This week marked the fourth class of the Vocalo Storytelling Workshop. The theme of the workshop is philanthropy, but it's beyond the notion of financial contributions. We are looking at how individuals or groups contribute to society in many ways. I've been working on an eight minute piece focusing on three artists whose work has dealt with communities. The first artist is Nora Moore Lloyd, a photographer who has worked to document elders and other members of Native American tribes in the US. The second is Carron Little, co-founder of the public performance art series Out of Site. And the third is Meida Teresa McNeal, co-founder of Honey Pot Performance. Together, I'll talk about how each person's work interacts and fosters community.
I've learned a great deal of important things about getting good tape for the radio. THere's a big difference between oral history tape and radio tape. One of the books on oral histories says that while you want to make sure when you are clear that you are recording with the person you are interviewing, you should position the tape so they don't see it. But you want to make sure you can still see it, so you can make sure it is still recording. Radio is much more upfront and close with this. You should wear your earphones into the recorder and position the recorder close in front of them. Very different. I've also learned to think about what non-verbal noises that you can get, like the sound of someone showing photos, or showing a camera. Very neat. I've also learned that editing tape with music in the background is hard. If you make cuts, the music may not align in the cuts and it will sound weird.
In the past three weeks, I've been working to collect additional audio for the radio piece. I've meet with two of the artists already and will be meeting the third artist this week. It's helped me get better sounding tape and also to hone in on the part of their work that I'll be talking about. I've also been helped by Out of Site who has let me use the audio they've collected. I've also gotten permission from Ballenarca, one of the performance art groups from last year, to use the music from their amazing puppet whale piece. (Check out more here: http://www.ballenarca.com).
