Write your 500 word reflection on the production process of your individual short feature story on your blog. Don’t forget to include references to at least 3 of the course materials in your reflection.
I chose to focus my podcast segment on an issue that I’m passionate about; exposing the alarmingly high rates of domestic violence in Australia. I was initially unsure if there was an appropriate angle to discuss this topic under our group’s selected theme of ‘anger’, but I decided to explore the topic through an interview before deciding how I would contextualise it within our topic brief.
The majority of my learning about the effects of domestic violence has been through conversations with my partner Claire who is a social worker at a Women’s Services Centre in Melbourne. I chose to interview her for my piece as I had her wealth of knowledge and first-hand experience to draw on. Seeing as though the way in which I understand the current issues is through our ongoing conversations, I took note of a passage from one of the Week 2 readings which said that “podcasts are better characterized as conversations between a podcaster and his or her listeners” (Dizon). The way that Dizon approaches the idea of podcasting fit together with my approach to understanding domestic violence and I wanted to place my story within that same familiar and conversational setting. I knew that Claire’s expression of her anger and frustration would be heard in the interview recording because I frequently hear it in our face-to-face discussions.
I knew that it was important to place my piece in the correct context right from the start. As the story is about the dangerous nature of lockdown and isolation it seemed logical to include a brief look at the ways in which people have been trying to engage with the others in a caring and compassionate way. Rather than jumping straight into the anger and pain of victims of domestic violence, I decided to play an audio recording of a group of people performing the Carpenters song ‘Close to you”. I usually find that the hardest part of producing a story is deciding how to introduce the theme and for this reason I wanted to avoid the easy, but emotive cliche of dark, anxious music at the beginning because I felt that there needed to be an appropriate setup before introducing the key topic. I took the idea of an early juxtaposition to the topic from the article ‘Score! Best practices for using music in audio storytelling’, which states that music “should not be used to make editorial statements or steer a listener towards judgements or conclusions” (May). With this statement in mind it seemed rational to elicit a positive emotional response to the introduction of my piece, rather than convincing the listener of any negative or empathetic point of view that they might develop by the conclusion of the interviews.
The editing process was fairly easy for my piece. I was quite ruthless with what I cut from Claire’s interview, as I only wanted to keep in clear and concise statements that would benefit the angle of my story. I followed a sound piece of advice from a Week 12 reading which said that “there should be no fluff, no additional crap, no rabbiting on for 20 minutes before you get into the good stuff” (Corbett). This approach was instrumental to keeping with the time constraints of the assignment, while encouraging me to include only the absolute necessary pieces of audio that would enhance the listeners understanding of the issue.
References
Dizon, Michael. “Podcasting: Oral Tradition Reloaded”. Law, Technology And Society, 2020, https://michaeldizon.wordpress.com/2008/12/02/podcasting-oral-tradition-reloaded/.
May, Michael. “Score! Best Practices For Using Music In Audio Storytelling”. NPR Training, 2020, https://training.npr.org/2016/07/05/score-best-practices-for-using-music-in-audio-storytelling/.
Corbett, Rachel. “How Long Should Your Podcast Be? | Rachel Corbett”. Rachel Corbett, 2020, https://rachelcorbett.com.au/blog/how-long-should-your-podcast-be/.