Recently, I was lucky enough to find myself sitting in a production session for the upcoming ABC Radio National program to be broadcast on 360documentaries, New Beginnings. New Beginnings is a project housed within ABC Pool and is the latest co-creative production asking for contributions that express “your stories, your experiences and your emotions when you’ve gone through a new beginning” (Williams 2011). A co-creative project is one that incorporates the expertise of ABC staff with the expertise and participation of the audience, most times ABC Pool members within this type of arrangement. I was in the studio to observe the recording process of a contribution made by one ABC Pool member, Sam. She submitted Trying to Please, her story of a new life beginning after her relationship failed and she moved to “the big smoke”, Sydney.
The production process of a co-creative radio feature is lengthy and very labour intensive. Most times, it involves a call out through ABC Pool, on-air promotion on the Radio National network, creative contributions from ABC Pool members, and curation and selection of those contributions for potential broadcast by the radio producer. The process then requires the recording of those selections, their compilation within a 53 minute feature, mixing, mastering, and finally broadcast. This blog post and video is captured during a recording of one contribution.
Broadly speaking, what I found interesting was how the session was easy-going and almost flat in hierarchy; that is an open creative approach to the production with very little ego to manage between traditional positions within the studio environment (producer/engineer/talent). Mike Williams, the producer, has a fresh and open approach to making radio features and displayed qualities consistent with a co-creative producer – a producer that has a clear and concise understanding of the programming requirements of the ABC but is open to direction from participants (Sam). What I observed was clear direction from Mike to Sam that guided her performance in a way that will position this smaller production session within the larger feature.
That clear direction is also present within the production of all ABC radio features – it is what makes them so successful. However within this piece, what I also observed was the reciprocation of emotional and creative input from Sam to Mike. As this was Sam’s story, she was able to convey the emotion she was going through within the piece to Mike. In turn, Mike was able to direct Sam on how best to perform that emotion:
This video was shot just after Sam had given her first read of the script. To my understanding it sounded amazing and I could instantly hear her work broadcast on Radio National. However to Mike’s ear, who had the bigger picture and editing process in mind, he needed words said in a particular way, pauses at certain intervals, and words with inflections and emotions. The video above demonstrates the point when the participant realises that what they thought was acceptable for the ABC is in fact not. Although Sam’s performance was very good, there is still a gap between what is broadcasting quality for the ABC, and what ABC Pool users perceive to be acceptable. The position Mike is fulfilling here is the facilitator that aids in bridging this creative gap.
At the time of writing, this production is still in the compilation stage.
What a great post Jonathan!
Thanks for sharing an insight into things that can be tricky to find on video, like
- what happens in a radio booth recording!
- a radio producer working collaboratively with a contributor
- ABC Radio National working with contributors from the community
and thanks for sharing the ‘behind the scenes’ process of what can happen with POOL contributions after they’re submitted to the website. It’s always good to see the offline life of an online project!
I have a different interpretation of one point, and I’m interested to see what you think…
“The video above demonstrates the point when the participant realises that what they thought was acceptable for the ABC is in fact not. Although Sam’s performance was very good, there is still a gap between what is broadcasting quality for the ABC, and what ABC Pool users perceive to be acceptable. ”
From watching the video, I saw the process of Mike, the producer, asking Sam to perform in a certain way, leaving pauses etc, as being about his aesthetic choices rather than making her performance ‘broadcast quality’ , though of course they’re related.
He could just as well have asked her to speed the words up, if he wanted the piece to have a different pace. Or he could have inserted the pauses himself in the editing process?
Maybe I’ve misunderstood what was happening in the video? Please let me know if I have… but how could Sam from POOL perceive that saying her words at a certain pace or in a certain style is “broadcast quality” or not?
What does “broadcast quality” mean, what are its facets?
It’s a really interesting question, especially for user generated content and the contributor’s expectations.
I think it’s easier for a community contributor to understand “broadcast quality” as about a certain technical standard and about the quality of storytelling.
But talking about an aesthetic or style baseline for broadcast isn’t so easy – you don’t want to infringe on people’s creativity, and people working in the media and RN have differing aesthetic ideas about “broadcast quality” too.
How can a contributor better understand what is “broadcast quality” and how can we, working with people (I work for ABC Open), communicate this better and help people improve their contributions for RN and ABC broadcast, if that’s what they’d like?
Anyway, thanks for your post for getting me thinking about this, and thanks again for sharing the nitty-gritty and behind the scenes of the co-creative process.
Jane
Hi Jane,
Fantastic response! And really thought provoking – I’ll try to respond as best I can…
Perhaps “broadcast quality” is a problematic term – perhaps it should be program quality? Or to even drop the term quality all together and use requirements? So then we can replace the term “broadcast quality” with “program requirements” to be more inclusive of all the production elements.
Thinking about it a little more now, broadcast quality could easily be interpreted as the technical requirements. What I am suggesting is a term to encompass a combination of technical, creative, and performance facets. Sure, Sam would have little idea of what Mike wants from her performance until she is performing in front of him. So all she could have done was to give it her best and then wait for a response/direction from Mike. The technical aspect is taken care of by Phil (Engineer) in this case, giving superb recording quality to that production element. All that remains are the creative elements…
What I also observed during this session (which I really wish I recorded) was Sam offering editorial suggestions (maybe interpreted as creative elements?). And that’s what I thought was really interesting because the concept that Mike was working with was challenged. The challenge is not at all in a negative sense, but in a collaborative format. Since Sam wrote the piece, she has the best perspective on what it is meant to be. When her vision is combined with Mike’s bigger picture, the outcome was really amazing to observe.
“How can a contributor better understand what is “broadcast quality” and how can we, working with people (I work for ABC Open), communicate this better and help people improve their contributions for RN and ABC broadcast, if that’s what they’d like?”
I really don’t know how to communicate this well with contributors yet, but I can confirm a shift occurs when contributors work closely with ABC producers. Maybe we can’t communicate this understanding and that’s OK. Maybe it is a permanent filtering process that’s done by ABC producers in collaboration with community cultural development people? This is an area for further experiment and research I think.
So in a long form of answering, (assuming broadcast quality is replaced with production elements), production elements are a combination of technical, creative and performance, and that relates to the broadcasting agenda of the ABC. Does that sound right to you? And in a co-creative arrangement, the creative element is the core collaborative activity for a program, and that’s what audience and producers can explore in a dynamic way.
Really interested in your thoughts on this Jane, and thanks for leaving such thought provoking response. It’s made me re-think all that I have said and refine what is going on in this video
Jonathon.
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Great post Jonathon; the video in particular is absolutely fascinating on lots of levels. Especially interested in what sound like Sam’s attempts to gain more knowledge and mastery and maintain her sense of authorship in the midst of the process, operating in palpable tension with Mike’s need to get the raw audio materials down in a form that will be most usable *later* in the editing phase, according to the expert routines of radio production, etc etc…
Hey Jean,
Thanks! Watching Mike work in the studio has reinforced the significance of the cultural intermediary within these types of arrangements. Not only do these people need to have the radio production smarts, they also need to know how to work with people who aren’t professionally trained within the professional production environment.The fact that Sam is in the studio gives some merit that her story is interesting enough to appear on a radio production, but how does she maintain the authorship over her work? This is the delicate, yet crucial, skill of these new types of producers and one that is proving fascinating to research further.
Thanks for dropping by
Hi Jonathon,
thanks for this post and opening up what is turning out to be a great discussion thread.
As an ABC Radio producer and ABC Pool community manager I am very supportive of the ethos of co-creation, however not sure how “new” this co-creative producer role you are talking about really is.
The techniques that can be used to facilitate the production and recording of “non-professional” voices are skills that have been long established in radio and other sound media. This requirement regularly presents itself to all radio producers, even in the process of gathering interviews for a feature or a simple voice report. One could say that all voice recordings are conversations of a sort and therefore have some co-creative element.
Other common instances of recording the non professional voice are: listener feedback, asking writers to read their works, readings requiring community accents or languages, non-actor readings needed by a production with limited funds (a all too common situation in public, community, student and start up media alike) In all these instances, advice and direction is commonly given by the producer to the reader; slow down, pause, speak up, please restate or rephrase the sentence, say it with a smile, etc
It’s my feeling that the creation of media that involves a group has always had the potential to be a co-creative process. The amount of input each individual has varies of course, higher budgets, larger editorial “quality” expectations as well as more complex and hence constrained work flows in TV and cinema productions tend to bring restrictions and hierarchies of creative control. Radio with it’s small teams, low budgets and fast turnaround has always left more room for flat structures and co-creative ways of working. Perhaps that’s why a talented, flexible producer like Mike Williams has gravitated to the medium.
Similarly, good media producers have always been porous and open to input from people around them including the subjects of their recordings. A novel word or idea, a fresh perspective, a new take on their stale story angle, a different approach to solving some production or design issue all of these are free gifts that open producers are well attuned to and value highly. Much of this input may ultimately be filtered out as you say Johnathon but it’s my experience that most producers will at least consider all input, professional and non-professional alike.
Co-creation is the foundation of good media practice. You could say that a good media producer (or any artistic collaborator) is also like a good ABC Pool project in that they both exhibit a fine balance of being very open to input whilst retaining a strong and clearly expressed editorial/artistic intention.
Thanks once again for opening up this discussion and I look forward to it continuing.
“Radio with it’s small teams, low budgets and fast turnaround has always left more room for flat structures and co-creative ways of working.” Great point John, and perhaps why something like Pool has emerged from within the radio arm of the ABC. And yes I also agree with “Co-creation is the foundation of good media practice” – all too true of some of the most innovative and outstanding productions I can think of. But what is it that is unique about Pool, then?
If the co-creation angle is standard within all creative media production – which to some extent is true – and producers have always sought ideas from those around them, how is a project on Pool different to say something running on Life Matters?
I think the person who is running the project and the level of “flatness” certainly has something to do with it, but you are correct in highlighting the processes aren’t all that different. This is really refreshing when analysing the processes of Pool within radio productions.
Thanks for adding your thoughts in this discussion and widening the focus.
Jonathon.
Hi Jonathon, great post and thread, so glad you’ve thrown out your observations and ideas to get people talking about co-creation which is, as John put it “the foundation of good media practice” (write that down!). Exciting to think this blog post is just a drop of your final thesis’ goodness.
It’s so interesting hearing from a range of producers.
BROADCAST QUALITY
I think Jane nails it on the head. What the hell is broadcast quality? After thinking about this for a while I came up with a simple definition: anything that gets broadcast
Throw “technical, creative, and performance facets” out the window for a second – the level of each of these means nothing if I, Jane or any other producer and therefore the ‘ABC’ deems it worthy of broadcast…
And I think in part this is where the rub comes – 2 out of 3 of the facets Jonathon mentions (creative and performance) are personal and subjective and because of this are very hard to describe. The experience of cutting up and making other radio pieces is what I bring to the table but I’m not bridging the creative gap (I think this gives the wrong idea). I’m getting Sam to try different things to get her best read.
HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT?
John’s comments about this sort of recording (with co-creative elements) not being new are 100% correct, they happen in various shapes daily in the RN studios. I think Jonathon may have focused on this process because he thinks if he can crack the process this will help the pool audience understand why their piece did/didn’t get to air. Is that why Jonathon? I’m just guessing here… What are you looking for and why do you want to know it?
What seems to come up time and time again is the importance of a “flat heirachy” (Hutchinson) or the side by side model I’ve heard John often speak about before. The way the production model is set up informs weather this co-creative heirachy is achieved or not.
With these pool values in mind, I would like to highlight why I think there are some key differences with this project in terms of the traditional process/relationship John described.
* Firstly, I’ll note that the contributor themselves is reading their own work. Granted it’s not so significant when you’re pulling you’re next door neighbour in to read a line from a poem for your doco (which happens everyday at RN). However, when the story is theirs, and it’s a solid 5min story that they’ve written themselves and they’ve never talked into a microphone before… well then it starts to get interesting. This seems like an obvious and easy way to empower the contributor, however to my knowledge it hasn’t happened much before on pool/RN, certainly not for an entire 50min doco.
* When Sam came in we edited the written work together, we sat down with copies of the piece and pens and changed things for the read together, we talked about the background of the story and I tried to learn her intention for writing it. I brought things like “instead of it is, let’s say ‘it’s’ so it sounds more like you’re talking than reading”. Sometimes change in punctuation or structure can change meaning, Sam was there to make sure this didn’t happen.
* This set the tone for the recording (which Jonathon describes). By this point things are relaxed and Sam would know she has an equal say in the work, I throw things at her, she gives them a go. She throws things at me, we’re trying things. Experimenting. It’s an open process. Having options to work with later is very important.
* Tomorrow I’ll be uploading where the audio is at for every story – Sam will be able to have a listen and give ideas on the sound design. She will be able to throw anything at it, even something like “I don’t like how I said that, can you go back and find another version of me saying that?” Throwing the work back at the contributor before the broadcast gives them the opportunity to collaborate. Pool is the platform for this collaboration through comments, messages and the ability to upload revised media.
* It hasn’t been confirmed yet, however we’re hoping to stream the final mix via Ustream allowing anyone to watch what we’re doing and take ideas in real time. Collaboration, with anyone from around the world. EXCITING! …and at the same time busting the doors to how a feature is mixed open to anyone who wants to know.
Communication is vital for collaboration – at every stage the contributor should have the opportunity to give their ideas and properly collaborate. Without this in mind the true, flat heirachy vanishes and all of a sudden the ‘almighty producer’ has all the control. The contributer may feel like they’ve lost ownership and the whole purpose of the project is now in the bin (being a bit extreme here – a purpose/intent varies from project to project and a collaborative, flat project in pool is not always strived for from the outset anyway).
So good of John to raise this point actually because it’s forcing me to realise why, if at all this project is significant. The vid is cool for people who haven’t seen a read in an abc studio before however it’s mainly what happens before and after the read that makes this project worth talking about.
OWNERSHIP
It’s not techniques that are important, technical requirments are obvious elements that the ABC bring…. rather, what should be at the crux of a truly co-creative project and a genuine flat heirachy is attitude and ownership. Allowing this to then inform the production model to make this possible is key.
ABC Pool is a platform that facilitates collaboration, sometimes it’s potential for collaboration is taken advantage of and other times it’s not. I often hear how producers have “curated” work from pool – curating is sometimes a dirty word for me because it gives one person the power, I reckon facilitation implies a better reflection of pool’s values. I would hope the process we’re trying to do with new beginnings is a step in a more open direction however I feel we’ll get better and even ‘flatter’ as time goes on. Whatever happens I’m confident refining the production model of a pool project will be essential in achieving maximum ownership, collaboration and satisfaction for all concerned.
Look forward to hearing what others think – it’s OK if you don’t agree with these ideas!
cheers,
Mike
PS sorry for long post, just love these discussions! Too much to talk about!
Wow Mike. So much to address in that comment! I think the easiest way is to take away some of it and work it into my thesis
There are two things that struck me (apart from, yes I am trying to work out how it all works together to help the Poolies out). Firstly the notion of empowerment is something we seem to run from with these projects, however it is really crucial to the entire process. Yep, the audience/contributor is being empowered through inclusion with the production process, but how many times does this actually happen? It will be good to analyse this when the piece is finished.
Secondly, “curation is sometimes a dirty word”. I’ve never thought of it like this but interesting that you raise the shift of power. I have always, probably through naivety, thought of the curator as the facilitator. Perhaps you are correct though? It is a type of IP theft perhaps? This is really interesting to explore further.
Thanks for commenting and being the focus of this post Mike – it’s made for really great analysis!
Jonathon.
For those interested the third phase of production described above has kicked off and the link to have a listen to the contributions so far is: http://pool.abc.net.au/media/you-are-producer
cheers,
Mike