Podcast
Features
Comments
October 29th, 2004
Roman and I want to make it clear that this blog is open to any others who want to report/blog on Third Coast. There are a lot of people here – many who have come from very far away and people of all ages! So lets use this thread for field reports.
Any chance Third Coast organizer might choose another October weekend for the event in future years? It’s so close to the election that this year I had to pass it up. That might be true for other independent producers who produce news features …
I’m sure they would. Last year Johanna Zorn asked how the attendees felt about this year’s conference taking place so close to the election, and I suppose the response must have been largely that it wasn’t a problem. Write to Johanna, or Julie Shapiro and I’m sure they’ll do what they can.
What an amazing event. After hearing great things about the Third Coast for 3 years, I finally got to witness them on this fourth, representing the Association of Independents in Radio.
From the personable opening reception to the amazing awards ceremony, there was an atmosphere of sharing, excitement, and LOVE FOR RADIO PRODUCTION. It was great to see all of the yellow AIR stickers on our members. It was great to see everyone mixing, chatting, learning. It was great to see our wonderful community together.
All of the pieces that were featured sounded great; the Youth Groups’ material particularly excited me. Just 5 years ago, this sort of youth contingency in Public Radio just didn’t exist, and now they’re here in force! Let’s hope they return to Third Coast, surf through Transom, add great works to Public Radio Exchange, join AIR, and continue the marked growth of this great community of ours!
I thought the Third Coast was a blast.
I enjoyed listening to all the great audio and hear from the producers about some of the decisions they made while creating thier work.It is refreshing to concentrate on the content and inspiration.
The editing session was fascinating, it gave an uplifting idea of what an editor can do for a producer.
I appreciated that the audio in the meetings was really clear. So many times at these conferences, the audio is really blurry.
Great to talk to the AIR members who I know only by name.
Hello all,
This years Third Coast was, as usual, a wonderful weekend of fun, learning, and inspiration.
Kim and I had such a fine time meeting people we only know over the phone or through Transom and AIR by name. It?s always interesting to place a face with the name at the end of the email or the voice on the other end of the phone. I think some of my editors were surprised to learn that they?ve been working with a wookie all this time.
The parties are always fun. Sandy Tolan does not cut a rug, he shreds every stitch of floor covering in sight. Amusing? YES. Unnerving? YOU BET. Exceedingly Fun? Hell yes? Aside from one horribly blown out knee, the party on Friday night was perfect. My vote is to take a video crew next year and produce the groundbreaking documentary ?Geeks Gone Wild.? There has to be a market for this somewhere?
The sessions are why we come. They offer those of us who tend to work in a vacuum a chance to learn about what other producers are doing, how they see the world, how they work. I particularly enjoyed the image as metaphor, as Sharon Ball is one of my heroes. She has a keen ear and a kind heart. If anyone has a chance to work with Sharon, jump on the chance. Hell ? Hire her to edit your pieces. She is after all the only independent editor I know and she?s great.
The short docs session is usually my favorite. I love having a chance to hear other producers interpretation of a single theme. This year, Adam Burk?s piece on the blind restaurant was my favorite. Adam has a wonderful voice and a way of telling a story that is simple and effective. The others were fine as well, I just enjoyed Adam?s the best. I find it inspiring to be around such talented people.
Finally, the addition of ?Two Towns of Jasper? was a stroke of genius. I can not say enough how refreshing it is to see the work of intellectually honest producers. These two filmmakers sat on stage and talked openly about their personal prejudices. They did so honestly. My favorite quote of the weekend, ?Race is fucking hard.?
Being from what one producer seems to think of as a ?Knuckle Dragging? state in the south, it?s always nice to hear someone speak directly to the race issue without tiptoeing around the edges. Thanks to whoever brought Two Tone Productions to the Third Coast.
Thanks to the TCIAF staff for a great weekend and thanks also to Jay Allison and crew for this forum.
Hal Humphreys
hiya -
to let everone in on the ‘how we choose which weekend’ process…it’s not very scientific i’m afraid, rather it sadly has everything to do with hotel availability and cost for what you (attendees) would have to pay for your rooms. we had hoped to avoid the weekend before elections at all costs, but simply couldn’t find a hotel that could fit us in any of the previous weekends, (chicago’s a HUGE conference town, and october is one of the most popular months for conferences nationwide. how’s that for a random piece of uselss trivia?) without charging possibly prohibitive room fees for our guests.
also – we’re committed to october because this helps contributes to the logic of the overall cycle of the festival – running the competition and shortdocs project in the spring and summer, judging in late summer, announcing winners at the awards ceremony, and then hearing them in the broadcast around thanksgiving.
that said, we were so thankful that as many people were able to (and chose to) come as did, given the timing, and hope the weekend allowed for a little bit of constructive distraction in the wake of all of the election madness.
next year’s dates are more in the middle of the month, will double check and let folks know for sure soon.
see you in a year?!!
julie
I realize I’m entirely late with this post but I’ve been meaning to jot down a few words about the Youth Radio break-out session. I attended it the second day, and just like last year I realized how good your stories can be before your learn all the “rules” for putting together stories. A lot of times these kids have to figure things out on their own and their solutions can be wonderfully inventive. Each one of the 4 stories had at least one moment in it that made me stop and marvel.
In Viry Martino Ruiz and Elena Alvarez’s border crossing story (Youth Radio) they take the listener through a glossary of Spanish and English epithets that Mexicans and Americans use on each other. It didn’t make up the entirety of the story, was just dropped in at various moments and had everybody rolling.
Spencer Scott of Blunt Radio interviewed a 38 year old life-long military man about his impending first trip into an actual war. There was a strange kind of intimacy to the interview that I couldn’t account for at first. This beautiful part where the seargent says he’s scared and the two of them laugh together. Then Amanda Aroncyzk of The Next Big Thing pointed out that their roles were kind of reversed. Usually it’s the 18 year old marching off to war and the 38 year old interviewing him about it. And Spencer said the seargent has a 18 year old son himself, and that might be the reason they took to each other so well.
Erin Escobar of Youthtopia interviewed high schoolers about how their decision not to drink has affected their social lives. It was just their voices, no narration and no music (or no music that I remember). And she let the kids go on a lot longer than in most radio pieces you hear. Until finally it was like they were physically sitting there with you in the room. Probably because they were talking to a peer, they sounded totally unguarded so we got to hear them through Erin’s ears.
And Dolce Maria Mosa of Radio Arte did a piece about an effort to organize these events in which people sing John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.” The participants all get together in public places and record themselves. The recording Dolce attended was outdoors and a bunch of city workers were doing construction at that very spot. So the organizer announces “I want to thank the poeple working of the City of Chicago for drilling and sawing.” And somebody else says “They’re drilling for peace!” It was a perfect piece of tape.
I hope this doesn’t sound condescending but what really struck me was how adult all of the producers seemed, reasoning out their production decisions, discussing how they came to a particular story idea. At the very beginning of the session, the moderator Cindy Carpien quoted Rogers and Hammerstein by saying “By your pupils you’ll be taught.” Then she offered a quarter to anyone who could tell her which musical that was from. Spencer Scott piped up “The King and I.” Cindy was shocked. “How did you know that?!” she said. And then “Okay, what song is it from?”
“Getting to know you,” Spencer said, “By Anna.”