Since we’re exploring the use of sound in our next assignment, there’s no better place to start than the people behind podcasts. Specifically, the men behind the scenes of producing Radiolab. The video below shows how the idea of Radiolab came about and a brief background of the company, and what they do.

And in another online project that was brought to my attention by another course that I’m taking, Histories of Film Theory, called, This American Life, uses podcasts to raise awareness about current affairs in America, with a slightly more serious, and to some extent , an experimental approach. Both of these sites employ the use of sound effects heavily. Since there isn’t any visuals to go along with the sound, they are left with an black canvas to paint an entire picture for the listener to imagine or picture what they are trying to portray, be it a conspiracy theory, or just an informative 101 sound bite on how to make a pancakes (for example, I don’t actually think they made a podcast solely on how to make pancakes, but who knows). The thing is, sound can really play a very big role in storytelling, something that a lot of us disregard. The use of volume, panning, reverb, and more can help drive a simple emotion. I guess these are some of the things that are worth exploring in our upcoming project work.

In Thursday’s class, Hannah gave us an interesting article worth looking up called, “Theorizing Documentaries”, by Michael Renov. I shared with her how I thought the “Interactive documentary: setting the field” reading reminded me of Bill Nichol’s 6 Mode of Documentary , where every documentary film embodies either 1 or more of the modes that Nichols has defined. However, in “Theorizing Documentaries”, where Renov explains the fundamental tendencies of documentary, focuses more on why the documentary is made. The implication it carries, the very motivation of why the documentarian chose to do what he is doing. Contrary to Aston and Gaudenzi, or Nichols, where they analyse and define more on how the documentary is being made and presented, instead of why. This really shot an arrow into a new direction for the group to focus on why are we doing this project, and what sort of outcome we want out from it, perhaps to provoke, prompt, emote, or cue, the list goes on. The outcome from making the project, is just as important as the outcome we want the users to react or feel. Something which I think, we might have overlooked in our previous assignment.