Kari Hesthamar of Radio Norway story-boarding one of her pieces

Kari Hesthamar of Radio Norway is probably one of the most compassionate producers I’ve ever encountered. After hearing several clips from her work, it’s clear she has incredible compassion for her subjects, which translates into a kind of intimacy that is probably one of her work’s greatest strengths.

More than once she expressed feeling pain when her subjects felt pain, only able to stop herself with the thought, “it’s not Kari in this situation it’s the journalist Kari in this situation.” It’s not stereotypical bleeding-heart-liberal journalism though. It’s true and honest empathy and compassion. She played tape of a piece she made in an infamous children’s institution in Norway, which included tape of a child spitting in the face of one of the adult caregivers. She said that the children were so hungry for attention that she felt bad leaving when she was done taping, as if she were just another person not staying in the lives of these children. closest to recording the truth. children didn’t manage to pull themselves together the way that adults often do.

She played clips from several long pieces, two of which were really remarkable. One was about the love affair between a Norwegian woman named Marianne, immortalized in the Leonard Cohen song So Long, Marianne, and the musician himself. The tape is incredible, very intimate. The story is moving. The pacing is perfect, and the depth of memory and emotion her subject expresses makes for a really compelling story.

The second was a piece that begins like a fairy tale. The Brown Parcel – a woman is given a parcel by her father and is told not to open it until her mother has been dead for two years. About the piece Kari said:

You make a contract with the listener. The plot is so clear. You set up these expectations. Where shall I start? What do I want the listeners to wait for? This is a clear case of old fashioned story telling, of dramaturgy. What is working for the main character, what is working against him? You get a deeper and deeper picture of the person, like in a novel. Here, what we’re waiting for is the day Cecilia opens the parcel. Everyone brings the parcel into their own lives and talks about what they would have done. Would you open it? Would you wait? But you can’t talk about what’s in the parcel for 40 minutes. You have to figure out, what is this about?

The woman had been waiting to open the parcel for ten years, and when she opened it, Kari fainted. And got it on tape. Kari was pregnant, and thought to herself, I can’t throw up now, she’s been waiting 10 years for this!

We were in the basement, my head was outside, feet were inside. I listened back to the tape, and I heard her in the back of the recordings say, “Oh my god, she’s dead! We’ve got to stop this now. This is my father from heaven saying we’ve got to stop this.” So I left that in. It’s in the documentary.

Wow.

Kari has a really envious work situation. She makes only about three, forty minute long documentaries a year, working with a “coach” (another member of the NRK features team) and an engineer. Included in the NRK’s mandate is to win prizes, to experiment with radio, teach other radio shows within the NRK about what they’re doing, and to develop radio as a medium. How much do you want to work there right now???

A few other things about Kari’s work methods:

-She storyboards her documentaries using time-lines and colored pens to keep track of her material. That way, she says:

I know where to begin, what the climax is, where the point of no return is. The point of no return is where you’re in so deep in but don’t know what the climax is yet, and the ending. This is the presentation. This is where we’re going to know the main character better and better. Here are the obstacles and other people helping.

-She has an interesting interview set up. She sits next to her subjects rather than across from them, because she says looking into their eyes can be uncomfortable for both her and the subject, and doesn’t get her material that’s as good.

- She never takes written notes into an interview, because she thinks it draws the attention away from the person she’s interviewing. She always prepares but never carries written questions. “I try to be quiet and shut my mouth. Sometimes I explain how I’m working. If I’m silent it doesn’t mean I’m stupid, if I ask for details its not because I’m not listening.”