Writing in sound~

Today we listened to an extremely intriguing piece of audio based on the act of calling 000 and the Victorian ambulance service. The description for this piece stating that Les Dougan (A 000 call taker) – “guides us through this world and explores its unique perspective on the city of Melbourne and the ceaseless chaos of life and death.”

Immediately – just from this simple summary you can already imagine that this podcast is going to be really confronting. How are we “guided” by sound? How can we be shown a new perspective through sound? And how can sounds be used to demonstrate something as emotive as “the ceaseless chaos of life and death?”

This is going to be great for ideas.

• It begins with, “Most people have never called 000” – drawing in the audience and creating suspense
• The narrators voice is incredibly emotive as she talks about how hard it would be “to find your best friend not breathing”
• Intense and confronting
• Takes us “Down the wires and across the airwaves”
• Extremely emotive – use of sad music, the extended hang up sound effect after calls invokes a lot of emotion and really puts you in the call receivers shoes – especially if they hung up before giving an address etc.
• Lots of use of repetition and sound effects
• Real “on-field” recordings and calls – makes the whole thing feel very real
• Everyday there are almost 800 emergency events in Melbourne alone – interesting facts
• Amazing use of sound to demonstrate the stress of working as an ambulance call receiver

I loved the way when Les Dougan was speaking, they have muffled chatter in the background. It creates a strong visual for the listener as he’s been pulled away briefly from his hectic job to have a quick word to the interviewer – and suggests that the calls never stop. It makes him seem like he is in an extremely busy office yet he’s talking very calmly. Similarly, the constant repetition of receivers asking “Ambulance, where’s your emergency?” edited together and overlapping makes the space feel like an extremely intense call centre and again creates a strong visual – demonstrating the “ceaseless chaos of life”.

Kyla Brettle’s advice on putting an audio piece together (Super helpful advice)

• Don’t try to run with one leg – ensure you have AT LEAST two textures to work with.

• Forget everything you thought you were going to do with the story – instead, work with the material you have. Use the ‘Kyla Brettle’ method of laying your rushes out on the timeline, familiarlising yourself with the content and selecting the ‘juice’.

• Identify the two most powerful bits of content you have – it might be a spoken description or idea, a bit of audio trash, a moment in an exchange that feels somehow charged, a sound that makes your hair stand on end… ideally you want to put your second best bit of content at or up close to the front of the piece and your best bit at the climax which is close to or at the very end of a short piece … listen to it – this reveals what what your program is ‘about’ – your next task is to then plot the best path between ‘a’ and ‘b’

• In your first draft don’t bother with any exposition (unless it comes to you unbidden and slots in easily) – don’t tell us their name or age or where they live – cut straight to the action and the most interesting content you have… generally, we go into stories thinking we need more exposition and background and set up than is actually required – you always want to keep content like this to a minimum and only tell when it is needed. Listening to exposition can be a bit like waiting for a bus.

• Your task is essentially to break the content up into chunks – a chunk might be a scene – or it might be a single point or idea – if a chunk starts getting too complex with too many ideas it usually means the chunk needs to be split… a chunk must pull it’s weight – if it doesn’t add enough to the whole – cut it – pieces usually get better rather than worse when they are ‘pruned hard’

• When working the soundscape of a piece – try to think of ideas other than putting in the sound of a train when someone mentions a train – try to be more subtle than that – introduce the train sound earlier so that we anticipate it in the text and it sticks out more … try to be creative with associations and collections of sound

• Music is an important part of radio features – but it is just as important when we don’t hear to when we do – and there are MANY different ways to use music

• Save drafts – don’t rely on back up drafts. When you feel like you have reached the end of a ‘stage’ in the edit – ‘save as’

• Leave time at the end to ‘clean it up’ – softening the transition from one voice to another – and do a mix ensuring the levels are more or less the same. Check the track after you have transferred it and before you deliver.