Hella Solutions blog: "Document. Share. Inspire."

The folks over at “This American Life” produced a very handy comic that covers the basics for producing audio documentary work and I thought I’d just post, repost, or in other words pass along my own recommendation for this useful piece. It’s easy to read, easy to follow and covers some key points for producing good audio documentaries. From identifying strong stories, interviewing and even editing sound. And it’s all done in the style of a comic book. What fun, eh?!!! Anyway, it’s only US$5.00 (including s/h) and it’s a very useful item to have on hand. So, head over to their site at http://www.thislife.org.

December 12-13 — San Francisco, California to Dakar, Senegal to Johannesburg, South Africa

Susie and I wake up at 3:30 a.m. to get my butt to SFO to sit on planes for 24 hours. This doesn’t have me feeling all that excited. “Do I really want to do this?” keeps running through my head. Yes, of course I do but 24 hours sitting in a cramped seat? Holy crap! The South African story is a crucial narrative in my documentary and I think it’s worth almost any cost to get there…but I still have second thoughts. I must add, Susie, you are the best! Thank you for all of your support and encouragement in getting me to Africa and most definitely, thanks for driving at such an inhuman hour to get me to the airport.

I have a lot of notes of my feelings and thoughts while flying but they seem a bit boring to post here and not so pertinent to my project. But by the time I get to Dakar, Senegal – my second stop on the way to Johannesburg – I note:

Overall I feel like the flight to Jo’burg (Johannesburg) has been fairly tolerable. I’m feeling a bit cramped up and I will definitely be ready to get out of this plane. But I haven’t exhausted my iPod yet and I’ve only used about 65% of my first battery on my laptop. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of tension with the other passengers on the plane and my co-habitant, Andrew, has been chill.

I got some audio of the flight crew announcing the flight destination on both legs of the Africa flights. The first clip from the ATL to Dakar didn’t feel like it was all that great but may be after cleaning up the track a bit it might be usable. The problem is that there is a lot of background sound (buzzes, wooshes, etc). My second recording felt like it was a bit better but the announcer’s voice sounded a little shallow. On the first attempt I actually asked the stewardess to make the announcement for me and she was very accommodating and did. What a difference flying international is! Actually, I’m thinking that it is more than likely the fact that this is the first week that Delta is flying to South Africa and their crew sees it as more of a novelty at this point than a pain in the ass (as it seems on most other flights).

…some time later…

We are over Namibia right now traveling at 501 mph, a distance of 3728 miles and at an altitude of 36996. We’re almost there!

I have so much crap with me it’s almost unbearable. I mean, in order to do environmental sounds on the plane and such I have to have my MD recorder out, a mic, mic chord and headphones. And in such a small space like a plane it almost hurts. Luckily I’ve had this pretty chill guy from Capetown next to me since Atlanta. We’ve talked some and I’ve explained my project and he’s been accommodating but I think it’s going to take me 20 minutes to collect my stuff to get off this plane. It’s been about 24 hours since I left SFO and believe me, I want to get off this plane now!

Oh, there’s the lunch “bell”…Mmmmm Kosher plane food. Ya, I ordered the Kosher meals but I can’t really tell the difference between them and the regular ones. On the Kosher certificate they say things like, “the utensils are guaranteed to be new.” Um, does that mean the others aren’t? All I can say is that I haven’t had any negative reactions to the food and that works for me! We’ll be landing about 25 minutes after lunch. FINALLY!