NPR came to Columbia
I had the fortune of participating in the NPR storytelling workshop. Two trainers from NPR visited campus to meet with a group of six enthusiastic radio students. I had some great takeaways from the day-long workshop. We spent the first part of the day talking about what made a good radio story, which went back to what made a good story period. This meant really honing in on the focus of a story including the characters, setting, tension and bigger idea of a story. They suggested writing a clear focus statement initially to guide the direction of the story. The focus statement should answer the question : Why should I care?
The next aspect of the storytelling workshop was the anatomy of a radio story. This included adding drama by revealing a bit to us at a time through surprise and emotion. In addition this was including scenes with action to take the listener through the story. These elements will keep the story moving throughout. This will also give the listeners an idea of being there. What I found most helpful was gathering audio like a movie director gathers shots including going far back and getting an establishing shot (of audio), and also getting close to get discreet actions.
Then it goes down to crafting of the story once the sound is gathered and the story is focused. According to the workshop, we feel emotion, we do not feel facts. This includes when shaping this story, it is necessary to choose the best cuts of audio. What I enjoyed was how the NPR folks said it was okay to mic yourself as the reporter and get every reaction (including your own) to include an element of surprise. Sure it doesn’t work every time for every story, but if you are surprised as a reporter, then it’s probably pretty darn cool.
We also went to Shakespeare’s Pizza to gather audio and then return to turn a feature story on the local pizza joint. It was fun to see how everyone did a different story in the same location. Overall, the experience was so cool, and I was glad that I was able to participate and NPR decided to come to Columbia, Missouri to train.