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thank you for putting me on your mailing list …"
That's how my first E-mail to a wonderful bunch of people, calling themselves "Radiofuturists", began. Marie-Luise, Priscille and some others, who started this lively discussion forum, have been participants of EBU's Documentary Master School – colleagues in their late Twenties who were unhappy with a most sporadic exchange of ideas, being dominated by "the old ones". I'm grateful, they still let the door open to their chat-room full of smoke and smoky ideas for the fifty-plus-Generation too.
Reading again my rare letters I had the impulse that you should share our
conversations occasionally – those and others (with a nice group in Zagreb for example or with some American friends or … or …)
My intention is, to display bits and pieces of "common interest" in this section of my homepage, letters forth and back, an open notebook. Here are some fragments:
To Radiofutura …
With the exception of more or less four years in the SFB feature department I've been a freelancer all my life – in figures: 32 years in radio documentary so far … without really knowing (and even not wanting to know) what feature "exactly" is. Our beautiful genre is - or at least should be - part of the ever changing world, accompany it's changes and sometimes even anticipate them. There have been some major changes in the past like in the sixties, when stereophony was made manageable for sound recording in the field. And now – sooner or later - there will be another breaking point, as "the times of fm-broadcasting are slipping into the past" (quote Matthias).
With increasing interest I read the last part of your discussion about story telling
(lines, loops, spirals, flick-flacks etc.) Up to now we were talking about
dramaturgy in the framework of fixed programme slots – one hour, forty minutes etc. More and more this discussion is combined with fundamental changes of
the media landscape. To a certain extent we are obliged to adapt. Talks about dramaturgy cannot happen isolated anymore. It's good and necessary and brave that you put those questions on the agenda of "Radiofutura". This alteration process will be one of the main jobs in the period to come – your job after all (I'm talking of the younger generation).
I personally have no clue what will happen to "radio documentary" as we still call it when it's kicked out of daily programmes and becoming something "on demand". What I know and firmly believe in is the following: The DOCUMENTARY IDEA must be saved. That is: To look upon the world radically, strictly personal; to speak – with competence and professional responsibility – as the individual author, "first person singular" like Orson Welles used to call it. This can be done in all sorts of media – from a short commentary to the good old XXL full size radio feature.
On the other hand: The long form cannot be replaced entirely and forever by audio clips (though there might be good reasons to spread funny + intelligent listening-gateaux all over the programme). To go deep into a subject will need space and time, sweat and breath – also in the years to come. Who would dare to limit novels and factual books to 20 pages as a rule …
Draft for a radio event OPEN YOUR EARS, organized by Washington Goethe Institute …
It was entertaining and instructive to develop radio documentary beyond the borders between journalism and art (sound art, radio drama) within the last centuries. We all have learnt a lot. Considering the crisis of radio as a whole and particularly radio documentary – shrinking audiences and budgets worldwide – we must give clear outlines / contours to our genre once more.
I've grown up in the pre-TV age. Radio had to create images. There was no home cinema. So our brain had to be the screen for cinematographic scenes and pictures. In a way, they were substitutes. But working on them, we found other qualities and possibilities. And joy.
Unfortunately by the impact and pressure of visual media, joyful sound in the radio is more or less confined to small circles of sound addicts and to programme makers themselves, including technicians. The innocent age of sound rich radio never will come again (Note: I'm talking of radio DOCUMENTARY. Radio drama, audio art etc. are not my concern).
My clue - call it a theory, if you like: There are different categories of sound – all of them have their values, tasks, effects: words (spoken language of all kinds), ambient sound, sound of processes (like casting a bell in Leo Braun's "Bells in Europe"), metaphoric sound …
Today sound must be meaningful, if we decide on using it. There is no "must" to use sound apart of spoken language in a radio documentary. Sound must communicate, speak by itself. Sounds – in our days – should be taken much more serious concerning their meaning and impact. Intentional !
We are talking to listeners. We talk with words and sounds. We are
no painters, no composers. Leave art to artists, (sound-)canvas to
(sound-)painters – to other categories beyond the border. Let's stay DOCUMENTARISTS who reach their audience with all tools of the radio – using them effectively and intelligently but not for their own sake.
(Note: It's the joy, challenge, thrill of borders to be crossed once in a
while. It's the provocation of "rules" and theories that we are free to
transgress against them)
To a Zagreb friend
Dear Srdjan, how to start a letter, directed to utopia ? Your mail is full of passion, emotion, dedication, curiosity, power – as your Zagreb group is (I got to know most of your partisan comrades in the meantime). I'm stimulated by your radical approach to the medium, which means: to be concerned about the future of radio "as such". I join your general analysis of "the system", which is not so much different from that one in other countries.
What I'm missing in your wonderful utopian draft, reaching out even into outer space, are words like LISTENER or PUBLIC or AUDIENCE. I'm not talking about the big mass consuming audio fast food in the canteen of mass media.
Working on my own programmes, I always think of listeners next door – open minded people, curious people, first of all: existing people. What I mean is: We should have a rather precise idea of our customers – and we can observe them on the streets, in our favourite pubs, in the tramway day by day. This (existing, potential) public must be enlarged – self-evidently, last but not least to please our bosses. But – as you state in your letter, Srdjan: let's "use the system" first. That includes listeners who switch on Zagreb radio yet --- at least the "better part" of them.
As you describe your ideal radio heaven in your paper, it's in parts as
"hermetic – without strong connections with outer world" as the criticized system.
By the way: Generally I'm not disgusted by the term "public service" - if we understand it in an alternative, radical way or in it's original meaning. Public can / must be served by dreams, fun, eccentric ideas too.
When I was editor of staff some years ago, my (never realized) idea was to have both: the big stage for the large audience and the small experimental theatre, a permanent laboratory, which is feeding the "main hall" with solutions and impulses of all kinds. You got the people for the 'unit' or 'squad' on the experimental side yet. But – this is my humble advice: don't stay in isolation opposite of the "public service".
I mustn't tell you that convincing bosses of "quality" (a rather foggy term, too !) isn't an easy task – nowhere. But worth trying. My favourite quotation: "Utopian ideas are the dreams of reason" - or in German: "Utopien sind die Traeume der Vernunft" …
Being involved (to Radiofutura)
Dear Marie-Luise, Sanja, Carmen ... I very much enjoy your discussion about "being involved" ! The matter sounds rather simple - but only at the first glance. One of the tricky questions is: How close should I be to my "main character" and his/her story without loosing my critical sense. One aspect of your discussion may have been neglected: There are different types of radio documentaries (and feature-makers). To talk about my own priorities: I consider myself as a journalist, approaching our genre from a journalistic angle.
To know, from which "observation point" resp. point of view resp. with which attitude I look upon my subject, makes it easier to solve those questions about "being involved".
I'm subjective - oh yes ! - but not necessarily friendly to "my" characters. I try to keep a certain distance (sometimes unsuccessfully, I confess). I fancy certain points of view of my "journalistic objects", but I don't patronize them. Being a journalist, I rarely can be the advocate of other peoples' concerns.
To cut a long story short: Don't involve yourself emotionally too much, but stay open and curious and even friendly to your characters and their situation. If you like them or not: make them live in your programme !
Unterwegs zum Software-Produzenten
Ich lese das Fazit von Karl Petermichls Erfahrungsbericht
und Plädoyer für die Surroundtechnik in CUT 9/2005: "Und nach unserer
Einschätzung wird sich Radio immer mehr in Richtung Mehrkanal bewegen, bis die
Jugendlichen von heute dereinst ihren Enkelkindern erzählen werden: Als ich
noch jung war, hat man Radio nur in Stereo hören können ..."
Da fällt mir meine Großmutter ein: Sie war schon an die
Achtzig und mit einer liebenswerten Altersdemenz gesegnet. Bevor sie vor dem
Schwarz-Weiß-Fernseher Platz nahm, richtete Oma die Haare, zog ihre sauberste
Strickjacke an und setzte ein freundliches Gesicht auf. Mich, den längst
Erwachsenen, ermahnte sie eindringlich zu ordentlichem Benimm – "Was
sollen die sonst von Dir
denken !"
Warum also muss ich bei der Diskussion um Dolby Surround und
Dolby Digital immer an meine verstorbene Großmutter denken ? Vielleicht wegen
der Begriffe wie "Home" und "Wohnzimmer" und
"Heimanordnung" (der Lautsprecher), die in all dem
Techniker-Chinesisch unvermittelt auftauchen. "Trautes Heim – Glück
allein" im 5.1-Format.
Die Befreiung von den zwei Monitor-Boxen durch den Walkman
Ende der 70er Jahre wurde zu Recht als Akt der Emanzipation gefeiert. Aber auch
die Übertragung des Zweikanal-Stereo-Klangs über Lautsprecher, die selbst
außerhalb der idealen Sitzposition akustische Räume klanggetreu und transparent
abbilden, entließ uns aus der autoritären Bevormundung à la TV-Bildschirm, der
immer und von überall aktiv beglotzt werden will - vorn ist, wo die Bilder
sind, nachzuprüfen in jeder Flughafen-Lounge.
Nun also holt uns "die Technik" (sprich "die
Industrie") in den Klubsessel zurück, mehr noch: Sie umstellt uns mit
sechs Schallquellen, ausgerichtet auf den Center-Lautsprecher, und attackiert
uns pfeilgenau mit Effekten aus den "Surrounds", das heißt von allen
Seiten - im Schnittpunkt die Heiligen Sebastians des digitalen Zeitalters: wir
Zuhörer.
O. k. – Hut ab vor den Technikern, die immer filigranere
Klangbilder für immer gröbere Ohren zaubern. "Der Fortschritt lässt sich
halt nicht aufhalten" (das sagte
schon mein Großvater, Jahrgang 1880). Wären da nicht die Folgekosten –
technisch, organisatorisch, ästhetisch und vor allem ökonomisch. Am Radio als
non-invasivem Medium der Gedanken und der Phantasie interessiert mich nun
einmal besonders die über Jahrzehnte gewachsene und immer noch taugliche Form
großer dokumentarischer Sendungen.
Das NAGRA-Gewicht des Bandaufnahme-Equipments seligen
Angedenkens haben uns Minidisk-Recorder, professionelle Walkmen, kleine und
leichte Flashcard- und Harddisc-Recorder buchstäblich von den Schultern
genommen. Das Radio kann – immer noch im Gegensatz zum Fernsehen - mit
minimalem Technik-Aufwand intim sein.
Es folgt "dem Leben" wie es ist, nicht umgekehrt. Was sollte mich als
Dokumentaristen auf der Aufnahme- wie auf der Wiedergabeseite für 5.1
begeistern ?
Die Produktion und Ausstrahlung von Surroundsendungen, so
erklärt uns laut CUT 9/2005 Karl Petermichl vom ORF-Hörfunk, kostet rund ein
Viertel mehr als eine durchschnittliche Stereoproduktion, nicht gerechnet den
"Workflow bis hinein ins Archiv" und "die höheren Performance-Anforderungen
an Netzwerke" et cetera. Werden uns Machern die ohnehin schrumpfenden
Feature-Etats nach vollzogener flächendeckender Sourround-Beschallung noch
weniger Luft zum Atmen lassen und unseren Hörern immer weniger Gelegenheit zum
Mit- und Nachdenken über "hot issues", also wichtige Themen der Zeit
?
Schon vor Jahren hörte ich einen smarten jungen
Mann bei einem senderinternen Informations-Treffen von Hard- und
Software-Kosten plaudern. Hardware: das waren die Studios und der Sendebetrieb,
der technische "Apparat". Software: das meinte unsere Programme. Der Hörer als
"Endverbraucher". Dieses auf den Kopf gestellte Denken beherrscht, so
scheint mir, auch die gegenwärtige Mehrkanal-Diskussion. Der hochgelobte Kulturträger "Radio" als Anhängsel
der Unterhaltungs-Elektronik-Industrie. Wer, zum Teufel, spricht endlich von
den Inhalten ?
LARGE SCALE versus MEDIA CLIPS (July 24th 2006)
Dear Jana,
your mail caused some uproar among the synapses of my brain. The
development in Czech radio seems to be exciting in different ways. First of all:
development is better than stagnation. We must not close our eyes and ears in
front of new challenges (multi media, pod cast, digitalisation in general) but -
on the contrary - happily use those exciting tools.
On the other hand: It's crucial and urgent that radio people develop
their own self-confidence and pride, understanding audio-media as a genre in his
own rights, different but not less powerful than visual media. Radio is able to
transport EVERYTHING to the ears and brains of listeners.
As I take it, radio broadcasts since it's invention (and even more since
the introduction of space by stereo-recording and –transmission) in colour and
3D-surround. Radio IS film – but it never could (and should) be "broadcast
in TV".
Talking more personally: During the Seventies of the last century I was
working 50:50 in both fields, jumping from one genre to the other and back like
a circus artist. But there was one day in the early Eighties – I remember it
quite well – when I decided to drop TV activities and exclusively become a
radio author and –producer. The reason was: I couldn't dare to change the
audio-chip in my head (i.e. my audiophonic perception and attitude) to a
video-chip day by day. And I never regretted this painful decision.
Times have changed – I know. Freelancers have to graze wherever there
are some leaves of grass, and I wouldn't dare to reproach them for doing so. But
we all should keep in mind, that radio isn't TV without images, and shaping a
radio-documentary demands the awareness of a radio-attitude.
Understand: We are NOT talking of 3-minute-current-affairs-reporting –
we talk about what the French call "Grande Forme" and the English
"Large Scale Actualities".
Jana, you should tell your bosses, that Czech radio is in danger to give
up one of it's main justifications as statutory medium: to support an old but
lively "line of business", which is part of the communicative culture
in your country, a platform of discussion, consideration and – in it's best
moments – art.
I strongly support cross-media-projects on important issues in our radio
organisations, exposing the strength of each medium in his own field. But –
for heaven's sake: Don't make radio feature a material dump for TV- and Internet
purposes !
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