The Sounds of Science: Nonfiction Audio Storytelling

Catalog description

In this course, we will use narrative nonfiction storytelling to try to get at the layers beneath popular science stories. Our medium will be audio, and the course will equip students with the tools and skills to develop their story ideas in ways that take advantage of the unique intimacy of sound. While audio is not a great medium for communicating numbers and statistics, it excels at the complexities of character and feeling. That’s where we will focus our storytelling energies. In the spirit of inquiry, we will produce narratives that offer more questions than answers. Students will learn the fundamentals of field recording, interviewing, story structure, writing for the ear, audio editing, sound design, and scoring.