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 You canjoin us here at Transom for a discussion about Third Coast with its participants, and see photos from the festival taking place in Chicago Nov.1-2, 2002. |
About the Festival
From Johanna Zorn
Founder and Executive Director
In just a few days, audio producers from around the country and even a few from as far away as Australia, will be gathering in Chicago for the second annual Third Coast International Audio Festival. It’s the continuation of a tradition begun more than twenty years ago when Larry Josephson organized the Airlies to bring independent radio producers together to hone their craft and to introduce them to the unfamiliar richness of International work. Despite their popular success, the Airlies were way too much work for one person and Larry put the event on hiatus. Luckily for the producing community, the Association for Independents in Radio (AIR) took up the torch where the Airlies left off.
Winner: My So Called Lungs, by Joe Richman and Laura Rothenberg. |
I had the pleasure of attending both AIR conferences in the 1990′s and what I witnessed was a producing community so flush with ideas and talent, that even the stale hotel air was full of electricity. It was at these conferences that I started thinking about creating a Festival for radio, along the lines of Sundance. I wondered why, with all the interest in documentary film out there, why wasn’t there a single effort to celebrate the documentary art-form on radio in America?
To make a long story short, the AIR conferences took a lengthy break too and at Chicago Public Radio we started making plans for the Third Coast International Festival (TCIAF.)
We announced the first TCIAF in 2000, at a time when documentary audio was experiencing a renaissance. Ira Glass and the This American Life crew, Jay Allison, Joe Richman, The Kitchen Sisters and many, many more producers were making radio stories that resonated with listeners. Innovative folks in their 20′s were teaching themselves how to make documentaries with easy-to-buy computer software. Even teenagers were signing up for radio programs, eager to have give listeners the teen perspective. The interest in documentary audio was growing even as the public radio system, at 30 years old, was beginning to experience the malaise and conservatism of middle-age.
 Winner: Corrections, Inc., by John Biewen of American RadioWorks. |
We felt the TCIAF could have a role in keeping public radio fresh and vital by infusing it with energy, new ideas and talent. We wanted to draw the public to the power of audio to document the world we live in and we hoped to bring more attention and resources to producers.
These are the thoughts that have guided me and Julie Shapiro, the Festival’s managing director who came on board two years ago, as we’ve planned two TCIAF Festivals-which in addition to an annual conference includes a competition, a national broadcast featuring the winners, a website at thirdcoastfestival.org and a public listening series.
For our upcoming conference we’ve pushed ourselves to find an eclectic group of presenters. Our guests include world-renowned photographer Joel Meyerowitz who spent last year documenting the arduous clean-up of the World Trade Center Towers, filmmaker Elizabeth Barret whose work “Stranger with a Camera” tells the story of the tensions that exist when outsiders descend on a community hoping to document its problems, and filmmaker Alan Berliner, who creates museum installations based on his audio-files, literally filing cabinets that elicit a sound when opened and can be “played” like an instrument.
There will be several international artists presenting at the conference too, from Canada and Australia and France. One of them is Kaye Mortley, a recent winner of the Prix Europa, will talk about a style of radio-making rarely heard in the U.S., the European Feature. (For a full schedule of the conference visit thirdcoastfestival.org)
Perhaps the biggest change to the TCIAF this year is that we’ve invited the general public to take part in the celebration. Throughout the year we’ve been hosting a series called “The Listening Room,” where Chicagoans come together to listen and talk about radio stories in a theater setting. The series culminates on the first night of the conference with a very special program hosted by the Kitchen Sisters called “The Listening Room: The Night Kitchen.”
What are my hopes for the 2002 TCIAF conference? That people come to the conference with an open-mind, ready to listen acutely to the work they’ll hear. That they’ll come eager to talk and share ideas with people of all levels of experience and backgrounds. And when they leave? I hope they leave fired up, eager to go home and make audio stories that push the boundries of the medium.
So here we are on the eve of the 2002 TCIAF conference and awards ceremony. I welcome your questions and I invite you to post journal entries on Transom through-out the conference and afterwards about the experience. But please understand if we’re a little bit slow in responding, we’ve got a few things to take care of here in Chicago.
~ Johanna Zorn
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Studs Terkel This year’s Third Coast Lifetime Achievement Award goes to radio veteran, oral historian and author Studs Terkel. Here are some links from his stay as Guest on Transom in 2001. Studs Terkel’s “Something Real” Manifesto Studs Born |
This is a little unusual for us to feature a festival, but this is an unusual festival. It’s the only regular gathering in this country of people dedicated to the art of radio/audio documentary. It encourages new voices, skill-building, cross-fertilization among non-fiction media workers, and baton-passing. Sort of like Transom.
Also, Studs Terkel won the Lifetime Achievement Award and we like that.
Check out our SHOW page for more links and for Johanna Zorn’s welcoming notes. She and Julie Shapiro will be visiting this topic to answer your questions. Attendees are encouraged to post their thoughts. And Josh Barlow will be putting up some photos during the festival.
For background, drop by the 3rd Coast Website, which is a great resource, and then come back here to talk. We hope that for those who are going to Chicago, this will be a good place to debrief, and for those who can’t go, a place to catch up.
Johanna, Julie & Co., are you there? I’d like to ask a few questions to get us started.
Can you tell us anything about the competition submissions this year… did you notice any trends, were there more or less new producers, international submissions, etc.? Your Judge’s list is terrific. May I ask, how did the process work?
On the conference, what are you nervous about?
The judging process is really quite simple. When the entries come in all summer Julie, Lauren and I listen to all of them and at least one of us will listen to every entry all the way through. We decide what work will go on to the formal judging process by weeding out work that is not up to generally accepted broadcast standards.
The judging takes place over one intense weekend. For Saturday we’ve divided the entries into loosely-defined categories so that the judges can compare apples to apples. Some examples of the categories are narrative stories, historical documentaries, music-based documentaries and cultural snapshsots…that sort of thing. This year we had seven categories, and three judges working in each category (a lot of people give their time generously to judge the competition.) Each panel chooses their top two programs.
On Sunday the finalist judges, and these folks are listed on our website, choose the final awards. There are no longer categories in this final round, the judges are simply choosing the best from the best (14 total this year.) We do spend a lot of time thinking about who will make great judges, especially the finalists (who also work Saturday by the way), to make sure they are highly respected within the producing community for their own work.
Still I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say that after all the sweat we put into the process, it’s hard to step aside completely and let 21 people make the final decisions about the competition. So you know what we do…we choose one ourselves and call it the Director’s Choice award.
hey jay,
firstly thanks much for the opportunity to talk some about the festival and conference. we talk about it so much amongst our selves -it’s always refreshing and often illuminating to broaden the conversation by bringing others into it.
to answer some of your questions – there were definitely a few notable things about submissions into the competition. this year’s most popular recurring topic was…birds. no, we weren’t expecting that either. last year’s hot topic was water – this year it’s birds. one bird story even made it into the winners’ circle. i also noticed (and became a little bit obsessed with the fact) that many of the entries somehow included mentions of email in their narratives and storylines. sign of the times, i suppose.
the breakdown for the entries was all over the place. we had tons of new producers, many returning producers who had entered work last year, lots of work from youth organizations, definitely more from overseas and canada. to me what was astonishing about the entry process was watching the range of topics covered by the entries just grow and grow. we were constantly surprised by the originality of the entries we received.
in terms of the conference – i’m more curious than nervous about a few things. i wonder how some of the sessions presenting work that’s pretty different than what most of us are used to hearing on the radio will go over – including international and more artisitc sound art-type work – whether people will be inclined to stay with the discussions or presentations that become less directly relevant to what they’re doing with their own work. i mean in theory, i _know_ that the crowd coming to the conference is fired up and wanting to take home new ideas and inspirations…i’m just curious about how this will translate at different points over the weekend.
wait i take back the ‘i’m not nervous’ claim -
i’m always worried about typos, nametag errors, mistakes in the reg. material, last-minute presenter cancellations, etc. but those must be typical conference planner concerns. (and they’re well-founded, as those sorts of things are inherent in any and every conference, i’m learning)
overall though, i’m feeling confident that a sort of natural momentum will take over as soon as people begin to arrive – one that will eclipse all of the smaller issues once things get rolling. that momentum seems to have already started actually – our first presenter has arrived in chicago – from france. ooh la la.
alright – back to some of the many last minute details. i look forward to responding to questions posted here when i have the chance, but even more so to reading reports from folks in attendance. in closing – i humbly offer a few syllabically incorrect haiku i came up with around midnight a few nights ago, when we were waiting for the copy machine to spit out the last registration packets.
session descriptions
alphabetized and ready
to be read (sans serif)
and
listen to the sound
of so many producers
hearing at one time
i know, i know. i’ll stick to radio.
julie
What am I nervous about? I ditto Julie concerns, it’s hard to gauge how our more adventurous and unfamiliar presenters will go over with the more traditional American producing crowd. But, as the mother hen of this whole affair, most of my worries are mundane. Will the conference-goers play nicely, and share their toys? I really want producers to step out of their comfortable circle of friend now and again, to meet the newcomers and young producers attending the conference. I ‘m also praying that the cd players work, that the electricians don’t charge us time and a half and that at the awards ceremony people get up and dance!
J&J:
I’m thrilled to be coming to this great event tomorrow, or today, now, actually. It’s interesting to hear more about the judging process as we consider how to build an ongoing peer-review system for The Radio Exchange. It’s hard to categorize things, find criteria that make sense, put creative work into boxes even for the worthy goal of celebrating it or showcasing & distributing it.
So I’m curious about a few things:
- Were your categories largely the same from last year to this year?
- What were the other categories you didn’t list?
- I found this on the site: "judges will consider the degree to which these programs relate their stories successfully. Creativity, technical skill and editorial integrity will all factor into judging." Is that the extent of the guidelines for the judges, or do you have some sort of Third Coast Core Values in your back pocket?
Now you’ve got to run this conference AND post on Transom this weekend, good luck!
Love the haikuze…
Cheers,
Jake Shapiro
I love the idea of a few sessions that stretch the boundaries. The TCIAF is a festival, a celebration, right? It *should* be a little wild and off the beaten path, not just a series of how-to lessions. That would be too, er, conventional (sorry).
I was so glad to see that the primary sessions weren’t ever scheduled over each other, because I won’t have to miss one! For the "Choose your element" I’ll be relying on those recordings.
Like Jake, I’m interested in your criteria and categories. Do tell.
p.s. (yes, first) sorry if this posts twice – brain won’t cough up my login / remembering password / user name bit.
somehow i’m not able to find sleep just yet, after the big weekend. and so a few answers to the categories questions….
categories this year were very similar to the ones we used last year…it’s a tricky process however, trying to pick the right one for each entry. for instance, take a documentary about a musician: is it more biographical / or music -oriented? but wait, it’s about musicians who were civil rights activitists. issue-oriented? historical? etc.
we’ve thought about a few other ways to go about the category question…for instance we could ask producers to help us out by indicating which category they think their work fits into, or we could actually give awards out by category…but we think this would take away from the notion that the awards simply go to the Best Documentary Work that was entered. also we’re not so sure that the categories we’ve been using will stay the same – they might change from one year to the next, depending on the entry pool.
in terms of judging guidelines – we had the general one you about creativity, tech. skill and editorial integrity, but each category also had special considerations. for instance for the historical category, one guideline was to consider how archival material may have been used to enhance the piece. for the category which ended up with more experimental / sound art-ish work, we asked judges to think about form vs. function – was the piece effectively balanced between being documentary and also non-traditional in style? for the best new artist we asked judges to consider the potential shown in pieces for future work, and also to be a little bit more forgiving about technical issues than they might have been for other categories.
one way of thinking about the pieces overall though, was to gauge ‘how well each piece accomplished what it set out to do’. non-specific, but in a way this could be used to compare entries across categories.
i’ll have to echo johanna’s mention of how strange it is to give up control at this point of the festival – we do all of this work to gather, process, listen to and sort the entries, and then just kind of hand the big decisions over to the judges. maybe hardest is staying out of the discussions/debates about the pieces as they’re happening…
that’s all for tonight
as brain slowly shuts down and
eyelids droop, ears full
I never doubted that your conference would be a tremendous success. I’m so proud of you three brave women who put your blood, sweat and tears into this years fabulous conference weekend. Thank you, Julie Shapiro; Thank you, Julie Shapiro; Thank you, Julie Shapiro; Thank you, Julie Shapiro; Thank you, Julie Shapiro fo making me proud times 5! I remain your everloving mother.
Big breath. It’s over now. First, yes, a big thanks to those who made it happen.
Thousands of people read these boards and only a couple hundred could make it to the conference, so please pitch in and post messages about it all. What was memorable, what small thing did you notice, what are the stories?
And if you weren’t there, ask us questions. (I’ll be traveling for a day or two and offline, but back soon)
I was excited to find so many other new and younger producers in attendance. Looking over the crowds at sessions and breaks, I could see countless people in their early twenties. In the evenings, huge groups of us took over restaurants and bars. I was so happy to be amongst the new voices of pubic radio, that I almost didn’t mind getting drive-by egged late Halloween night.
Several people told me that the "Doctor" appointments were great. For next year, be sure to bring your work… even in rough form! Anyone want to describe what those appointments were like?
I’d be interested to hear from some of the younger people I met, too. Any ideas for how to carry the 3rd Coast energy through the rest of the year?
Hello all,
Kim and I arrived home Sunday night late, actually Monday morning. We were both exhausted from the full weekend of conventioning. I am unable to express enough thanks to Johanna and the folks at WBEZ. (Anyone who agrees should begin their post with the toast/title "Hear Hear".) To the winners, congratulations. To the presenters, Thank you.
And to all the wonderful people we met, It was a pleasure.
Now, we can get back to the grind of producing radio. Only now it doesn’t seem such a grind, but a privilege.
Amusing ourselves in Nashville,
Hal Humphreys
and
Kim Green
Third Coast Lifetime Achievement Award
(Click on images for larger view)
Special Guest Emeritus (and friend of Transom) Nubar Alexanian took this shot from the awards Saturday night.
Click for larger view
The Crossroads of Life
I went to Chicago with questions…
about how I would survive going to a place where I knew no one… to talk about something I had no experience in… in a city where I had never driven (I being from a small town in Southern Illinois)…
about "was I nuts or what to sign up for some damned ‘doctor’s appointment’??! WHAT WAS I THINKING??!!!"
about what direction life would be taking from here… I had been downsized from my computer job several months ago and knew I wanted to do more with my life than sit in front of a computer screen trying to make numbers add up.
about whether what I planned to be wear be appropriate
about what people’s reaction would be to my weight and for the first time I was concerned about my age which is 42… no I’m not telling you my weight so forget it…. LOL
about what I would find to talk to these people about
about whether I might meet Ira Glass and what the heck I would say to him.
Standing at the crossroads of my life… I went to put my big toe in the water and see whether this particular stream might carry me down the next part of my path.
To tell you the honest truth, I was scared to death and the reception on Thursday didn’t help one bit. There were all of these exclusive groups of "kids" that were not interested in talking to me. Had it been a mistake to come? I did connect with one of the women about my age I guess, but mostly I felt out of place and out of my element and I had to fight the temptation to just retreat back to my room.
I found out the next morning why I felt like everyone was grouped in these little young groups when Johanna announced at breakfast all of the youth radio groups from around the country that were there. OK, no wonder I felt old and no wonder it felt cliquish. No wonder they looked like kids to me… they were.
Actually it was to my great advantage to be there by myself. It forced me to seek out people and talk to them and eat with them and learn from them. It was really amazing to me. I have big ideas… like out of the blue going to some festival in Chicago where I don’t really fit just more or less on a whim… for example.. and many more ideas. When I talk to people back home about these things, they roll their eyes as if to say, "man, she’s at it again." It was amazing to talk to the people I respect and receive focused attention and respect back from them. Had I been there with a group the temptation would have been there to retreat into the group and stay safe, but again it is about risk. These people were my people… creative, visionary, enthusiastic, weird. When I got back home I was describing… “imagine a room with 250 Cindys in it.” They would just laugh and shake their heads
The sessions were wonderful. I learned SO MUCH. I was not in the first session but about 6 minutes before I was moved to tears by the audio piece "If." I got ideas from that very first session which was on how to begin and end a piece. I took the information back to my room and reworked the very rough tape I would take to the "doctor’s session."
Speaking of that session, what was my most terrifying part at the outset ended up being amazingly wonderful to me. I had a tape which was very low quality in sound level etc. but amazing in content. It was a tape I had made with my favorite aunt who passed away just a month ago. She told me many of the family stories. I started the tape asking her (in the version inspired by that first session) "Did you have any idea or was it a total shock?" I asked her. "It was a total shock, while it is happening you don’t think a thing about it." The session was with Mandalit Del Barco. She was concerned about the quality of the tape, but as she listened to the story she just kept saying, "Wow. … Wow. … Wow! …. WOW!… " Through the whole session. It was the coolest thing I could imagine.
I did get to talk very briefly to Ira. I get pretty gushy. "I cannot tell you how much I love ‘This American Life’, it has changed my life"…. blah blah blah It was cool. I briefly pitched the story to him it was all very very amazing. You have to understand that I am a FANATIC of "This American Life." That’s what brought me to Third Coast. I heard a comment from last year’s conference that said, "We want to take our best listeners and turn them into contributors."
Everything I could have possibly hoped to achieve by going was accomplished and more. But none of that stuff was the best thing that happened. The very best part for me was that I had a deep discussion with someone who was hurting and perhaps eased his pain. Just a little bit. Everyone else was going around congratulating each other and schmoozing after the award’s ceremony and I was in a corner connecting with someone who is trying to deal with the possibility that his daughter could die. We talked about finding peace and acceptance and grace in hard moments. We connected on the level of that seeking for the answers.
Here I thought I had come to the conference to accomplish all of my pipe dreams but God had a higher plan in mind and I was privileged to be the one standing there making a difference. Some people don’t believe there is a God. That’s their choice I suppose but I would not trade being used by Him to touch and be touched and to make a difference.
I am at a crossroad. Third Coast has helped me light the path in front of me a little. I am not sure which road will be the next part of my path… I can’t wait to see.
please allow me to be gushy for a moment.
maybe it’s just me, but it really felt like there is work that’s going to come of this soon. those of us who met each other, even just briefly, made promises to listen to each other. to kick each other in the ass when we need it. to push, cajole, encourage, and critique when necessary. we talked about projects sitting around in various states of completion and did all we could to see that they come to fruition. we’re ready to make good radio. and not just cause we need extra money to pay off the credit card bills we ran up.
we made friends too. actual friends.
and then there was that other thing. we learned. learned just how thin that line between what we’re all doing, even those who work with pictures or without sound, really is. we all just want to tell stories in a neat way. we learned that maybe there is a place on american radio for people like sherry delys and gregory whitehead. (if you couldn’t make the festival, listen to that session first once it’s posted. the man sang to us! and to you. there is nothing more beautiful.) we learned that even if it’ll take forever to make work as interesting and sound rich and musical, maybe there’s a way to bring some of that flavor into what we do.
and it was reaffirmed that johanna, julie, and lauren really are the remarkable people we thought they were. but i think they’re tired of hearing thank you. can we just establish a barter system where we make good radio in exchange for this brilliant festival?
also. i accidentally brought home one of those pretty, but usless wooden hangers with a tiny, tiny metal head from the sheraton. that’s cool right?
now menjivar’s talking. [his aforementioned bartering system]
especially since we need suggestions for docs to feature on the third coast website over the course of 2003. send yr recommendations, please!
(info@thirdcoastfestival.org)
[hope i'm not abusing this forum with such blatant solicitation...]
Oops. (You know they probably will charge your credit card enough for that hanger to force you to have to finish and sell that one story you are working on just so you can pay for that hanger. LOL) I bought a $3.00 can of diet coke, I know what I am talking about. LOL… whatever it cost.. it was probably worth it I am thinking… I can see you hobbling up to the podium when you are ninety and receiving the 75th annual Third Coast International Audio Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award and carrying that lucky hanger with you.. at that time with all the varnish rubbed off of it. I am so excited to see all of these emerging artists break through and thrive fueled by their own and other’s visionary characters.
First off I’ll say this makes me nervous. I’ve read posts on the transom discussion board a lot over the past year or so but never written to it. Now I’ve got a lot to write and its giving me a butterfly stomach.
Since returning home from my trip to chicago last Sunday I’ve been checking the TCAF discussion every day, waiting for someone to bring up the awards ceremony. For the last five days I’ve restrained myself, waiting to see if either- someone else would bring it up or my own strong feelings would subside. But since my internal voice has only gotten louder and there’ been no mention it in other postings- I feel compelled to write something.
First of all praise-
Third Coast was for me at least an introduction to the real people behind the radio work I’ve studied, obsessed over and enjoyed for the last few years. It was also an introduction to new people I’d never heard of, people who now fill me with renewed curiosity. The conference was a heady mixture of great, more established producers like the Kitchen Sisters, Joe Richman and Gregory Whitehead, new people like me ( a bit clueless and full of passionate ideas), and people working in radio who have both passionate ideas AND a good grip on the day to day work of production. I applaud the TCAF organizers for creating such a meeting of minds.
However-
For all the excitement and energy build up of last Friday and Saturday. The end of the festival left me feelings frustrated disrespected and saddened. I really regreat that it was the acceptance speech from the top award winners that caused third coast to end on such a down note.
This American Life was the first radio thing that made me think to myself I need to do that!!" I know that many people all over the country were inspired in the same way. From a distance, Ira Glass, the other producers and the entire show seem to champion the ideals of documentary production- that is respect- for the world, peoples stories, and your audience and striving for truth-poetic truth, news truth, personal truth et all.
However, when the TAL producers took the stage to accept their award (an honor!) they seemed to forget about respect. They were in front of an audience of people who love radio, they were in front of other award winners who’d poured their passion and skill into producing pieces about amazing subjects with amazing collaborators, and they were in front of judges of the contest who’d chosen to honor them for the fine piece they produced- "Yes there is a baby" is a great piece of radio, but there are countless pieces of great radio. It really hurt my heart that Ira Glass, someone whose work I’ve so long respected and admired, didn’t seem to realize that doing great radio does not intitle you toentitle about grace and humility and respect. He squanderd a grsquanderednt of opportunity to show those feelings to his peers and and admirerers.
I’m going to climb off my soap box now and go look for a job in a nice coffee shop ( I can probably forget about ever being the TAL intern after this).
Its just that I felt compelled to express my feelings about Third Coast-
please- how did other people feel? can we talk about this?
Thank you very much all.
warm regards,
joni murphy
Yeah, I messed up that speech. Flustered and surprised. Was trying to make a small point about what it’s like to do radio documentaries .. how we’ve all had the experience of working on a story for months and trying everything and in the end the story doesn’t come out special and nobody remembers it, and then sometimes you chance on a remarkable interviewee and that’s the story everyone loves and remembers … not the one you sweated on. Sometimes luck counts for an awful lot in documentary production.
In retrospect, not the right forum for that idea. It was hard to come offstage and realize how badly I’d handled it. No disrespect meant.
ok. after a day of ‘retreating’ at johanna’s house, which involved not just spilling our thoughts, reactions and revelations about the conference onto paper but also eating too much of her kids’ halloween candy…johanna, lauren and i are almost recovered from the last weekend, and so are ready to start absorbing some serious feedback.
we’ll go easy on you at first.
1. which session/s did you get the most out of, and why? how about the opposite of that? did any seem less useful, meaningful or relevant for you?
2. did you enjoy a particular session that you weren’t expecting to?
in other words, what surprised you about the weekend?
3. what was missing? we have a whole year to prepare for the next round…(don’t worry about speaking your mind – we’ve got some thick skin, and really, all of this info is endlessly useful as we think about the future of the TC festival.)
I guess the fact that someone I admire like Ira Glass could be flustered in the presence of Studs Terkel and all of the greatness that happened at the ceremony almost makes him more approachable to me. It was probably at that moment that he stopped being a god to me and became someone I could approach and run ideas by… as I did after the ceremony. When we show our humanness it only makes us accessible to other human beings. I don’t care what he would have said, what anyone would have said, it would have been anticlimactic after Studs Terkel’s amazing and inspiring speech.
Which brings me to the thing that DROVE ME CRAZY at the ceremony. I am not sure even now what I could have done about it or what should be done to keep it from happening again. All through the ceremony, including during Studs Terkel’s speech there was a TABLE OF TEENAGERS(sitting looking toward the stage they would have been the table closest to the stage on the far right of the hall) who were TALKING OUT LOUD during his speech and throughout. And making fun of him with their gestures, for example when he said that in radio the words lift you higher and higher until you soar, or something like that. I saw a couple of them in mockery looking at the ceiling like the words should be up there. I shhshed them a couple of times and tapped one of them on the shoulder. By the end of the presentation I had a cryptic little note written on a program ready to hand them about what kind of impression they were making to people they might want to someday buy their work. The ceremony ended so I didn’t give it to them. If you are going to invite crowds of teenagers, perhaps the bar needs to be a bit higher for which ones can come and the behavior issue needs to somehow be addressed. Did these children not have counselors or someone with them? What should be done about it? What should I have done? I don’t think I was the only one upset about it.
The only other frustration for me was the dancing… I don’t know if we were or were not supposed to dance on the stage. What was one of the briefest and most joyous moments for me first of all did not start soon enough and ended too soon. The dance floor is one place I always feel at home. I have a lot of body but I DO know how to move it around. I wish someone who knew the area had said, "Why don’t we move this party to…" wherever.
But mostly the award’s ceremony was the very best part for me. I felt sparkly and beautiful and I fit in. Talking to people was a breeze… "what was your favorite part of the conference?" all of that and that’s where I felt most connected. It was great and amazing.
Thanks for the conference, good work, it was fun putting faces to e-mail messages. Chicago gave me the flu, but I had a great time visiting, though the fevers were inconvenient, they altered my perceptions and caused me to attend the medical conference next door for free meds. Here are some of my altered perceptions:
1. which session/s did you get the most out of, and why?
The conference did not start till Joe Richman told Robert Krulwich: “You know I do” when asked if Joe had tape of what he was talking about. That signified, for my fevered brain, the shift, when the conference switched from a radio show for the public, to one for us, the ones that did not stay at home and listen on the internet, the ones that hand over tapes on occasion to every day (I’m the former, there for the free stuff). In a sober voice, Joe let Robert, and us, know that this was not a stage with a fourth wall. Thanks.
TRESPASSING did not live up to my hype, and wiping away the sweat, I counted Elizabeth Barret saying an average of 18-19 ‘um’s per minute, this is my exercise when I’m antsy about something, and a radio ear. I was irking a little about the use of visuals in a radio world. I appreciate the narrative significance a story can possess, and in the venue we had, namely the time, we didn’t necessarily have time to see the structure in a film.
2. did you enjoy a particular session that you weren’t expecting to?
VOICE with Karen Michel was a fun and honest session. I really responded well to the smaller ones, but I went to public school. She was great and it was the only time I took notes that weekend. AIRTIME was neat too, very practical. Made me see that when the war comes, I might run to PRI’s side of the wall. Good luck with RADIO EXCHANGE Jake, the most tickling of anticipation to come out of the conference for me. My regret was that I could not attend all the ELEMENTs.
My DR session was short and over lunch, poor Katie Davis had to stuff tortellini in during the brief moments I talked, shame she had a lunch session with an inherently quiet person who prefers to listen than talk.
Overall a great job, I’ll hold off on compliments as they are many and assume that criticisms are more constructive for you now. Thanks to Jay Allison, I’m now an even bigger FAN of lost and found (sorry, couldn’t resist). I missed the awards, passed out with fever by 7pm. But needless to say, you all have created such a neat thing that I’m the first in line for next year’s conference when my temperature is down.
2. what was missing? we have a whole year to prepare for the next round.
Free stuff…TCIAF hats, pins, bullhorns, baseball bats, nose rings (for the younger ones)…
Produced by Mark Urycki
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Photos: Ethan Clauset
Produced by Sherre DeLys and John Jacobs
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Photos: Ethan Clauset
Produced by Joe Richman and Laura Rothenberg
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Photos: Joshua Barlow & Ethan Clauset
Produced by Kyla Brettle
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Photo: Ethan Clauset
Produced by Aaron and Bronwyn Ximm
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Photo: Ethan Clauset
Produced by Jonathan Goldstein, Alex Blumberg and Ira Glass
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Photos: Joshua Barlow & Ethan Clauset
Jay Allison, Robert Krulwich, & Ira Glass.
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Photo: Joshua Barlow
Jay Allison, Joe Richman, Nubar Alexanian, & Sue Johnson.
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Photo: Joshua Barlow
Was the conference really just two weeks ago? We’re already fretting about the next one! There are so many moments I’d like to re-live and these pictures, thank you Nubar and Ethan, do help.
But since we can’t go back in time, I guess we’ll have to go forward which we’re doing as we read over your thoughts here and on your evaluation forms with great interest and start making plans for 03.
What did I get out of this conference? The sincere belief that people need two days **every year** to step out of their working lives, meet producers from around the world, and get inspired. So as long as we can raise the funds we’re planning to make the Third Coast conference an annual event (party.) I learned that producers want to be challenged–you can listen and appreciate work in foreign languages, you can get pumped up about work that is only loosely documentary.
And–trying not to be too gushy here–I was impressed once again by how open you were to new ideas, how giving you were of your knowledge and talent and how respectful you were to one another and us, the organizers. Yes, mother hen went home happy.
What’s next?
The broadcast, hosted by Robert Krulwich, is done and by going to thirdcoastfestival.org you can find out where and when it’s coming to your town. All the sessions from the conference will be posted on the site, plus more pictures and other cool stuff on Tuesday the 19th for everyone to hear.
Thanks Jay for the opportunity to keep the conversation going on-line. We welcome your suggestions for next year!
Best;
Johanna
H
Will Affairs of the Mind and Grey Ghost have the rest of their audio put up on the site? The little clips we are currently provided offer no clue as to what made these stand out to the judges.
Last night we aired the two-hour 3rd Coast Broadcast Special on our local stations. Because I was simultaneously hosting and fundraising around it, I didn’t get to hear it all, but every time I could, I did and it was absolutely terrific. Robert Krulwich hosted and Mary Beth Kirchner produced. Somehow, they made it feel LIVE, even though it was impeccably premeditated and layered. It was as though they kept pulling objets off the shelf and putting them on the coffee table for us to admire in different combinations while they kept up running dialogues, with us, and with makers of the objets. It was a tour-de-force, really, since I’m stuck in French Mode here. When will it be available for web listening?
Oh my gosh, I just feel really privileged to be able to relive the sessions on the internet. I had to listen, yet again, for I guess the third time to the beginning and ending session. One thing that amazes me is that there are not that many sessions to listen to… I am wondering if the award’s ceremony is somewhere on the internet that I haven’t found yet? I am particularly interested in hearing Studs Terkel’s acceptance speech etc.
One suggestion I would strongly make is to emphasize, especially in the small breakout sessions the importance of speaking clearly into the microphone. Last year, I did not attend at all and only heard the sessions on the internet. This year, for the sessions I attended I took great notes so if I couldn’t hear it, I just referred back to my notes. But the breakout sessions I didn’t attend were SO frustrating. The music one was of great interest to me, but I had to just stop listening to it because of the frustration of not hearing the questions or comments.
But for the most part, listening was pure joy, especially listening and reliving the sessions again that I did attend. I am deaf in one ear and missed some of the points in the sessions originally. For example, the Features session sometimes was hard to understand when I was listening live, but to be able to stop the recording on the net and digest the information at my pace helped immensely. I gained a great deal from attending the session but perhaps even more from hearing the session on the net.
I am a juncture in my life and I can testify beyond any shadow of a doubt that attending the festival will forever alter the path my life will take from here on out. That is exciting to me. I am experiencing a great and overwhelming sense of gratitude about the whole thing.
I guess Julie, Johanna, and Lauren, that I am grateful to you and grateful for you and for the insight you had to bring the specific speakers to the conference that I needed to hear.
Cindy Henley
I agree that the 3rd Coast Broadcast was engaging on several levels.
It’s hard to imagine another introduction
About storytelling, it was unabashedly dramatic ("literally HUNDREDS of producers") and musical, using elements with the same qualities:
-the crowd noise underneath (was that genuine 3rd Coast crowd noise? when and where did you get it? [ the crowd noise is more musical and enthusiastic, more communicative, than the average crowd?])
-the sort of suspenseful music [what is it? have I heard it on TAL?],
-and, most of all, Robert Krulwich’s enthusiasm…
[Robert paces his enthusiasm. He dances it in the performance/casual style, rehearsed to be spontaneous, as though he really does want the listener to come along with him He bounds ahead three paces, but then turns back and whispers an aside (as in the intro of the intro when he says "bear with me because this is a numerically challenging")]
-Studs Terkel: insightful and unabashedly idealistic and dramatic… not afraid to talk about little guys not afraid to recognize them, can’t somebody please CLONE HIM? and
-the award-winning IF piece, with its poignant wonderment and musicality
-the interviews : Robert’s behind-the-scenes, "how’d you do it?" interviews were so much better than what we hear and see elsewhere [maybe radio how-tos can be more candid, because fewer people are involved in production and financing than are in film and video...]
-the interviews were strong because they were producer-to-producer and Robert really wants to know how producers did things and was candid (as when he said something like ‘please don’t tell me you’re a beginner,)
and then it was Krulwich as listener-to-producer such as when he checked out his impressions "let me picture the little boy, he’s X years old, with dark hair?…."
the only part I had a little trouble with was the transition between the IF piece and the interview with its producer. I needed a beat or two more to know the piece was through and to be able to sit with it.
.
The interview with Ira Glass was good too. , with Ira being candid or modest about how he learned slowly, and then being open about how the show and his character are manufactured to be as real as possible…
The broadcast will help friends understand what I’ve been excited about… T’was worth taping.
Mmm mmm good! Thank you
firstly – thanks much for the positive feedback about the broadcast – we’re so glad you’re enjoying it.
now, a few responses…at least to the questions i can answer.
both hours of the broadcast will be up on the third coast website by mid-next week, and we’ll be posting the entire winning pieces sometime between then and the end of the month – at least the ones we can get the rights to do so with. which will hopefully be all of them.
happy thanksgiving to all,
julie
(*obligatory holiday food reference)
The full broadcast is now on the website, and the full audio for the winners is finally up, Here.
actually you can still only hear the three minute excerpts of the winning pieces that have been on the site for the past few months, but we hope to have the full pieces up there soon. end of the weekish, even.
julie
Oops… um, I didn’t want to tell you this, but I’m from the very-near future. Want proof? I can tell you that you will not win the lottery this week. I’m sorry, but it’s true.
Laura Rothenberg, who was the Bronze winner for Best Documentary for My So-Called Lungs, has died at the age of 22. NY Times Obit.
My heart goes out to Laura’s family. I spent quite awhile at the Award’s Ceremony talking with Dr. Rothenberg about his precious daughter. I was an RN at Cardinal Glennon Hospital in St. Louis many years ago and my favorite kids were the CF kids. They were like members of the family and my heart hurts about the loss and for her family. No words can express the courage of these kids who fight against all odds to even breathe.
Laura was fortunate to be surrounded by a family that loved her so very, very much. It is this love that will make her passing almost unbearable to those who loved her. It is also this love and the fond precious memories that will ultimately give the family the needed strength to go on.
Dr. Rothenberg, if you read this, just know that my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. I am praying for peace and serenity for you as you continue to heal from this tremendous loss. You must be SO VERY PROUD of Laura. She touched each of us with her openness and honesty.
Man, I feel SO HELPLESS to say anything at all that will help this pain lessen in any way. I went to a visitation one time at a funeral home where the pastor explained the purpose of what we were doing there perfectly. He said that each one who comes to share condolences takes a tiny bit of the burden the family is carrying away with them and bears it themselves. That would be my wish to somehow lighten your load.
In the meantime we only have one choice to just keep on breathing and surviving… and remembering that precious young woman.
Cindy Henley