Well I finally was able to see the inside of a radio station and it was very informative. The purpose of my visit is Dave Ballack and his wife Cathy has produced a pilot called Story Mine. They are collecting a bunch of stories from various tellers in the hopes that the PBS station will want to go accept the pilot and there can be a regular program of storytelling.
I heard about it on Thursday at the Timp Teller’s meeting and called the same night before I either procrastinated or chickened out. My appointment was for 5:30 the following Tuesday. During that period I have been frantically reducing longer stories to be shorter and new stories. I really need to make myself take more time in preparing for something. Cathy made a good suggestion that I join Toast Masters and that will help me reduce an overabundance of Ahhh in my stories. A second contribution to some shaky quality on my end was inadequate practice. I really need to work on procrastination when working on new material and several stories met that condition. I’ll do that later.
They seemed to like the variety and the personal stories. They like that I’m animated. They should see me when I eat chocolate.
After I would tell a story, Dave would comment on the story and give a personal experience. At first I didn’t know how I should respond. Then I thought that I would just respond to what he is saying and we get a little interaction that way. I’ll be interested to see how I presented myself in that regard. I was smiling a lot so I hope that could be ‘heard’ when I talked. They plan to give me an edited version of my stories at some point. That will be exciting.
Things I learned.
-Tell stories better when you’re standing because you’re more inclined to put energy into it.
-It’s good to have the mic about six inches from your mouth.
-When you know you’re going to get at a loud section of your story, turn your mouth away from the mic.
-The sections of the sound waves show little movement indicate where they might be able to cut pauses and ahhs.
-I had key phrases highlighted so I could find them easier.
-The radio station had a code lock to help monitor and control who enters the station.
-On recordings you can fix bobos. They mark when a mistake is made and I just say it over.
-You introduce yourself on each new story so each tale may be used as a stand-alone story.
-Leave early to give yourself plenty of time to find the site you’re visiting. This time my GPS found it but often its dropped the ball.
Dave and Cathy were very kind and helpful. It was an informative experience.
Please feel free to give your experiences and suggestions when working on a sound state. Please respond to this topic in the comment section of the blog/site.
