Telling Stories with Sound

Course Overview

Title:
Telling Stories with Sound
Type:
Self-Directed Course
Time Estimate:
This course takes about an hour to complete.

About Self-Directed Courses

In a self-directed course, you can start and stop whenever you like, progressing entirely at your own pace and going back as many times as you want to review the material.

Sound plays a vital role in online and broadcast journalism, and good audio results from a deliberate process of planning, working in the field and producing in the studio.

"Telling Stories with Sound" covers this process from start to finish, equipping you with the tools needed to gather, process and combine audio, creating effective, memorable narratives.

What Will I Learn:

Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

  • Identify what stories work well as audio narratives
  • Research locations and those you will interview
  • Prepare for problems in advance
  • Select the right gear for your project
  • Interview for sound
  • Eliminate white noise
  • Use microphones effectively
  • Enhance your productions with ambient sound
  • Write scripts that work for sound
  • Record voiceovers
  • Create a final “mix,” by combining all gathered content
Who should take this course:

Anyone who wants to use audio effectively as a multimedia storytelling tool.

Course Instructors:

Andrew DeVigal

Andrew DeVigal is the multimedia editor of The New York Times at nytimes.com, where he directs the presentation of audio, graphics and slide shows on the Web.

Casey Frechette

Casey Frechette is an interactive learning producer with Poynter's News University. He combines backgrounds in technology and education to find the best ways to translate great teaching into engaging online experiences.

Technical Requirements:

For this course you will need to have at least version 8.0 of the Flash plugin installed. For the best experience, we suggest that:

  • PC users use Internet Explorer or Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox
  • Mac users use Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox or Safari
  • You set your monitor resolution to 1024 x 768 or higher
  • You use a high-speed connection

This course contains audio, so please make sure you have your speakers or headphones on.