Our First Man-On-The-Street Interview

For our man-on-the-street interview excersize, my partners and I set out with the question, "Are you doing anything different to prepare for winter this year?" We were armed with facts and trivia about the high cost of heating oil, in addition to higher costs of food and gasoline, added to the fact that the Farmer's Almanac (a semi-reliable source, I admit) predicts a colder than usual winter this year. We got some interesting answers. One woman just smiled and said heat was included with her rent. Another guy refused to be interviewed saying he wasn't doing anything and didn't want to talk about it. I found a woman who had just moved here from Colorado and was facing her first Maine winter with oil heat. She gave me some very thoughtful answers in our 3-minute interview, and for a moment I was wishing I were in the radio track instead of photography (I've since come to my senses). But it was incredibly fun. The Sony recorders are beautiful pieces of equipment, and I've decided to impose myself on any radio student I can find who will show me something about ProTools. It can only be an asset to know this software in a multimedia world.

In this photo: Natasha Haverty, radio student 2008, interviewing a guy named Aaron, and Jenny Goff, writing track, 2008. Photo by me, Claire Houston.

The streets get salty...

We radio people have been vox poppin' the streets of Portland.

Basically, we approach strangers and ask them to answer a question (a question we have undoubtedly labored over for hours and hours). Once the tape is gathered, we load it into the trusty Macs and chisel away. One minute and thirty seconds later, we've got a beautiful piece of radio. Well, I could not be further from that point. Pro-tools still scares me but I'm hoping to overcome my fears within the next 24 hours. I'll keep you posted...