junk in the trunk: what I learned
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008I want to send out a huge thank you to everyone who submitted comments on my last post, http://www.sabudesign.com/cattywampus/?p=237Junk in the Trunk, whether it was here on the blog or in e-mail or in person. It’s so amazing to get everyone’s input to guide me, or confirm my suspicions about an idea, or to bring up thoughts that would never have occurred to me at all.
I ask that you indulge me as I run down the list of things I learned from this experience, and what I will do my best to apply to the next project.
As a refresher, here is the audio in the four abandoned sections from Junk in the Trunk:
Thing I Learned #1:
A Story is a Sequence of Events
Almost everyone said the same thing after listening to the audio: The first section was good and interesting, and the other sections felt flat and kind of dull. I absolutely agree.
The first section has a basic structure–an anecdote. One thing happens, and then the next thing happens. You’re constantly waiting to find out what the next piece of the story is. The other three sections have almost no momentum at all because they are simply Renee telling you what you’re listening to. In essence, there’s nothing to keep you interested and wanting to hear more.
In my original idea, I thought that talking over the music would be the most interesting part of the piece and so that’s what I geared everything towards. This is partly based on my enjoyment of the “Music Mondays” section of the Adam Carolla show every week, where each of the three crewmembers of the show play music based on a theme. They talk about the music, interject personal stories, and crack jokes, and it is always interesting and funny. I realize now that I must be missing what makes those segments work on the Adam Carolla Show, because my three “talk over the music” sections certainly have none of the appeal or interest that theirs does. I recognize that the personalities are different, but something tells me that the structure probably has as much to do with the people.
Thing I Learned #2:
What People Hear is What People Hear
This is a useful tip for any animators reading this as well. You see, many people made suggestions and had ideas about different ways I could have edited the piece to be more interesting. And I was struck with the instinct to argue back “Well, I tried that idea…” or “No, that doesn’t work because…” or “No, no, the reason I did it this way is because…”
When all is said and done, however–all is said and done. Your audio (or animation) is put out there for people to see, and you’re not going to be able to be there to explain it to everyone who gets to hear it. You have to be comfortable letting it lie where you leave it, and take everyone’s comments as they come. Your listeners don’t know anything about the work you put into the project, they just know what they hear when you present it to them. If you tell them how to listen to it after the fact, you run the risk of sounding like a douche.
Thing I Learned #3:
Planning Planning Planning
You can’t just sit down with a microphone and talk to someone, even for an hour and a half, and expect that you’ll get something decent out of it. You have to have at least a little bit of an idea about what you want your final piece to be, and then prepare questions to direct you towards appropriate answers while still allowing the interview to feel open and natural.
Now, to be fair to myself, I had actually done a good amount of planning. The mistake, as I mentioned earlier, was that I thought it would be interesting to talk about the music itself and so that’s what I planned for. If I had kept in mind that what I really needed was a story, my planning would have been different: I might have tried to talk to Christine, or been more inquisitive about how Renee searched for the songs, what other people have thought of her Mix tape, etc. Hopefully I’ll know better for next time.
Thing I Learned #4:
You Learn by Doing
This might be another one that’s familiar to budding animators. As it applies to audio documentaries, it goes something like this: I have read a tone of websites and articles, heard many instructive podcasts, and watched many YouTube interviews with Ira Glass, all of which had great information about what it takes to put together a decent and interesting piece. But even if I had read everything there was to read on the subject, I’m not sure that my first piece would have come out much better than this. That’s because we tend to learn the most from our experiences.
There’s that old chestnut about an artist needing to get 5,000 bad paintings out of themselves before they reach the good paintings. The adage says nothing about reading 5,000 books about paintings. You just have to do ‘em. And by doing it more and more, the more you’ll remember for the next time you dip your brush into your palette.
Thing I Learned #5:
Try Try Again
I’m already thinking about what my next piece will be. And I know that these lessons will be carried into it–some of them might become sharper, and other new lessons will almost certainly occur to me. The people who have been doing this well have been doing it for years, so I’m not discouraged by a first-time attempt that isn’t a blockbuster. Stay tuned for the next one, whenever it arrives. I’ll need your feed back then as much as ever.
Thanks again to everyone for listening, and for enduring the silent days and nights here at the Midnight Diaries. Now that this piece is out of my system, I can get back to more puppets and stop signs. Come back this Friday if you don’t believe me. 
Cheers!
