Quality vs quantity
Two questions I am always asked about audio production:
- Does recording audio interfere with reporting?
- How long does it take?
First, a bit about my background. I started helping with audio podcasts at my last paper. I didn’t actually edit anything down, rather, I marked the clips I wanted and sent it to a Web editor, who then cut the clips out for me and sent it on to a special projects editor (who then collected it all into a podcast).
So technically, I never edited audio for any newspaper. I have, however, taken it upon myself to learn Audacity (a simple audio editor) on my own. After learning Audacity, I produced some podcasts for a video game fan site I visit (which I won’t post here, but everyone seemed happy with the quality).
So the answer to the first question: Does recording audio interfere with reporting? I would say no. In fact, I think recording audio has only enhanced my reporting. As part of scene setting, reporters should pay attention to the sounds around them anyway, but I have found that recording only made me more aware of what I hear and I can choose to add those details to my story.
The second question: How long does it take? Not as long as you might think. First off, you have to go into the project knowing what you want. For instance, I recorded audio for a podcast about a landfill study. Sounds boring right? Well, I got some audio of the landfill manager on top of the landfill where all of the trucks were. You could hear the trucks moving garbage, backing up (beep beep beep) and you could also hear trucks driving in and out (unfortunately I do not have this in my clips file, I wish I did!).
It took about 20 minutes to write the broadcast script (including choosing the order of the audio clips and perfecting the flow), about two minutes to read it, and I can’t imagine it would take more than 20 minutes to piece everything together on the back end. So let’s say about 45 minutes for a 1 minute, 30 second podcast (my personal limit is 30 seconds).
Also, check out a similar analysis on video at Andy Dickenson’s blog. Be sure to read the comments too. For instance, he said it takes four hours of production for one minute of video. That seems really high. In fact, I’ve heard one hour to one minute, and I think that sounds high, but I’ve never done it so I’m not sure.