your station and you have not aired "Married to the Military" yet, consider it. It's moving and provocative and so timely, especially as all the movies about Iraq come at us. This piece blends traditional, top notch reporting with a radio diary approach in an elegant and engaging way. The documentary ends up being about how far away this war can feel to people who aren't directly involved or attached, and gives meaning to how profoundly the experience of war has changed for most Americans over the past century.
Comments by Emily Hanford
Comment for "Youth and Sexism"
Emily Hanford
Posted on August 03, 2006 at 11:04 AM | Permalink
Review of Youth and Sexism
A youth reporter's piece about a student film called "Sexism: Where is it Now?" The reporter interviews the teens who made the film, and uses a couple of clips from the film (not yet finished.) The film tape was good - the mothers of some of the film producers have some revealing comments about the changing nature of sexism, and their own experiences growing up. The radio piece felt a bit removed from the topic at hand - it was sort of about the making of the film, and sort of about the topic of sexism. Both are hard topics to make a short radio report about. Some of the young people's impressions about the nature of sexism were revealing. Having grown up in the midst of the feminist movement, the students comments reminded me of how far things have come, but also, for better or worse, how removed the topic and even the term "sexism" is from our "national conversation" today.
Comment for "RN Documentary: A War Requiem"
Emily Hanford
Posted on August 02, 2006 at 08:55 AM | Permalink
Review of RN Documentary: A War Requiem
This is a beautiful, important documentary and I urge program directors and station based producers to listen and consider airing it. At 29 minutes, it could stand alone, or maybe even better the doc could be played as part of (or in segments throughout) a one hour local program.
The piece works very well as a collection of voices talking about the human impact of war - a soldier who served during the civil war in Lebanon in the early 1980s, two military historians, and two psycho-trauma experts. They talk vividly, with personal and historical examples, of the real trauma and tragedy of war. To really feel the impact of this piece, you have to stop and listen, focus, concetrate. I tried playing it once while driving my kids around and once on a hectic morning - and both times I just could not appreciate what I was hearing (and also realized fast that I was not sure I wanted the kids to hear it). And then I put the program on while taking a drive through the country with a sleeping child, and I was so moved and disturbed and for days and days I kept thinking about the piece. We live in a world being ripped apart by violence and war, and this piece explores what war really means, the effect war has on people's psyches, the results for soldiers (and civilians) who live with constant, grave danger, the stress of the extremities of war. It's confusing and difficult to feel and consider the world's current tragedies as they unfold for many of us in headlines and news reports. But this piece takes you to a new place to think about the news headlines. I highly recommend you listen.
Comment for "Part Two: Victoria Brignell"
Emily Hanford
Posted on August 01, 2006 at 06:24 PM | Permalink
Review of Part Two: Victoria Brignell
An insightful and informative piece about living with disabilities (in Great Britain). I was drawn in immediately by Victoria's story of becoming paralyzed from the neck down at the age of six (benign tumor), and now living and working with this disability. Victoria is a thoughtful, honest character who really made me think about a topic that I think is undercovered in media today. In addition to Victoria, we hear from an occupational and personal care assitant who helps people with disabilities (not clear if she works with Victoria, and I would like to know), a disability adviser at an English university, the British Minister for Disabilities, and also the producer/ interviewer. I learned something from each of these "expert" voices, but I also felt that all of these voices together did not hold together elegantly enough for a 10 minute piece. The piece felt a bit disjointed and I wanted more integration of the information and the personal story in one narrative. The way the piece is now felt a bit fragmented. I know the time and resource constraints may have been such that a deeper look at Victoria might not have been possible, but that's the story I want to hear. I'd rather know more about her, hear her in scene working, preparing for work, at home, etc.. and hear from the assistants and "experts" who are closer to her personal world to get a view of the larger topic of how people with disabilities manage, what's changed, etc.
Comment for "Friday Night At Epiphany's"
Emily Hanford
Posted on August 01, 2006 at 07:17 AM | Permalink
Review of Friday Night At Epiphany's
A well constructed essay with interview tape and music about a young woman's "encounter" with heavy metal/ hardcore/ punk music. The producer gets inside these labels and offers some revealing insights. Some great tape, especially Josh, lead singer from the band Millenium Travesty, recreating the growls and grunts he makes on stage. The first growl is particulalry memorable - that was his own voice making that reverb?
At the end of the piece the producer talks about a feeling of emptiness from leaving an old life behind ... and there was a kind of heaviness to that comment that was hinted at earlier in the piece, but I never understood or got much "information" on this bigger, darker context and I was left wondering....
Comment for "Recognizing the Value Ourselves"
Emily Hanford
Posted on July 31, 2006 at 10:53 AM | Permalink
Review of Recognizing the Value Ourselves
An experimental piece that I struggled to understand. You hear two voices - a young woman and an older man, their voices layered one after the other, on times over each other, with music and various sounds mixed in throughout the piece. I started listening without reading the information provided about the piece, so I had no "intro." An intro is necessary, but I think the piece perhaps suffers from being too "loose", and about too many topics, too many ideas. At times it was literally hard to hear the voices, and I think this was intentional at points, but as a listener I was frustrated. I felt I could not take away as much as I might from the ideas being expressed because the form got in the way. My sense is that the producers intention was to foreground "form" and play with it, and I appreciate and applaud the effort to push boundaries. But I think in this case the form was not helping as much as it could to shape the ideas of the piece, and I felt too often confused, and that the thoughts in the piece were too fragmented, too short, too often "over-juxtaposed" with other ideas. I would really like to hear the story of the older man. he clearly has a story to tell, but I think that story was lost a bit by cutting it up and putting it in contrast constantly with the younger woman's voice.
Comment for "After Welfare"
Emily Hanford
Posted on July 07, 2006 at 07:50 PM | Permalink
Review of After Welfare
Excellent. John Biewen has, once again, found compelling personal stories to illuminate a set of critical public policy questions. This documentary is full of beautiful storytelling, thorough reporting, insightful perspectives. John is so skilled at getting right to the heart of big questions, and his reporting is fair and balanced, and at the same time provocative and probing. Your listeners will want to hear this piece.
Comment for "Aggression"
Emily Hanford
Posted on July 03, 2006 at 07:23 PM | Permalink
Review of Aggression
This piece is stunning! One of the most raw, real, complex pieces I have heard in a long time... maybe ever. Listen, and you will realize how often you don't hear the darkest, deepest parts of ourselves being explored in an edgy and honest way on the radio. Derrick is 14 and his piece is about the anger, aggression and violence he experiences (and perpetrates) in his daily life, within his family, against his younger siblings. I am not sure it would be possible for him to fully comprehend how MUCH he probes in this piece. I could never have done such a thing, about such a topic, at the age of 14, and definitely not now!
The piece starts with a devastating tale of Derrick coming home to find that his brothers have killed his pet fish by putting them in a bathtub with alcohol. It goes on to talk about how much anger and frustration he feels within his family, and the piece shows us this aggression in action. Derrick is whacking his little brother at one point with his microphone. I can't reveal or re-tell all of the details, there are so many. Derrick seeks out a child psychologist to gather "information" about his own emotions and behavior. The scenes with the psychologist are just incredible. And one of the best endings I have heard in a long time - Derrick talking to a friend about what kind of father and husband he is hoping to be....
Perhaps this piece stunned me the way it did because I am a mother with two young boys, and I am thinking so much these days about anger and aggression that they sometimes act out on each other, and the anger and aggression I often feel at them too. It's so complex, and I think so human and so real, how hard it is to find ways to live with and really be consistently kind to the people that you love the most. Natural and normal feelings of anger and aggression, frustration, that most people experience, I think, are not dealt with very often in real and open ways in our culture. It seems to me that this contributes to some of the crazy and dark ways that these emotions get expressed and acted out. My congratulations to Derrick for his honesty, his willingness and ability to go right for the heart of this subject, this story. The piece itself, like the content, is kind of raw. Mic noise in places (intentional and necessary in some of those spots). It does not sound like something you would hear in a local cutaway during Morning Edition or ATC. But I encourage stations to find a way to give this piece a place where listerns can listen.
Comment for "Right Between the Ears #004" (deleted)
Emily Hanford
Posted on July 03, 2006 at 06:36 PM
Review of Right Between the Ears #004 (deleted)
This is funny! I laughed out loud many times. Great writing. A parody of politics and pop culture with a liberal bent. High production values, very well done.
Comment for "Alternative School and Teen Suicide, News Excerpt 3"
Emily Hanford
Posted on June 05, 2006 at 09:51 AM | Permalink
Review of Alternative School and Teen Suicide, News Excerpt 3
I think this piece, as produced, might hold interest for the teens involved, or for an audience already familiar and invested in the school program described. I think the piece needs work to hold the interest of public radio listeners across the country. We don't learn enough about teen suicide, just that these teens want to talk about it. The interviews at the beginning, where students are talking about the program, seem like they belong in another piece. I think the focus on teen suicide needs more development. And as these students produce more pieces and do more interviews, they need more training on recording and mic handling because the tape will need to be "cleaner" to be able to be aired on most public radio stations. It sounds like a great project and that the kids are getting something out of learning to interview and use recorders, but story telling and recording skills need more work to be able to translate the stories these teens want to tell to a wider audience.
Comment for "Military Mom"
Emily Hanford
Posted on June 05, 2006 at 09:41 AM | Permalink
Review of Military Mom
This piece contains some of the most meaningful and moving tape I have heard from American mothers talking about their children (sons in this case) in Iraq. A detail I won't forget: one mother, packing up Crystal Light to send to her son, telling us that the drinking water in Iraq is always warm, and so when her son came home the tap water made his teeth hurt because it was so cold. Also, a mother describing a goodbye to her son at a base in Germany, and the two of them looking back at each other from a distance and trying to memorize the other ones face. Beautiful, beautiful tape. Unfortunately, I think the piece gets a bit "in the way" of the tape itself. The piece has almost too much information, too much script. I wanted to hear more from the mothers, to listen to a piece that was less produced for a news slot and more focused on the emotions and tones of the mothers living through this experience.
Comment for "Keep It Simple"
Emily Hanford
Posted on June 05, 2006 at 09:25 AM | Permalink
Review of Keep It Simple
This is a personal essay about preparing for a child's upcoming 4th birthday party. The essayist is the father, and he recounts everything that he has to do to get ready. As the mother of two little ones, I can relate to the long list of chores and errands. But I think as an essay for the radio, this piece needs more to make me care as a listener. Essay/ commentary, though seeemingly simple, is one of the hardest genres to make work on the radio, I think. So many of the essays I hear broadcast on NPR fall flat, to my ears. This piece suffers from being perhaps too detail oriented, too list-like, and the "lesson" at the end about a son's happiness does not seem like enough to pull this piece along.
Comment for ""My name is Ellie, it used to be Elliot""
Emily Hanford
Posted on June 05, 2006 at 08:53 AM | Permalink
Review of "My name is Ellie, it used to be Elliot"
This is a nice piece for stations looking for Gay Pride related material this month. Ellie was Elliott for 70 years, married four times, with five children, a Baptist minister. For the last three Elliott has been living as Ellie and performing in drag on the streets of Provincetown, MA (on Cape Cod). It's a very good interview, with some great moments like when Ellie describes how she decided to "go for broke" as a woman and dress as sexy and 25 years old. The producer has found a good subject and a good story. I think the piece itself would have benefitted from some scene shifting - we hear a lot of intimate details, and yet the entire interview is conducted outside on the street and the location takes away from the intimacy of what is being said at moments. This kind of story needs an interview in a quiet place to be mixed in with the scene on the street. Also, we hear references to the crowd and the people in Provincetown, but we never hear from them or even hear their voices, reactions. I missed that. Also, I didn't feel I got a strong enough "image" of Ellie performing, sound and writing working together to portray the scene. I wanted a moment earlier in the story to be one of the people on the streets of P-Town, coming upon her, aurally and visually all at once.
Comment for "I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade"
Emily Hanford
Posted on January 20, 2006 at 05:26 PM | Permalink
Review of I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade
This is the second Camel's Hump show I have listened to, and again I was really impressed by the performance, the production, the adaptation. This is a great show to play if you have a spot for kids, or for storytelling/ literature on the radio. It's a show for kids, but created to impress and engage an adult audience too.
Comment for "Native American Identity"
Emily Hanford
Posted on January 20, 2006 at 05:22 PM | Permalink
Review of Native American Identity
There are some really important ideas explored in this piece, and some great interview tape. It's an acts and tracks piece that includes an interview with a mother and daughter about their mixed race identities. The insights of each woman, and the reporter, are thoughtful and engaging. But I think the piece needs some motion, some action, some energy. I think I would be more interested in the ideas if I got to know these women, just a little bit, beyond the interview setting. I would love to hear them interact with each other, or hear them in a scene within their communities, whatever that might be.
Comment for "Ease on Down: a Refugee Story"
Emily Hanford
Posted on January 20, 2006 at 05:10 PM | Permalink
Review of Ease on Down: a Refugee Story
Mysterious, new, engaging, provocative, confusing... all words I would use to describe this piece. It takes a few minutes of listening to get a grip on what you are hearing.... I have to admit at first I was kind of irritated, but I just let go, kept going and it paid off. You have to really listen to get anything out of this piece (duh, I know - but if you put this on the radio you'll be playing it for a lot of people who are only half listening, tuning in and out, and this piece is tough for that kind of attention).
The piece begins with a male voice recalling the US bombing of a Red Cross hospital in Afghanistan... and it goes on from there in a way I can't well enough explain. The piece is about war and violence and family and American imperialism and inequality and a whole lot of other things. I thought most of the way through that I was hearing the re-telling of an actual series of events/ encounters. But in the end, I was not so sure. This might be fiction. Either way, it's pretty damn interesting.
Comment for "In My Neighborhood"
Emily Hanford
Posted on January 19, 2006 at 05:12 PM | Permalink
Review of In My Neighborhood
This is a good, well produced, thoughtful piece. But I am not sure how useable it is for other stations because it is a time and place specific story. The producer took a walk through her neighborhood in Utah and talked to neighbors about Amendment 3, a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage (though more complex than that as the piece explores). The piece refers to the election "tomorrow."
But even if you can't air the piece now, it's a good one for news and program directors to listen to as an example of a creative approach to an election story.
The producer introduces us to her neighborhood and tells us a diverse group lives there (although my impression in the end was that it was a more left of center crowd than I imagine some other neighborhoods might contain). Anyway, she takes us on a walk to meet the neighbors and hear them talk about their opinions on Amendment 3. The producer does a nice job sticking with the frame - the "walk" - and finds elegant ways to move between characters. using sound and ideas. She draws out subtle similarities and differences between opinions, and gives us personal details of the charcaters that help us understand where they are coming from. It ends up being a thoughtful conversation about gay marriage (and homosexuality). The ideas in the piece are as relevant today as when the piece was produced, but the report itself feels dated by the specificity of the impending vote.
Another small observation about making local pieces possibly relevant to a larger audience in other parts of the country - beware of "localisms." At one point in the piece, the reporter uses the term "LDS" and I was stumped. The actuality that followed helped me figure out pretty quickly that "LDS" is "Latter Day Saints." But the term stopped me briefly and took my focus away from the piece. It's a little thing that you may not think about when producing for a home audience but it's good to be aware when you are slipping into vernacular.
Overall, good piece, and good idea for a piece that another reporter or assignment editor might want to borrow next election season.
Comment for "Surviving Torture: Inside Out"
Emily Hanford
Posted on January 19, 2006 at 04:50 PM | Permalink
Review of Surviving Torture: Inside Out
This is riveting, and devastating. An excellent choice if you're looking for an engaging, provocative, important and all around high quality hour of programming. The documentary tells the story of three survivors of torture, plus the story of a London organization (and its founder) that provides therapy and support to victims of torture. All of the stories in the piece are crucial and compelling. Prepare yourself for the third section on child torture. It took my breath away - not just the awfulness of the story (all of the stories are awful - there is no comparing or ranking), but the beauty of the way the story was told for radio. The child cannot talk about the experience of torture initially, and so the therapist uses music therapy. And the producers got access to recordings the therapist made of early sessions in this process. The tape is stunning, and the producers figured out how to use the tape to create a beautifully paced, rich, musical and journalistically solid stretch of radio. This is a really top notch piece, and an especially important one for American audiences to hear at this point in our history. I especially liked the way the producers dealt with the question of politics and political motivation in the work of the London organization assisting victims of torture. I continue to think about many of the points that were brought up in that section. Great, great work.
Comment for "Road Trip: Local Kids Help with Hurricane Relief"
Emily Hanford
Posted on January 12, 2006 at 05:40 AM | Permalink
Review of Road Trip: Local Kids Help with Hurricane Relief
Two teenagers from a Colorado High School took tape recorders on a service trip to help clean up a school in New Orleans. They went on their fall break, along with other students from their high school. Their local station provided the recording equipment.
The piece starts on the bus. We meet our two guides, and then they interview their principal about how the trip came about. It's a fine start. But I felt like I got more information about the process than I needed. As a listener, I was eager to get to Louisiana! And in some ways, I ended up disappointed because I never felt like I really got there. We are on the bus and hear about where the students are headed, and then next, we are hearing our guides, in what I think is an interview back at the radio station in Colorado, talking about what the trip was like, in the past tense. What I wanted from the piece was a story to unfold before my ears, but what the piece delivered was sort of a re-cap of a trip, with the focus on the kids who went. That focus is OK, but I wanted more interaction, more action. We do get some nice clips of hurriance victims talking about their circumstances. But it was "interview" tape rather than scene tape. I wanted more scenes, more of a narrative through sound.
I think this piece has a strong foundation - a good idea, and two teen reporters/ diarists with nice presence on the air. But I think the story needed a stronger sense of beginning, middle and end. Save the interview/ reflection tape for the end of the story, and bring more scene tape into the heart of it.
Comment for " Sixty Second Season: Teenagers' Memories of Fall and Winter"
Emily Hanford
Posted on January 12, 2006 at 05:09 AM | Permalink
Review of Sixty Second Season: Teenagers' Memories of Fall and Winter
This is a montage piece - all sound and voices, teenagers talking about their memories/ associations with fall and winter. It starts with a boy talking about memories of the football season, and then some halloween memories from a couple of teens, and some Thanksgiving and more halloween/ fall memories. The piece has a nice rhythm, high quality mix. My favorite moment is the end, where a young man is talking about dressing for winter - and his language plays off the sound musically. Would have loved to have that continue - a kind of rap, sound poem, about the seasons.
Comment for "A Shortcut Through 2005"
Emily Hanford
Posted on January 12, 2006 at 04:56 AM | Permalink
Review of A Shortcut Through 2005
UPDATE 1/17/06: There is now a :59 version of this piece you can download. I encourage you to listen, and consider whether you station can make a place for this piece.
This is a "shortcut" through the news events, and then the deaths, of 2005 - entirely in sound (clips and music). It's exciting, edgy, kind of mysterious at points. It starts as a kind of news "re-cap" of the year. I love the moment when we start to hear about Hurricane Katrina through a voice-mail greeting saying your call cannot be completed "due to the hurricane in the area you are calling." There are many pretty little moments like that. After we go through main news events of the year (focus ends up a lot on hurricanes), the piece starts "paying tribute" to some of the great people we lost in 2005. At about 45 minutes in, there is a nice sequence that starts with Peter Jennings talking about WEB DuBois and the problem of the color line, to Rosa Parks as a young woman telling her story about the bus, to the Neville Brothers (I think - this piece tests my musical and cultural knowledge) singing "Thank You Miss Rosa." That sequence, in the way it makes theme related, content driven juxtapositions sort of "explains" the logic of the piece. But there are also these lovely sequences that are not as linear - where the producer is playing around with the tape, sequencing, repeating clips. I like those sequences a lot. My least favorite moments are the long clips of music in the Katrina section - verges on a little too sentimental (though my heart did swell when we went from Mayor Ray Nagin talking about what is about to happen to New Orleans, to Randy Newman (I think? - maybe Aaron Neville) singing "Louisiana 1927."
Anyway, this is a very exciting piece, exciting concept. As a program director, I think I would be challenged to figure out where to play it right now. In some ways it's "too late" for 2005, and the length is just over an hour and hard to program. But, I recommend you listen. Maybe next year a :59 minute version of the same thing, with a station break in the middle (it would be great for a host to be able to come in at some point and give the "just tuning in folks" a little bit of help understanding what is going on) could be put on PRX, and you could make a space for it. A great special for the week between Christmas and New Years, or for New Year's day. And maybe stations with a flexible enough schedule could find a way to play this one now. It's worth listening to. I listened in my car in a couple of stints. Better way to listen would be at night, lying in the dark.
Comment for "Hello, Mr. Slickenmeyer?"
Emily Hanford
Posted on January 03, 2006 at 06:33 AM | Permalink
Review of Hello, Mr. Slickenmeyer?
Wow, Dan Collison and Elizabeth Mesiter have a phone number that is easily misdialed or confused with other numbers - or else they just have karma that attracts great stories, and then the ability to share those stories with the rest of us. This is funny, mysterious, and of course wonderfully produced. Are you doing a show that has anything to do with communication, or relationships, or technology, or language? You might find a way to squeeze this little gem into a show on a topic like that. great for a showcase show if you have one. The piece has a dated ending - referring to the new year 2006. So if you care about such things you might need to air it really soon. Or just listen and enjoy the smile it will bring to your life, and perhaps a new tenderness towards the wrong number callers who reach you (or at least a hope that they will leave a message next time).
Comment for "The Face of White Collar Crime"
Emily Hanford
Posted on January 03, 2006 at 06:22 AM | Permalink
Review of The Face of White Collar Crime
This piece takes you inside, quickly but pretty deeply, the mind and experience of a "white collar" criminal. It's really good, one of the better pieces I've heard about white collar crime. Mark Morze was a CFO convicted of various kinds of fraud and sent to prison for 8 years. Now he's out, and this piece takes you back to how he got in trouble, and why, and the pretty thin line that he crossed (that "one" crosses) when "one" goes from being a legit business person to a criminal. Some of the best parts of the piece are when Mark is talking about what it was like to be in prison, how the other prisoners viewed the "white collar" guys. Mark says, even when he went to prison he did not see himself as a criminal, but the other prisoners showed him that he is a thief, because he did what they did, "lied to people and took their money." This is a very thoughtful, very engaging piece. Listen and see if you can find a place for it.
Comment for "THE BFG by Roald Dahl"
Emily Hanford
Posted on January 03, 2006 at 05:56 AM | Permalink
Review of THE BFG by Roald Dahl
I just spent a number of minutes trying to figure out which "tones" to assign to this piece. None of them are quite right. This is an adaptation of Roald Dahl's story "The BFG." It's a magical story that has been adapted, performed and produced beautifully by Camel's Hump Radio. It's a children's book, but I listened all alone, an adult in the car, and I was transported dreamily into the world of the story and just thoroughly enjoyed my time there. The producers seem to really "get" how to adapt fiction for the radio, and to create a program that works well, I think, for audiences young and old. The host is great. He speaks in a way that is on a child's level, but he does not speak down to them -- and he gives context to the story that satisfies an adult curiosity. You may not have a slot for this program in your schedule. It's a half hour, and if I were a Program Director I think I would not know where to put it unless I had a storytelling or children's slot in the sked. But it really is worth a listen. I plan to play it for my kids in the car on our next trip, and download more Camel's Hump programs.
Comment for "The Day My Mother's Head Exploded"
Emily Hanford
Posted on December 19, 2005 at 04:46 PM | Permalink
Review of The Day My Mother's Head Exploded
I listened to this piece for the first time over the holidays last year (2004). And now that it's holiday time again, I have been thinking of it. And so I listened again, and it's even better the second time around. This is a really, really beautiful piece of radio. The writing and the production are so graceful and thoughtful. And the story is just extraordinary. I noticed the suggestion on PRX is that this piece would be good on Mother's Day... but I would argue equally good at holiday time (or any time. This piece does not "need" a hook). I say good at holiday time because it's a time when I find myself thinking about family, and change, and the constraints and possibilities of life. The mother in this story has a brain aneurysm, and the event rearranges her chemistry somehow and she kind of morphs into another person (used to be kind of tight and constrained, now sings aloud in public. Used to hate sex, now loves it, etc, etc). And the beauty of the story is the way the daughter observes this transformation, and reports on it, nakes meaning of it, for us and for herself. A really, really terrific piece!!!
Comment for "My Family Tis of Thee"
Emily Hanford
Posted on December 17, 2005 at 01:58 AM | Permalink
Review of My Family Tis of Thee
This is a great essay... originally written a few years ago, but totally timely and useable anytime. If you are doing any kind of year-ender show that includes discussion of the massive shifts in American politics this year, take a listen to this piece. It could be a little gem, a little surprise or twist within a show like that.... or any show about politics, political engagement, activism, etc. The essay basically compares marriage to patriotism... the love and hate, push and pull, ebb and flow of both of those "institutions." That description does not really do the piece justice - but maybe you get the idea. Listen - it's only a couple of minutes long!
Comment for "Third Coast Festival Broadcast 2005" (deleted)
Emily Hanford
Posted on December 17, 2005 at 01:45 AM
Review of Third Coast Festival Broadcast 2005 (deleted)
This is an excellent two hours of radio. You can't go wrong by listening, by playing it for your listeners. For Program Directors and others who need material to fill holes over the holidays, this is a perfect solution. You get to hear the Third Coast winners - excerpts in most cases, the entire 1/2 hour of the Gold Award winner. Third Coast judges give awards to such a great range of radio pieces - totally engaging narrative pieces, experimental sound pieces, unusual, surprising stuff that will help you appreciate again and again the beauty and breadth of possibility radio offers. And the two hour program is, as always, so well produced. You get to hear the producers talk about their work, and listen to their work, and it's all put together in an an engaging, elegant and thoughtful way. Two hours of listening you'll keep thinking about after it's done.....
Comment for "RN Documentary: Becoming Rebecca West"
Emily Hanford
Posted on November 21, 2005 at 11:52 AM | Permalink
Review of RN Documentary: Becoming Rebecca West
Like the producer, I didn't know anything about Rebecca West... and she was certainly a fascinating character. A British writer, journalist, artist, feminist whose life and work spanned the 20th century. Not sure why I'd never heard of her, and it's that amazement of never having heard of this woman that propels, or initiates, this piece. The producer gets an invitation to a play about Rebecca West, googles her to figure out if he wants to see the show, and then takes us on a journey to discover who West is. There are basically three voices in this piece... the voice of Rebecca herself as played in the stage play (performance voice/ recording), the voice of the actress who plays Rebecca (interview voice), and the voice of Rebecca's great niece (interview voice) - plus sort of a fourth voice, the curious producer on a journey to discover Rebecca. It's a good piece, well produced. I learned a lot about Rebecca, and I appreciated that. But I think if a listener was not propelled by his or her own desire to know more about West, the piece might not sustain interest. In the end, the piece felt a bit long. A good idea, a nice approach to an historical figure, but perhaps not enough to sustain a half hour doc. I think it may be my American radio ears though, and my years as an editor, that I am not as able or willing to let pieces just breathe and stretch. But I am not sure if this piece would hold the attention of a lot of American public radio listeners for the full half hour. However, it's a nice piece of historical reporting, not easily done, and not heard enough on public radio in the States.
Comment for "The Ring and I: The Passion, The Myth, The Mania"
Emily Hanford
Posted on November 20, 2005 at 05:40 PM | Permalink
Review of The Ring and I: The Passion, The Myth, The Mania
Wow! This is a FANTASTIC hour of radio. Smart, creative, exciting, complex, surprising, sound rich, thoughtful.
The only drawback, for all you program directors out there, is that the piece was made for New York at a particular point in time... so you can't just put this hour on your radio station wholesale. But, you should listen, because this is hot, cutting edge, fantastic radio, and if more public radio sounded like this, no one would be able to turn it off!
The piece addresses two questions: What is Wagner's Ring Cycle? And why does it continue to inspire people? And to answer those questions, the host takes listeners on a journey across NYC - to a class a Julliard, to a restaurant... I won't spoil it by telling you all the places you get to go and the minds you get to meet.
If you can find an hour to listen to this, do. You will be rewarded with inspiration, and images and thoughts that will keep coming back to you long after you're done.
(And don't think you need to know anything about opera or Wagner to love this piece. I knew embarrassingly little about either... and now I want to know so much more).
Comment
Emily Hanford
Posted on November 17, 2005 at 09:56 AM
Review of Despues de las Guerras: Central America After the Wars (deleted)
This is a very strong series of one hour magazine style documentaries. Recommended for all of you out there with one hour special hours.
I listened to parts 1, 3 and 4. (You can read a review of Part 2 by David Swatling).
Very well produced, and very well structured and thought through as a series. A nice progression of ideas and themes from one part to the next.
Many producers were involved, and some parts are stronger than others. The first piece of Part 1 is excellent. It tells the story of a village in the rainforest of Guatemala and what happened to the people and the place during the civil wars. What happened to this one village tells the story of what happened to so many villages in Central America during the wars. It's a very personal story, including a devastating interview with a boy who watched his little sister, and other members of his family, brutally murdered. And an insightful interview with a woman who became a rebel at the age of 14. It's a really good piece, and a great beginning for what is for the most part a very strong series that takes you across Central America and through time to tell an important story about the realities and lasting impact of war.
Comment for "Married to the Military"
Emily Hanford
Posted on November 14, 2005 at 06:48 AM | Permalink
Review of Married to the Military
This is an excellent piece. If you have a one hour special slot at your station and you have not aired "Married to the Military" yet, consider it. It's moving and provocative and so timely, especially as all the movies about Iraq come at us. This piece blends traditional, top notch reporting with a radio diary approach in an elegant and engaging way. The documentary ends up being about how far away this war can feel to people who aren't directly involved or attached, and gives meaning to how profoundly the experience of war has changed for most Americans over the past century.