Living For The City Series 1 — Corinne Bailey Rae
Produced by Rachel Hooper A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
Tx 11/09/2018 21:30
I shamefully haven’t listened to a lot of documentaries, however when I came across Living For The City Corinne Bailey Rae, I fell in love with it.
This documentary is part of a series where a musician takes you on a tour of a city they love. It is narrated by the musician, which in this is episode, Corrine Bailey Rae (Corinne), narrating the whole piece, with clips of her on location and it what is possibly a residential living space, but not a studio as the sound is not clean enough.. Instead of this narration it could have been done with clips from Corinne taking us around Leeds and someone else narrating in between to explain any movement for example, but having Corrine narrate the piece with her Diegesis on location and reminiscing is much better because she was there, it is her story she has that personal knowledge.
All of the documentary seems to have been recorded on location, either outside, or possibly in a room in a residential property, but none of is studio based. This piece of radio could have been done in a studio, using the clips of music used, and Corinne talking about everything she has talked about it, but by recording on location, in Corinne’s own words “it properly takes me back”. She is standing at a bus stop and being on location evokes the memory of when she was younger, which a studio would not have.
There are two main characters in this story, Corinne Bailey Rae and the location itself Leeds. There are other voices heard at a couple of points in the documentary, when we are being taken on a tour of an arts centre in Leeds, and when we are taken into Leeds town hall, and these other voices could have been introduced, but then that would raise questions about their story and who they are, but they are not important as this story is about Corinne and Leeds.
The Diegesis in this story is Corinne describing where they are at a particular time and Mimesis in this documentary is the sound effects illustrating this. From the start of the documentary, the first thing we hear is outdoor noise. We hear a slight hum of life and the sounds of birds which instantly before Corinne has spoken makes you as a listener think, I am in a park. After the introduction, we hear more outdoor noises, the hum of life, and the sound of footsteps walking, while Corinne says “so this park”. Again we could just have audio of Corinne talking about the park and surroundings, but using both the Diegesis and Mimesis through sound effects is much more powerful and enables you to create a better picture in your head.
Music it also used in this documentary to great effect, mostly to move this piece of Fast Radio along. Corinne mentions people who have played in a local park that we are taken around at the start, Madonna, Michael Jackson, but producer Rachel Hooper decides not to use their music, probably because it would have taken away from Corinne Bailey Rae reminiscing, and adding some music from Madonna or Michael Jackson when Corinne mentions it, would not add anything because we know who they are and this story is not about them. Instead the only music used is from Corinne Bailey Rae, she talks about some birds in the park and then part of Put Your Records On is faded in, a part which talks about “three little birds”, as it fades out she is still talking about her past but moved on from what she mentioned so the music moves us along to a different part of the conversation. It also s used to highlight what she is saying, when she talks about her early songs and what they are about, we hear an early song that highlights that.
My favourite part where music is used, because it is so smooth is when some music is faded in to move the documentary along and as it fades out it transitions, without you noticing to that song is being played, in what is possibly a taxi. We know it is probably a taxi because we hear a car engine, a door shutting and Corinne tells him where to go. So again through use of sound effects for Mimemsis and Digessis, we have a picture in our head of what is happening.
It is unlikely that if they did get in a taxi that Corinne Baily Rae’s song was playing, but having it played in the taxi while they Corinne is getting nicely aids the transition and keeps the documentary nice and smooth, so it does not matter if it was not being played when the taxi arrived because it does not change the narrative of the documentary.
While the story in this documentary is Corinne Bailey Rae’s and her relationship with Leeds and its impact on her life and music, this would not be as likeable her story was not being used to tell a wider more Universal Story of growing up. Corinne talks about her childhood, not having a car, being poor, school, teenage angst, all these elements of growing up, which may ‘affirm who we are’, which Andrew Stanton talks about stories ideally doing in the Ted Radio Hour podcast Framing The Story. There is conflict and emotion both brought in when she talks about how she discovered her husband had died. This takes this story about growing up and turns it into a ‘human story’ drawing on something Sandy Tolan learnt and talks about in the book Reality Radio Telling True Stories in Sound about documentary making that “The story is in the voice and place.” This documentary has both, Corinne is the voice, Leeds is the place, which tells the story.
The Temporality of this piece is one day really, it is possible that the content recorded indoors was recorded on a different day, but if that is the case, it does not matter because this documentary is Corinne on whatever day it is showing us around Leeds and reminiscing and talking about her life and music. We know that the outside content was likely to have been recorded in one day because Corinne actually mentions “I never knew the car would come up so much today” highlighting that a lot of the content was most likely recorded in one day. This Audio Diary format and having this documentary set in one day all serves to keep it more persona as it is like you are being taken on a journey around the city by Corinne in one day. If it was done over a couple of days it may break your interest as a listener.
There is still a lot of movement through Mimesis using sound effects such as footsteps walking, travelling in a car, and Digesis from Corinne saying to the taxi driver “do you know where the building supplies place is on Burley Road, or the Co-op on Burley road.” We don’t hear the whole car journey, there is more narration from Corinne Bailey Rae reminiscing, possibly recorded in the car, or possibly recorded in a room and played over the top of the car. We then hear “it’s taken us not that long to get here in the car” so we know time on that day has moved along, although an exact time is not relevant for the story, we just know they have moved from one place to another and that it did not take long.
The main character, Corinne Bailey Rae develops as a character, we hear about her as child towards the beginning, to at the end of the documentary hearing about what she has learnt in her life, what her frame of mind is now so there is a character progression something that novelist Tracy Chevalier talks about being important in the Ted Radio Hour podcast Framing The Story. With the character progression we get movement in that way as well, movement from in the beginning to her childhood, moving on to her teenage years to when she was a young adult and starting out in music to where she is now.
This is a wonderful documentary as it is an emotional human story, human elements aided when Corinne says “hey look at those duckies” something which could have been taken out of the documentary as it is not relevant to her story but shows her human side. It is a universal story which is relatable, emotional, sad when she talks about her boyfriends’ death, and joy when we hear Corinne is in a café that she likes and this universal story is told wonderfully through Corinne Bailey Ray, through use of Mimesis sound effects and Digesis from Corinne who is the best person for this and various smooth production techniques, fading music in and out, using it to transition to new parts of the conversation and while it could have been done using Slow Radio, it could have been split into two parts, I think this Fast Radio format where something happens around every 30 seconds, whether it is movement, music coming in or the progression of the conversation, it all keeps your attention. Although the piece has a good pace, you feel like you are getting plenty of information. It can highly recommend listening to this piece, even if you disagree with what I think about it.
For my own story telling I need to think about what the universal story I want to tell is, for my own documentary and who best to tell that story is. So I have an idea to do a story about Birmingham’s only permanent night shelter Tabor house. However, I have to think about what is the universal story, which after listening to this I think there are stories, and questions that I want to be raised in a listeners mind from listening to it. How do people end up homeless and how can I help homeless people? That is a universal story that I can tell and help answer because although not everyone ends up homeless, potentially it could happen to anyone, and many people are likely to have come across homeless people in Britain and thought, how can I help them which I would like my documentary to answer.
Like this documentary I would ideally like to have no formal narrator, other than to possibly introduce the piece and end it by saying who produced the programme. I would like to use lots of actuality sound effects for Mimesis. I will have music if appropriate, some solemn background music where appropriate and to make it smooth will fade in and out where it is needed, and as it is going to be a ten minute documentary it will be Fast Radio to allow me to fit the content I want in it.
