Audio News – February 2016
It was a busy time for the audio students this February as they began the research for their assignments, gathered some preliminary recordings, and presented their treatment pitches. Not only that, but they were lucky enough to have two inspirational guest speakers from the radio industry visit Stirling to talk about their work.
On 1st February honorary professor Mark Rickards gave a lecture on his role as a senior producer of radio features and documentaries at the BBC, and then spent quite some time answering a variety of questions from both the 3rd and 4th year students. Mark has been a regular visitor to the audio students over the years, and in his session he played lots of clips from a selection of his programme output, stressing the importance of storytelling through compelling content. He also reminded the students that a car is like a mobile studio, and that conducting an interview in such a confined space can help resolve a lot of issues with tricky exterior acoustics!
On 15th February oral historian and radio programme maker, Alan Dein, spoke about his work on BBC Radio 4’s Lives in a Landscape series. Suzy and Janieann have continually encouraged their students to listen to these programmes , so it was a real treat to welcome Alan to Stirling. He played many clips from Lives, as well as several from his other programme series, Don’t Hang Up and Just Off the Plane. He described a lot of his work as impressionistic or constructed features and, like Mark, emphasized how important it is to make people feel comfortable when you are interviewing them. It’s also possible to encourage contributors to “up their performance” within their interviews while still retaining authenticity. Alan also talked about how crucial the first opening seconds are in any feature or documentary, reminding the students that “you don’t need to say a lot, to say a lot”. He later spent around 30 minutes with the 4th year audio documentary students discussing their programme ideas, a fun session that was of huge benefit to the three groups.
On 18th February, Suzy Angus and three of the 4th year audio students attended a lecture by Stirling Art Curator Jane Cameron on the abstract expressionist painter Jon Schueler. It’s 100 years since his birth and several galleries in Scotland will be exhibiting his paintings. To accompany the Stirling exhibition there will be poetry and prose produced by our Creative Writing masters students, while Suzy, Regina Mosch, Martin Rowbottom and Elizabeth Ross will create an audio soundscape inspired by the various themes in the paintings. The exhibition will be displayed in Crush Hall from 2nd April to 29th July.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006rcd7.