Jun 20, 2016 at 8:00 am – Jun 24, 2016 at 5:00 pm
Full Spectrum Storytelling Intensive Summer 2016
With Audrey Quinn, Amanda Aronczyk, Sean Cole, Von Diaz, Celeste LeCompte, Jonathan Mitchell, Sruthi Pinnamaneni and Christopher Allen
Is your skillset stretching to its full dynamic range?
Would a prism of expert experience help
your story find its true colors?
Explore our Full Spectrum Storytelling Intensive.
AIR’s Full Spectrum Storytelling Intensives started with Localore and Makers Quest 2.0, two experiments in public media that challenged a handful of talented, creative producers to come up with new ways of finding and telling stories.
In 2016, award-winning indie producer Audrey Quinn (Marketplace, Planet Money), will lead workshops with guest instructors: Amanda Aronczyk (WNYC), Sean Cole (This American Life), Von Diaz (StoryCorps), Celeste LeCompte (ProPublica), Jonathan Mitchell (Radiotopia’s The Truth/Studio 360), Sruthi Pinnamaneni (Gimlet) and Christopher Allen (UnionDocs).
These audio-first intensives were designed by AIR in partnership with UnionDocs to expose producers to a broad range of approaches to storytelling and to an expanded set of technical skills.
Over the course of a week, a team of accomplished instructors drawn from public broadcast journalism, independent media, and media art will take up to 14 producers on an excursion through storytelling to sound processing to interactive design and more. Applications are competitive; a travel stipend is available to members of AIR’s network who win entry to Full Spectrum.
Details
Full Spectrum has a competitive application process. We are looking for mid-career producers and story-first technologists from all walks of the media industry and beyond who have demonstrable skills in digital sound gathering, editing and mixing.
Filmmakers and those whose primary focus has been print, visual or moving image are strongly encouraged to attend, as well.
AIR membership is not required, though AIR members are eligible for a small travel stipend. A work sample is required with your application.
Please note: Participants *will not* be producing a piece during the week. Focus is on listening and discussion.
$350 early bird registration by November 14th, 2016 at 5PM.
$400 regular registration.
The deposit is non-refundable. Should you need to cancel, you’ll receive half of your registration fee back until November 14th. After November 14th, the fee is non-refundable.
In order to keep costs down, this workshop is a BYOL, i.e. bring your own laptop. Students must be fully proficient using and operating their computers.
To register for a workshop, students must pay in full via PayPal. After the early bird registration deadline of November 14th, course fees are not refundable or transferable and any withdrawals or deadlines will result in the full cost of the class being forfeit. There will be no exceptions. To withdraw from a course please email info-at-uniondocs.org.
In the event that a workshop does not receive sufficient enrollment, it may be canceled. Students will be notified at least 48 hours prior to the start of a cancelled workshop and will be refunded within 5 business days. If we reschedule a workshop to another date, students are also entitled to a full refund. UnionDocs reserves the right to change instructors without prior notification, and to change class location and meeting times by up to an hour with 48 hours prior notice.
Please note: Participants are accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Schedule
Monday, June 20, 2016: 10am
Monday: TELLING STORIES WITH SOUND
To begin the intensive, we’ll get our ears and minds primed for the week, starting with inspirational listening and a discussion about what keeps us engaged and coming back for more. In the afternoon session, WNYC’s Amanda Aronczyk will take an advanced look at the ways we both listen and hear, and explore why radio is uniquely situated for storytelling
AM: Audrey Quinn, lead instructor
PM: Amanda Aronczyk (WNYC)
Tuesday, June 21, 2016: 10 am
Tuesday: PODCASTING AND INTERACTIVE, INTENSIVE WORKSHOPPING
In the morning, “This American” Life producer Sean Cole will explore next-level interviewing, from writing questions that might end up in the final piece to inserting yourself in the story. In the afternoon session, we’ll dissect our own and each other’s work in an intensive workshop.
AM: Sean Cole (This American Life)
PM: Intensive Peer Workshopping
Wednesday, June 22, 2016: 10 am
Wednesday: On DATA, AND IDENTITY
In the morning session, Von Diaz tackles best practices for weaving personal experiences and voice into your reporting, as well as reporting on cultures that are not our own. In the afternoon, ProPublica’s Celeste LeCompte brings practical approaches to multimedia data reporting, and how to develop new lines of revenue from newsroom projects.
AM: Von Diaz (StoryCorps)
PM: Celeste LeCompte (ProPublica)
Thursday, June 23, 2016: 10am
Thursday: TELLING DIFFICULT STORIES
In the morning, Sruthi Pinnamaneni looks into the stories that give us pause. Why do we tell them, and how? Which tools and techniques should we apply? The afternoon offers a second intensive workshop, and a look at how we could apply techniques learned in the prior sessions.
AM: Sruthi Pinnamaneni (Gimlet’s Reply All)
PM: Intensive Peer Workshopping
Friday, June 24, 2016: 10 am
Friday: A SENSE OF PLACE
UnionDocs’ Christopher Allen leads the last day with an exploration of how to tell high-impact stories about a community, using many voices over a long period of time. To close the workshop, Jonathan Mitchell will share techniques he uses in his podcast, “The Truth,” from scoring music, to composing scenes with sound, to mixing.
AM: Christopher Allen (UnionDocs)
PM: Jonathan Mitchell (Radiotopia’s The Truth/Studio 360)
Each day follows this general structure, with some minor variations and substitutions:
Warm up, inspiring references, case study, ear training.
Presentation by guest speaker + individual work-in-progress critique
Share / Discussion / Exercise
Presentation by guest speaker + individual work-in-progress critique
Workshop Exercise + Critique
AUDREY QUINN is a Brooklyn-based radio journalist and editor. Her investigative work has received awards from the Fund for Investigative Journalism and The Nation Institute’s Investigative Fund, and has been published in the New York Times. She teaches radio at the NYU Journalism School, has been a teaching associate for the Transom Story Workshop, and co-founded the live radio performance event Radio Cabaret. She spent this winter as a guest reporter at NPR’s “Planet Money” podcast.
AMANDA ARONCYZK is a reporter for WNYC and its “Only Human” podcast. Her stories have appeared on NPR, the BBC, “Marketplace,” the CBC, “Reveal,” “On the Media,” “Studio 360” and more. She teaches at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Find her on Twitter @aronczyk.
SEAN COLE is a producer at “This American Life.” He has worked as a producer at “Radiolab,” is a regular contributor to “Marketplace,” and a freelance reporter for many shows and podcasts including “Studio 360” and “99% Invisible.” His career started at WBUR in Boston where he was a news writer, engineer, announcer, field producer, reporter and, finally, a correspondent for the station’s award-winning documentary unit, “Inside Out.”
VON DIAZ is a writer and radio producer based in New York City. She is a self-taught cook who explores Puerto Rican food, culture, and identity through memoir and multimedia. Her work has been featured on NPR, American Public Media,WNYC, PRI’s “The World,” BuzzFeed, “The Splendid Table,” The Southern Foodways Alliance’s “Gravy,” and “Colorlines.” She is a radio producer at StoryCorps. Previously, she was editor of Feet in 2 Worlds, which brings the work of immigrant and ethnic media journalists from communities across the U.S. to public radio and the web. Von holds a dual master’s degree in journalism and Latin American and Caribbean studies from New York University, and a bachelor’s degree in women’s studies from Agnes Scott College. She was born in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia.
CELESTE LeCOMPTE is the director of business development for ProPublica. She previously served on the launch team for Gigaom Research, as the founding editor and the director of product. She co-founded Climate Confidential, a year-long crowdfunded reporting project that examined the intersection of environment and technology in collaboration with national and local media partners. As a 2015 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, LeCompte studied motivations for news consumption, with an eye toward developing new, reader-centric media business models. She has also advised on product development and content strategy for numerous media organizations, nonprofits, and corporate clients. As a journalist, her work focuses on innovation and environmental subjects, often in combination.
JONATHAN MITCHELL is the producer of “The Truth,” a podcast on Radiotopia that makes short films without pictures. He has contributed a wide range of work—documentaries, fictional stories, non-narrated sound collages, and original music—to all sorts of programs: “Radiolab,” “Studio 360,” “All Things Considered,” “Planet Money,” “This American Life,” and PBS’s “Nova,” to name a few. His work has won many awards, including the Peabody, Third Coast Festival, the Sarah Lawrence College International Audio Fiction Award, and the Gold Mark Time Award for Best Science Fiction Audio. He studied music composition at the University of Illinois and Mills College, and lives in New York City.
SRUTHI PINNAMANENI is a producer at Gimlet Media’s “Reply All.” Her work has aired on “Radiolab,” “Studio 360,” “Marketplace” and “Love + Radio.” She worked on the award-winning feature film “Kumare,” and, as an audio/video correspondent at The Economist, she traveled between cities and villages in India to produce a series on rural education and the informal economy in slums. Sruthi grew up in South India, and has a degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two sons.
CHRISTOPHER ALLEN is a founder of UnionDocs and is currently the Artistic Director. After graduating from Columbia University and studying at Trinity College Dublin, Allen worked as a social entrepreneur, documentary director, and new media artist. His individual works and collaborative projects have been exhibited at the MoMA, Harvard’s Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, the Volksbühne Theatre, DirektorenHaus in Berlin, Independent Film Week, Sonár, DIVA, and Conflux Festivals, among many other venues. He directed the interactive documentary Capitol of Punk, which was part of “Design and the Elastic Mind” at the Museum of Modern Art, and he is currently in post-production on the feature Diamond Vehicle, shot in Tibet, China, Nepal, and India. Christopher was founding-partner of Counts Media, and played a leading role in the invention and execution of many art & entertainment concepts there, such as The Ride NY, a live theatrical and cinematic experience on the streets of the city, and Yellow Arrow, a place-based storytelling project exhibited online and in galleries and museums internationally.
