Radio documentaries are fun to make. Pitch, pitch, pitch until you get to do one. I'm having the best time right now putting together a draft of my story with the producer. I can't say it's not a lot of work and I can't say I'd have been able to do it without help, but I am learning a lot. The thing about doing this is that I'm not just learning about radio, I'm learning about story-telling. So a lot of what we're doing I can carry into my writing.Yesterday, the main task was to sort through the tape that I flagged when I was organizing the rough draft of the structure, decide on the order of the various bits, and then cut, cut, cut until we ended up with about 20 minutes of tape (the final product will be 13). Watching it take shape through the day was so exciting, just like watching your story emerge when you're writing. Considering I started off last month with over 500 minutes of tape, and even in the initial narrowing down still had over 90 minutes, getting down to 20 streamlined the possibilities and nailed the one thread that the story will follow. I'm listening to it right now and, just as with a written story, I can see what is needed, what is working, and what needs to be edited down or edited out. You just have to love the creative process!
At the end of the day, I thought I had time to go yarn shopping before meeting a friend for dinner. But Romni Wools has such a terrible website that I got the times completely wrong and thought it was open until 8. As it turns out, it is only open until 8 on Thursdays. So arriving at 5:55, just as they were about to close up, was kind of disappointing but saved me a fair chunk of change since I could feel that adrenaline rush starting as I began to do that thing where you run the different strands of yarn between your fingers, squeeze the different balls, do the mental calculations of how much you need and how much it will cost...
I had a great dinner with a friend who is a professional writer, the first one who ever encouraged me to pursue writing as a career. Now this morning, since her husband works in the newsroom at the CBC, I'm getting a tour of the newsroom before I start work on the documentary.
The building on the corner with the red trim is the CBC, and the tower in the background is the CN Tower. I took that pic on my way to the yarn store yesterday. The weather was just stupendous. People were even sitting in outdoor cafes on Queen Street yesterday (it's kind of relative; in September or October it would have seemed way too cold for that, but in March, it's like wow, what a balmy day).
4 comments:
Yea! Glad it's going so well. Radio and writing are VERY similar, especially the editing process. Remember, you're the only one who knows what you cut--your audience doesn't.
When's it going to air???????????????????????????????
This sounds great! I'm so psyched for you! And we'll all have to look at this post in the next few weeks when we're not all so high on the creative process.
Not sure when it airs. Depends. If we get it done in April, it might air in May. But if we don't, then it might wait until the fall since Outfront does re-runs for a bit in the summer.
Oh, so very very exciting, ti. I definitely want to hear about all this business as D is working (on and off) on a radio documentary project as well- not pitched yet. Your process sounds so exciting. It kind of makes me want to work with him on it. I bet it took you a while to get through all that tape! Can't wait to hear your final product.
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