Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids #3 was fun, packed

I’m a little late posting this, seeing as the event was almost two weeks ago, but I have to say: the third Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids was an awful lot of fun.

It was also well-attended. Some might say a little too well-attended.

Thanks no doubt to some pimping by Torontoist, BlogTO, and Here and Now, a lot of people showed up.  So many people, in fact, that we spilled into the side of the Victory that lacked sightlines to the stage.

I think perhaps we have outgrown our home at the Victory Cafe, lovely as it is (especially after the new bar installation). I’m afraid the next event will probably have to take place elsewhere, unless we can reconfigure the newly-reconfigured room. Speaking of the next event, it will probably happen in early-ish 2008, probably February or March.  If anyone has suggestions for a slightly larger venue, please leave them here or drop me a line.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the event, either to read or to listen.

It’s a real treat to see this thing start to take off.

The In-Between Stuff of Radio Shows

Over at the Adaptive Path blog, Dan Saffer has an interesting post called The In-Between Stuff Matters. It’s about product and interface design, but I think it’s particularly (and maybe unintentionally) relevant to making radio.

[N]ow, with increased processor speeds, new interaction paradigms, and richer interactions possible on most platforms, the in-between stuff–transitions, animations, interaction logic, the connective tissue between features and content, how everything fits together–is becoming ever more important. One could argue that this is where the experience design flourishes the most.

I couldn’t agree more, especially when the experience is radio.

On Spark, we’re trying really hard to make the show’s connective tissue live up to its content. That comes in the form of story treatments, editing techniques, music choices, sound design, scripts, segues, and all the other tiny little bits that go into making a radio program. Dan says :

Features will eventually be copied and become obsolete. Right now, someone is out there copying your features! But the experience of using your product is significantly harder to duplicate.

Replace “features” with “stories” and it all starts to makes sense.

Quirks and Quarks and Radio Lab are both public radio shows about science and discovery, but they’re entirely different listening experiences.

Outfront and This American Life are both public radio shows that often include intimate, first-person storytelling, but again, they’re entirely different listening experiences.

Why? It’s the in-between stuff that matters.

Why radio?

For some reason today, I was on Wikipedia, looking at the entry for Radio documentary. And I came across this rather lovely quote from Helmut Kopetzky:

Staring red-eyed at the mirror in front of me, having spent another day and half of the night with my computer, I ask myself fundamental questions: Why radio? Why documentary? Answer: No other medium can provide me with more freedom of creation and investigation. It meets my urgent interest in reality and the desire for a ‘musical’ expression. The material (der Werkstoff) is sound. And sound always surrounds us. And: I’m not so much interested in the description of stable situations, but in processes. Our medium is not space, but time; our stories are not glued to the ground, but have motion, life … That’s why!

Kopetzky desire for “musical expression” reminded me of something I heard earlier this week. As I walked to work on Monday, I listened to Radio Lab‘s Making Radio Lab podcast, which draws heavily on their excellent Musical Language episode.  In it,

Jad geeks out on the nitty-gritty of digital sound editing, and Robert discusses the editorial questions raised in creating imaginative soundscapes. Film-editor Walter Murch weighs in on the components of storytelling.

If you’re a fan of the show, or at all interested in making radio, this is required listening.

Miro reaches 1.0

It’s been a long time coming, but Miro (nee Democracy) has finally reached 1.0.

This magical piece of software has almost single-handedly changed the way I watch television.

Congratulations!

New Grownups Read Things… website

In anticipation of Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids 3 on November 19, I started a new blog for the event at read.danmisener.com