Here's what it takes to produce a good podcast — at any level
A transformation of "HowSound" from Transom and PRX
by Rob Rosenthal, podcast instructor, and host of ”HowSound”
It's magic, right? Download a podcast. Press play. Boom. There it is. A great story told in sound. Same with radio. Turn it on, and "Voila!" It all seems so simple.
It's not.
I have a poster in my office that reads, "Life is hard. Radio is harder." (Feel free to substitute "radio" with "podcasting.”) It's a joke, of course, but it's rooted in the truth that producing a great audio story is much harder than it appears when you're just listening.
What does it actually take to produce a good story? That's why "HowSound" was created.
"HowSound" is the long-running podcast from PRX and Transom that gives listeners the backstory to great audio storytelling. I've hosted and produced the show since 2011, interviewing reporters, producers, writers, sound designers, field recordists, sound artists, and the like about the craft of audio storytelling.
People like Roman Mars ("99% Invisible"), Saidu Tejan Thomas ("Resistance"), Yowei Shaw ("Invisibilia"), Audie Cornish (NPR), Cathy Fitzgerald (BBC), Jad Abumrad ("Radiolab"), Phoebe Judge ("Criminal"), Megan Tan ("Wild")…. There are 287 episodes — too many people to mention. And the last episode dropped on August 16th.
"HowSound" isn't coming to an end, though. It's transforming—time for a refresh.
Beginning August 30th, "HowSound" will become the "Sound School Podcast." The show will have a new name and logo but the same commitment to pulling back the curtain on producing compelling stories. My guests and I will continue to discuss narrative structure, writing, scoring, reporting, interviewing, sound design, and ethics…. so much to talk about! And, from time to time, I'll shift the focus to related fields like anthropology, oral history, field recording, and sound art — some of my favorite topics, actually.
PRX and Transom will remain the co-producers. I'll still produce and host. I can't stop. I contend that there's always something more to learn no matter your experience level — beginner, intermediate, or expert—which is why “Sound School” is so valuable. Same with the "HowSound" archives. Here are a handful of archive episodes to guide your archive listening.
For Beginners
If you're just starting out, it may seem like some aspects of making a good story are mysterious. How can I write so I sound like I'm talking, not reading? When should music come and go in a story? How can I focus on an interview when I have so many questions? Here are three episodes to help answer these questions.
"How Not to Write For Radio"
Early on in my radio-making, I was a terrible writer. I mean awful. Cringeworthy. In this episode, you'll hear about one of the first stories I ever made, so you don't make the same horrific mistakes.
"Scoring Stories: Part 1"
This is another "dissection" episode where I take apart a story to uncover how it works. In this case, I analyze an amazing story produced by Tiarne Cook, a student at a workshop I facilitated in Australia. Tiarne deployed a lot of classic scoring maneuvers using music to move a story forward. (Part 2 digs into scoring even further.)
"The Burning Question"
This episode features NPR reporter and host Audie Cornish (now at CNN). She's conducted countless interviews, and every time, before she walks into the booth, she figures out what her "burning question" is — the one overall question she's seeking to answer.
For Intermediate Level Producers
My favorite part of reporting, producing, and editing audio stories is field tape. We're using the medium to its fullest when we take listeners places and make pictures for them when we let life unfold in front of a microphone and show, not tell. These episodes are a great start if you want to up your storytelling game to include scenes and active tape.
"Story Dissection: Dead Animal Man"
This early story from Ira Glass is essential listening. He uses all the tricks to make stories visually compelling, employing action and scene setting. It's brilliant. And incredibly funny.
"Anatomy of a Scene"
One of the best scenes in a radio story ever — yes, it's that good — was reported and produced by a Transom student, Jessica Yung.
"Show, Don't Tell"
Surely you've heard the maxim "Show, don't tell." In essence, it's a rule of thumb in writing to let dialogue and action communicate to listeners the deeper elements of a story, such as character and motivation. In a story about climate change, Brian Reed of "This American Life," "S-Town," and "The Trojan Horse Affair," employed that maxim to great effect.
For Experts (and everyone, really)
So much storytelling these days has become pro forma, a kind of "fill-in-the-blank" approach to narrative and use of sound. Yet, there are many ways to approach radio and podcasting with the ear of an artist. These "HowSound" episodes dig into the artistic side of our work.
"Sound as the Protagonist"
I listened to this story in my car and lost my breath. No lie. I found myself slightly gasping. No radio story had ever done that to me. "Jump Blue" is the story of the death of Natalia Molchanova, a world record-holding free diver. Nicolas Jackson of Afonica, the production company that produced "Jump Blue," details how the story was made.
"A Sonic Conjuring"
This is one of my favorite episodes. Two sound designers for museums, Will Worley and Sam Britton, deconstruct how they produced one minute of sound for the Imperial War Museum — sound based on waveform scratches on film created on the battlefield in World War 1. If you need to read that sentence again, go ahead because it's crazy. But you should just listen to the episode.
"Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown"
No sound ever scared me more than the voice of Jim Jones. He was the charismatic cult leader who led hundreds of people to commit suicide in Guyana in 1978. A couple of years later, using Jones's recordings, NPR's Deb Amos and Noah Adams produced a singular, curious, frightening, and heartbreaking documentary about what happened. It's stunning.
Those episodes of "HowSound" are just the start. There is so much more in the "HowSound" archive. And so much more to come on Sound School.
The first episode, on August 30th, features NPR's Elissa Nadworny laying out how she navigated two years of reporting a story about education in prison. In future episodes, David Weinberg explains why he paid a source for his time while reporting and producing "The Superhero Complex" (paying sources is typically a journalistic no-no). James T. Green calls for more art in audio production. I also have another "Darts and Laurels" episode in the making where I laud producers for their good work and complain about the bad. All that and a whole lot more will land in your feed when you subscribe to the "Sound School Podcast."
Radio on.
(P.S. If you already subscribe to "HowSound," you will not have to do anything with your feed. The crew at Transom and PRX will take care of that. Just keep listening.)
