lynette design

Radio eye - Stanton Street Shul

I found the radio program Radio Eye extremely effective as an audio documentary because it blended narration, story telling, music, recited poetry, sound effects etc in a way that told the story very effectively. It told the story of a Jewish place of worship and it was told from various people’s perspectives that all told their own stories as part of the whole story.

The story telling was at some points very evocative of visual imagination in me - I could imagine the setting and the people telling the story. I think this was achieved by using people telling their own stories, tied together with narration. The people had very character-filled voices that helped me imagine the type of people. Also there was a feeling of following a story – walking to different settings, meeting different people.

The different sections were tied together by narration. There was the narration of the presenter at the beginning who explained the context for the program – spinning around the world, spinning stories, and then the main narration was taken over by another narrator who was involved in the story.

Music was used to tie together sections as well as to give a tonal/atmospheric/emotional feeling to the narration and story telling. The music would start at the end of one section and link it to the next thematically and atmospherically. Poetry was also used in this way, like chanting children’s rhymes or reading poetry. This was effective as an almost musical element, which added atmosphere and was another form of storytelling that illustrated the narration’s points.

There was also used a technique of the characters telling children about what was happening, which was effective, because it felt like they were telling children (who were present with them) about something, which was interesting and at a basic level to the listening radio audience.

I would like to use narration in my animation to set the scene. I would also like to use the idea of characterised narration to lead people around the learning experience. It is interesting to think of the whole radio piece as a series of stories that add up to tell the whole story. I would like my piece to involve various stories that add together to tell the overall story of the old Perth Gaol. I also want to take from this radio program ideas about how to link various sections and stories, and how to tie them together thematically and atmospherically. I would like to explore the use of audio to link sections, like with music or ambient noise carried over between sections, and also how to use narration to lead someone through various stories that make up the whole story. I want to think of my piece as telling a story. I want to think about what voices can most effectively tell people the story and how to link stories together.

posted by nicole @ 1:22 pm