“Without Us, It’s Radio”
A famous rallying cry of photographers here on b-roll.net. But after listening to some amazing writing on National Public Radio from shows like This American Life, Planet Money and Radiolab, I have found a lot about storytelling can be learned from the AUDIO ONLY medium. These shows break the mold on the process of telling a linear story.
Back in July, WNYC’s Radiolab did a show about moments of death, called “After Life.” This inspired New York film director, William Hoffman and DP Julius Metoyer, III to produce the video “moments.” Rather than moments of death – this is all about moments of life.
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This is a great work on its own, but I think it shines as an example of capturing great moments. Granted it’s not the framework of your normal TV news story, but it has elements that would help punch up any story.
“Without us, it’s radio” doesn’t hold any water to me. What tells a story better, a radio show, or a silent film? The radio show hands down.
Only including one of our sense perceptions falls short of telling the complete story. Only acknowledging the sound aspect of story telling as the best way of telling stories denies us the pleasure of the complete picture in more ways than one. We are in the multi media age. Radio by itself, as a story telling medium fulfills the over the air broadcast requirements of a by gone era. For delivering a story for commuter listeners, radio fits the bill just fine, but please don’t deny the graphical impact of visual images…