Digital Story:
VIDEO: Radiolab Behind the Scenes
I am a sucker for behind-the-scene footage! Whether it profiling a football team’s training camp in HBO’s Hardknocks, or a documentary about the prog-rock band Rush (Beyond the Lighted Stage). Sometimes I am more interested in the process of creating something (in Hardknocks, a competitive team), than I am in the actual product. However, when I am given a change to witness the process of an interesting product, (as with Rush and their huge body of work), I cannot help myself.
My first critique this week is this Radiolab Behind the Scenes video. A group of videographers called American Hipster produced the video. They interviewed the hosts of Radiolab, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, about the production of Radiolab, splicing in footage of the Radiolab team’s process of creating the podcast. The video is short, lasting approximately 6 minutes, but does provide a good understanding of what’s behind the making of Radiolab.
Because of the behind-the-scenes content covered in this video, as well as its brevity, I will assess the video based on Jason Oher’s criteria of Story and Economy, as well as Sense of Audience:
Story
What is interesting about collecting behind-the-scene footage, is that it requires a journalistic mindset of finding the story. As a former aspiring journalist, finding a good story in what can feel like chaos requires keen observation, patience, and understanding of what’s relatable. I think American Hispter did a good job of delivering a good story journalistically.
The narrative tool they used to drive the story was the interview with the hosts Jad and Robert, then drawing more details by cutting to scenes of them and their staff producing the podcast. The story of creating Radiolab starts at the very beginning, as Robert explains “somebody decides they want to meet some guy because that guy has something interesting to say.” It moves through the production process of recording, and audio editing, finally ending with this notion of “seeing the universe in a blade of grass,” as Jad said.
However, it is after this point when Jad talks about concentrating on a particular to see everything that, for me, the story of making Radiolab becomes less clear. The video should have ended here with this profound idea, to quote Miyamoto Mushai, “if you know the way broadly, you will see it in all things.” However, the video persists, for another minute and a half, showing how they spend a lot of time to hone in on small segments of audio, then some point Jad makes about the media being unnatural, and then another contrived point of trying to spread a “fever.” (Queue the inspiring music.) I’m not sure what the fever is, but the video ends with a request for donations. At this point, the video suddenly feels unauthentic, and like a bit of a marketing ruse.
Economy
The video was short, lasting a little over 6 minutes, so economy of media was definitely used. American Hipster was effective in telling a robust story with limited footage, cutting from the interview, to production, and overlaying audio throughout the video to narrate.
The video followed a prioritization very common (and taught) in journalism and documentaries, in that it followed the “diamond structure.” Radiolab does this too in their podcasts. Imagine a diamond, where your story starts at the top. It is focused on one small point. In the case of this video, it’s “the some guy” which Robert references. Then the story moves outward, down the diamond, becoming larger and broader, incorporating new ideas more and more. Finally, you reach the broadest portion of the diamond, the bid idea of it all; in this case, the notion of finding the universe in a blade of grass. Then, your return to the small point – which is often times done very quickly (giving the diamond an odd shape). I don’t think this video tried to come back to the point, and if they did, it was by showing the hosts back in the recording studio briefly.
Sense of Audience
The video was released because, as the hosts say at the beginning, they were often asked how the podcast was made. I think it was very nice of them to fulfill their audience’s wishes and produce a video, with the help of American Hipster, that shows how the podcast’s content originates, how it is recorded, and how it is structured.
Personally, I was annoyed by the ending when they ask for donations. I do understand that this podcast is funded with donations, and I am sure many people in their audience appreciate these reminders. This could just be my own subjective distaste.
