🚀 go-pugleaf

This article is from:

Radio Resistor's Bulletin #9
 D E C E M B E R , 1 9 9 4
Copy and redistribute freely,
      Copyright 1994

For info about RRB, contact:

Frank Haulgren, Editor
PO Box 3038
Bellingham, WA  98227-3038
E-mail  haulgren@well.com


*    *    *    *    *    *    *     *

THE QUICK START RADIO PROJECT
    Teaching Native American kids hands-on radio production.

 By Jayme and Milt Lee

   There has been a great deal of interest  in  the  Quick  Start
training  program  that  we have been working on for the past six
months.  Here, to give people more of a sense of it, is  a  brief
diary of the first trial run of the program.

   Quick Start is a five day blitz training in radio writing  and
production  techniques.  The goal of the project is to expand the
number of voices being heard on community radio, particularly In-
dian Radio, by offering an intensive hands-on production workshop
for both station staff and community members.  While this program
was in the planning stages, we received a call from an adolescent
program in northern California called Bright Futures.  They want-
ed  to  know if we ever do training.  (Funny you should ask!)  We
told them about Quick Start ideas and they agreed to be the  test
group.

   The first Quick Start Training was held in Hoopa,  California,
a  small  reservation  community,   from  June  20-24, 1994.  The
group, loosely assembled, consisted of two  station  people  from
KIDE Radio, six students ranging from 6th to 12th grade, two com-
munity members (a social studies teacher and a youth coordinator)
and  finally,  the  two  coordinators  of  the program. The kids,
through Bright Futures, had been involved  in  a  radio  club  in
which  they scripted "Teen View" pieces and aired them on the ra-
dio.  The station, KIDE, as is true with many Indian  Radio  sta-
tions, airs primarily pre-produced pieces such as National Native
News, live interview and music.  As far as we knew, none  of  the
participating group had actually done "produced" work.

   We had a rough point A to point Z plan of how to proceed  but,
other  than that, we were not sure what to expect.  We were given
three high school classrooms in which to work but, unfortunately,
found  out  the  first day that we could not stay beyond 3:00 pm.
each day.  This report is meant to provide a day  by  day  (some-
times  blow  by blow) report of how the training progressed, what
we learned, and what needs to happen to make future  Quick  Start
trainings even more successful.

Day One

AM:  The morning began with a go around and  an  introduction  to
"produced"  radio  with listening sessions of several short spots
to demonstrate the use of various  elements  such  as  narration,
music and sound effects.  From there we dove right into an energy
building technique known as  "clustering"  for  story  ideas  and
discovered about 20 local story ideas in about six minutes.  Then
each person did their own cluster and stories were selected.   We
talked  about  how  to  define a story, find a hook, and toss out
what isn't relevant.

PM:  Milt instructed the group on  the  use
of  microphones  and  recorders for gathering taped interviews to
use in their stories. He did play back sessions showing how sound
changes  according  to  Mic  placement.  The group was split into
teams to gather their material and sent home to arrange their in-
terviews.

Day Two

AM: Interview how to:  positioning the Mic, establishing  rapport
etc.   And  then  -- pandemonium!  The groups scattered to gather
tape.  We arranged to transport when needed and the  participants
crawled all over that community gathering tape from elders, chil-
dren, frogs -- even a dog.  This took the better part of the day.

PM:   All  in all, it went smoothly.  As people arrived back into
the studio, they were taken directly to recording decks to  begin
their  first  rough edit.  In some instances the story lines were
adjusted or more clearly defined to fit material collected and to
aid  the  first edit.  What is your story?  At this point it felt
like we were going to run out of things to do. Hah!

Day Three

AM:  There was a wonderful magic at work on this  day.  Everybody
was organized around the same goals--to complete their first edit
and to transcribe the material to paper. People worked  very  in-
tensely  --  even  when  the work was hard. One man who had never
been at a computer spent three hours transcribing his  own  tape.
They  helped  each other listen for hot tape, transcribe material
and shared ideas.  It was remarkable.  For the most part,  every-
body  ended  the  day with a transcript and a rough edit ready to
begin their scripts. One or  two  people  were  already  building
script.

Day Four

AM:  Began with a classroom session on writing a script,  use  of
narration, how to organize the material.  After this, instruction
was flexible. Some scripts were assembled quickly in groups of  2
or three, and others, well, a couple, never were assembled.  Milt
began working with each person as they finished their scripts  to
begin  cutting  tape.   The morning flew by and production began.
The pressure was intensified by the invitation from  the  station
manager  at  KIDE  to  go "live" on the air on Friday at 3:00 pm.

PM: After a frustrating time of teaching tape cutting, we  organ-
ized  the group for another classroom session on using an editing
block and marking and splicing the edits.  The task was very dif-
ficult for some, and just plain boring for others.  They groaned,
cussed, cut tape, recut tape, and littered the floor in  a  great
way.   The  tension  grew  as the deadline approached.  Milt took
pictures of people dozing over equipment.  It was hard.   It  was
wonderful.   By  now  everybody was fully engaged by the process.
Each person recorded their narration and prepared to assemble the
final show.

Day Five

AM:  The final day was intense.  One by one the shows were assem-
bled  and  mixed while others finished narration or walked around
coveting their tape awaiting their turn.  The clock moved  toward
the  3:00  deadline.   The  tension was doubled by the fact that,
once again, we could not stay late but had to have all  equipment
packed  and out also by 3:00pm. Not an easy task with nine crates
of sensitive equipment. But, the tension was  punctuated  by  the
pride  and  excitement  as  we played aloud each completed piece.
Everybody applauded.

PM:  At 2:40 Milt did a final mix on all of
the pieces (8 in all) and we loaded boxes into the van like crazy
people and raced to the radio station.  The group was waiting for
us  grinning  ear to ear and swearing they wouldn't "talk" on the
radio if we asked them questions.  We had not had a single moment
to prepare the live show but were feeling victorious and went for
it.  All around the community the friends and families  of  these
great new producers were sitting in their homes tuned to KIDE Ra-
dio waiting for the show to begin. Frank,  the  station  manager,
slapped  our tape on, assembled us all in the studio and the show
went on.  We introduced each producer and their pieces, told  fun
stories  from  the  week and interviewed them.  Everybody talked!
They were GREAT!  The show was followed  by  a  barbecue  at  our
host's house and a final wrap on the first Quick Start Training.

   So, there is the play by play.  We,  as  trainers,  learned  a
great  deal  from  this first run of a great idea.  We learned to
demand space with no time limits, we learned that we needed  more
equipment  and,  most  of all, we learned that the process really
works!

   However, one of the  trickiest  questions  with  any  kind  of
training  is  "what  are  the longer reaching effects?"  We don't
want Quick Start to be a dead end.  A great  deal  of  evaluation
has  expanded the project to include more than just the community
based training.  Prior to the community training, two people from
the  participating station will attend a pretraining in the Black
Hills.  This will be followed by the on site community  training.
Assistance  will  be given to provide a fully equipped production
space for new producers.  We also are working on an advanced fol-
low  up  training.   We  realize  that  five days may be a "quick
start" but the real results will emerge from the long range  men-
torship of new producers.

   Milt and Jayme Lee are independent producers from Rapid
   City, South Dakota.  They have been working in radio for
     five years and have won three Golden Reel Awards for
                 their documentary projects.
         They can be reached in SD at 605-341-4232
                E-mail:      miltlee@well.com.



_______________________________________________________________
AMARC - association mondiale des radiodiffuseurs communautaires
          world association of community radio broadcasters
             asociacion mundial de radios comunitarias
3575 boul. St. Laurent, Suite 704        Tel: +(1-514) 982-0351
Montreal, Quebec                         Fax: +(1-514) 849-7129
Canada  H2X 2T7                        Email: amarc@web.apc.org
_______________________________________________________________