After being immersed in audio (and now video) production for the last four years, I’ve discovered that the greatest fun and flexibility in creative editing and storytelling is in playing with narration. I’ve produced pieces in which the narrator played a key role in setting the context and guiding the listener/viewer through the story and others in which the narration has been implied. I’ve also learned that there is a subtle and distinct difference between sound as a backdrop, sound as a character and sound as a narrator.
That’s why I grabbed a front row seat for Oh, Shut Up! Who needs a narrator anyway?, a session by Chris Brookes‘ at the Radio Without Boundaries conference. Chris was connected by Skype from his home in Newfoundland (a family emergency kept him at home) and with the help of Paolo Pietropaolo at the conference, played clips of radio news coverage dating as far back as 1937 (the Hindenburg disaster) and 1939 (the King and Queen leaving by boat from Newfoundland), through to some very recent documentary programs which used a combination of sound and sparse narration. We explored the role of narration in each clip, paying particular attention to how the narration makes the audience either a spectator or participant and how much authority the narrator assumes. We also discussed some cases where the narration was gratuitous.
Like the Jens Jarisch session The Inner Sound of the Outer World at Third Coast, Chris’ session will have me exploring new possibilities in my production work. Either that or I’ll be self-consciously stuck where I am.
