Northwest Institute for Social Change: The Blog

Portland: feel like a million bucks

As Rachel mentioned in her last blog post, we all just finished the radio documentary portion of the NWISC summer documentary program. My post here is a “making of”, behind the scenes, of an audio piece made by Madeline and me.

My project partner Madeline and I joked around saying that last week was one long Monday. The days blended into each other, and the week flew by. Monday we began making our radio documentary.

We journeyed to a remote part of Portland, Oregon for an immersive journalism experience at a summer camp. Not just any camp, but a Rock ‘N’ Roll for Girls camp where young girls form bands, write songs, and perform for an audience—all in 1 week. With audio recorders in hand listening through white ear-bud headphones, we meandered through narrow hallways and squeezed into rooms crammed with drum sets and electric guitars, recording every twist and turn of girls rock camp. Off-key guitar strumming, cowbells, girls chatter, and interviews with people at camp, we recorded it all. Posters of Joan Jett and murals of female singers covered the walls. And every feeling of the camp filtered through us. Six hours later, we left with our own batteries drained, and those of our recording devices too.

Meticulous sound editing at 1:30am, holding a microphone up to Madeline’s face under a blanket in a hot dorm room to get the best quality sound, and listening to interview quotes again (and again) are snapshots of our post-production process. But even in the moments when we were tired, or when everything seemed so jumbled and far from being done, there was this deep underlying sense of- being happy. Each part of the audio documentary process was thrilling, and I learned an incredible amount from each parcel of the process, from scheduling interviews to mixing audio clips.

And by Friday, we had a final product that we were proud of. If I had to choose one word for the week, it would be fulfilling. Hard work, teamwork, setting a goal, and reaching it made me feel like a million bucks.

-Amy