A learning curve in the 35W six months story.

The last three cutting sessions at KFAI have been interesting, frustrating and useful. I’ve begun to feel competent with ProTools. I’ve also been learning my rhythm. I want to be able to hit the ground running to produce my stories with little learning curve stall. ProTools is its own pain in the butt. Like an engineer friend, at NPR, would gently remind: it’s all basically the same tool. They just have different ways to do stuff. I know enough to put together a strong story.

I still want to improve how quickly I can pare down the redundancies in my audio. I had some inspired and ruthless help from my Intern Edition mentor. My rough cut with much of the stammers and crutch words cut is 6:30-ins. My news director says that the longest she wants it to be sis 5:00. That’s hard, but not so hard. Hard comes when I speak to the MFD or emergency management spokes person to respond to my source’s criticism of their response to the collapse I have to cut nearly ½ of my tape to make length and room to fit that voice.

I also don’t know whether to go with the NPR standard of clean sweeping all crutches and stammers or to retain some to keep the flavor of my source and the story.