Know your material and then trust in it

… dealing with your material.. (part 5 of the e-book)

As you have been collecting the material you have created a good sense of what you got. There is always a chance that one more interview would improve the final product, but there is also a chance that it wouldn’t. I mentioned earlier that you should have enough material so that you don’t have to fill and kill time with nonsense. Don’t claim lightly that you’re done collecting the audio, but don’t get obsessed with more material either. Never finishing your work will only mean that no one ever gets to hear the final product and in the context of university, it means that you are late for the deadline. That’s never a good way to score points no matter how noble a reason you have.

Already when you are collecting the audio you get a rough idea when something really useful has been said. Make at least mental – if not written – note where these good bits are so you remember where to start looking for them. It is also during recording your material that you start realising what is the direction your piece is taking; what it is actually saying.

It is really difficult to know, or even guess, how engaged your listeners are going to be and how carefully they will listen. How carefully do you usually listen to radio? The more you trust your audience the less you have to stress ideas. I remember one film documentary – I won’t name it here as I wish only the best for its producers – that felt like it might never end as all it really achieved was repetition of one idea and it lasted for  close to an hour. There was the same thing said with different words by different people in different places, but all that was said was that one thing.

If it was not for the reasons of politeness, I would have walked away after the first ten minutes even though the topic was something that I thought should have been very interesting.

Basically overemphasising one message is like explaining your jokes; everyone got it already and if they didn’t, how well will it go down just because now you are making it obvious? It is a very tricky balance between under and overestimating the attention of your audience.

Consider how clear your message is, and is it enough that one person makes one point? Even if everyone agrees, you don’t have to use the same type of clip by different people over and over again.

Some people say things because they just think that it’s the right thing to say without any critical engagement with whatever meanings those words have. If that is obvious enough to make a point on something interesting; the interviewees character for example, and if his or her character is important in your piece then you can keep it, but otherwise, be harsh on people saying empty lines. Not ideally to their face, but in the edit. These lines represent the kind of language that makes people call politics boring. Well, politics maybe boring or just complicated, but ideally your piece should be able to package the boring – if that’s what it has got to be – at least in a more interesting way.

If you have enough material, you don’t have to use any weak meaningless statements that no one even fully understands.

Listen to all of your material and try to find interesting bits which you can then mix together. Later on I will talk more about editing and compiling your final product, but when you listen through the interviews, try to identify topics and ideas from different people that would work very well together either juxtaposed or supporting and completing each others. At best you could create an interesting almost tennis match-like feel where you don’t have to even comment much yourself.

At this point you should also consider how does your collected material represent the different sides of the story. The mistake that happens when you are trying to prove your opinion to be the truth is that you are not inclined to talk to anyone who would disprove it. It’s good to talk to people who you disagree with and there is no need to worry about people’s opinions. If they are very offensive you don’t have to use them and if you feel that they emphasise a point; even one that is the very opposite of what they are intended to, then you can use it. People are smart enough to make up their own mind.

If there is no realistic or sensible way of getting any dicent voices in your work then you can acknowledge that. If you have tried to contact a person who represents the dark side of the story and he or she has declined or not been reached, then you can say that. I personally would not wish to make it too dramatic or judgemental; again, people are smart enough to decide for themselves.

These editorial questions of what to include are the ones where you have to use your judgment informed by your target audience and platform where your work would end up in. Whatever you decide, I’d advice you to avoid trying to shock people. That usually makes one half of the people upset and another thinks you’re fool.

It is not, however, the attempt of shocking that strikes me alarmingly often. It is probably because of the commercial and promotional cultures where we live in that has shifted the presenting of content towards overtly positive. Not that one should be negative just because, but commercial media also veils the promotion of films, music or almost anything with a feel of journalism, and this seems to have had an impact on even the content that is not paid for by the promotional budgets.

It’s important to think about this quite critically. Especially every time you have used words like phenomenal, amazing, breathtaking, unbelievable or so. Firstly, you should not use them because there are much better words out there, and secondly, when you think of those words, consider are you having an honest unbiased angle to your story? It’s not that some things aren’t great, but just like, regardless of what the hit station presenter tells you, no Britney Spears song is a classic, there should not be an urgency to describe anything with unrealistic phrases. If something is really amazing, then make sure your material communicates that without you having to underline it.

At least for me, the promotional sounding content on a platform that is not promotional makes me suspicious, and if I feel like you are trying to make up my mind for me, I instinctively react against it. I will later on talk about the potential of using content based audio in other ways and that includes advertising and promotion, but unless it is clear that the purpose of the content is commercially inclined (money has been paid for it to advertise of promote something), keep it closer to neutral.

The rest of the audio material such as the audio tape and all kinds of atmospheric sounds work as signifiers of spaces where you wish to take the listener and transitions when you move forward to the next segment in your final piece. Later on I will talk more about them, but try to have a high standard with this material as well and don’t just have any odd buzzing of the bees in the mix even if there were bees where you recorded. Or if you do want to have it as a part of your final piece, consider its strengths and weaknesses. Without pictures such things demand an explanation or they remain unexplained and more as a confusion taking the attention from the real substance of the story. Ideally it should be there to support it and putting it in a context.

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