It’s 2020, and podcasting continues to gather interest from makers that may not identify as audio professionals. Podcasts are usually compared to their neighbors in sound: music, news, and short documentaries that transport you to places unknown. But, in the midst of the podcast boom, there’s a method of audio-making that hasn’t quite captured the current zeitgeist of industry attention – the often obscure, conceptual and artistic approaches to making audio.

Over the course of three days, the theme of PLOT/PLAN/PLAY will be considered through guest presentations, listening sessions, discussions, daily group and individual exercises, case studies and work-in-progress critiques. This workshop will offer participants technical tools and skill sets for navigating the podcasting revolution and finding their own path in this emergent medium.

In this workshop, we will channel and meld the creatively adventurous with the technical sensibilities of navigating a maturing (now) moneyed industry, through the lens of conceptual artist and lead instructor, James T. Green. Abstraction will be celebrated. Journeys will be encouraged. Formulas will not be lectured. Participants will explore left of center ways of thinking about craft, creating audio-first stories, interviewing, editing, mixing, script writing and enhancing the artistry of their work – no matter the genre.

An exceptional group of seasoned practitioners from the radio and podcast industry— public radio reporters, sound designers, producers, and editors will help participants develop their audio practice and podcasting vision. Guest artists include Chiquita Paschal (Gimlet Media, BuzzFeed), Gretta Cohn (Founder, Transmitter Media),  Adriene Lilly (The Blind Tourist, WNYC) and Ariana Martinez (Prism: Tales of Your City, BBC Radio).

This workshop is three days; please only enroll if you can commit to the entire schedule. Everyone will be invited to present their podcast project to lead instructor James T. Green and to the group during students’ presentations. In preparation for this short presentation, an audio (or written) work sample will be requested prior to the workshop.

10:00a

Warm up, inspiring references, case study, eye training.

10:30a

Presentation by guest speaker + individual work-in-progress critique

11:45a

Discussion

12:30p

Share / Discussion / Exercise

1:00p

Lunch (on your own)

2:00p

Presentation by guest speaker + individual work-in-progress critique

3:15p

Discussion

4:00p

Workshop Exercise + Critique

5:00p

Wrap Up

James T. Green is a conceptual artist uninterested in mediums.

By trade, James is a producer at Transmitter Media. Previously, he was a producer at Gimlet Projects, the Director of Audio at The Outline, and a graduate Lecturer at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He’s been an artist-in-resident at Third Coast, The University of Chicago Arts Incubator, Chicago Artists Coalition, and ACRE. Outside of art-making, James is an aspiring competitive powerlifter.

Gretta Cohn, founder of Transmitter Media, has more than a decade of experience creating strong story-driven shows that start conversations. Podcasts she and her team have made include Finding Fred, the Webby-winning “Six Who Sat” episode of 30 for 30, WorkLife with Adam Grant and The Argument.

Prior to founding Transmitter, she was Executive Producer and head of new show development at Earwolf and Midroll Media (one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative” Companies, 2016), where she developed and launched numerous podcasts, including: award-winning iTunes #1 show Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People, iTunes ‘Best of’ pick Katie Couric and Issa Rae’s Fruit.

Previously, she was a producer for the well-loved Freakonomics Radio podcast and WNYC’s music show Soundcheck. She has taught radio/podcast production to graduate students in the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at NYU. She’s also a cellist and a former member of the band Cursive.

Adriene Lilly is an audio producer, editor and radio artist. She produces The Blind Tourist on WFMU, helps to maintain the public-access style Long Live the New Sound and has created radio features that have aired on Earlid, Constellations, Re:Sound and others.

Ariana Martinez is an artist of the Puerto Rican diaspora making images, objects, and audio documentary. Their practice investigates the impact of geography, architecture, and infrastructure on individual and collective experience.

Ariana uses responsive processes—like life drawing, audio field recording and oral history, mapping, replication and reenactment—to engage with the ecological, cultural, and historical facets of natural landscapes and built environments. Through repeated engagement with their surroundings, Ariana works toward a collaborative dialog that responds to each place’s existing qualities, systems, memory, and imagination.

Chiquita Paschal is an award-winning audio journalist and podcast editor with NPR’s Story Lab. She was previously a producer for Gimlet Media’s Uncivil, which won a Peabody award in 2018. Additionally, she has made podcasts with Pushkin Industries, Panoply, Essence, Crooked Media and Buzzfeed; served as an NEA Media Arts grant panelist in 2017-2018; helped launch PRX’s flagship Podcast Garage in 2016; and was an Executive Fellow at CPB in 2013 where she conducted original research and analysis about the the potential of podcasts to bring more diverse and digitally savvy audiences to public media. She is currently working on her first book, Audiocraft: The Art and Business of Making Podcasts that Mean Something, (Routledge, 2021).