I recently had the pleasure of listening to Orson Welles’ “War of the World” broadcast. In hearing the broadcast for the first time, you can clearly hear how music is strategically placed after each radio broadcast segment to set the mood of the listener. The radio announcer is hyped up and projects an up-tempo and very alert voice for the storytelling. The sound effects that are played make everything so convincing to the listener that you couldn’t help but to think in that time, the broadcast was authentic. Going back and forth from the music to the broadcast, made everything sound so dramatic and exciting. It is a unique build up from segment to segment using music in-between to catch the attention of the listener. When Welles cuts to Washington, on the national emergency, that line alone solidifies the realness of the moment even if it was still doubt in the listener’s mind that it could have been a made-up story or hoax.  Even though it was announced that it was a radio dramatization of the War of the Worlds novel by H.G. Wells in the beginning of the broadcast, if you had missed that part, and many people in that time did, you would have believed that it was really going on in the present time as Orson Welles really played on the part of America’s fascination of life being on Mars. Later, towards the end of the broadcast after hearing some very melancholy music, Wells comes on and speaks somber and says, “I’m upset by the thought that I may be the last man on earth.” He goes on to describe in very detail everything that he is seeing, bringing the mind of the listener to his reality further captivating his audience to the reality that it is a war of the worlds going on.

In watching the video Ira Glass on Storytelling, I learned several nuggets to help with my storytelling. An interesting anecdote, and a sequence of actions that goes from one thing to the next helps build the story to its finality. I should raise questions from the beginning and imply that I am going to answer the question from the beginning of the story. A storyteller should continue asking questions and answering them in the storyline. It is best to add a moment of reflection in the story to show why someone would listen to the story in the first place. A good story is when you have action, then someone says something about it and then more action and then someone says something about the action again. An interesting anecdote and moment of reflection interwoven together, makes for a good story. Failure is a big part of success. Don’t have a problem getting rid of a lot of crap to get to something special. Stay in it, even though your taste in filmmaking/broadcasting/sound producing is great, but your work may not be up to the level of your taste yet. Fight your way through it so that you close the gap between your taste and your level of work. Glass said there are two common pitfalls when you begin in the sound or filmmaking career. “Do not try to act or sound like someone else already on the radio.” Glass also said, “The more you are like your own self, the better you are and when making a story, and let the other person be the main character of the story, even if it is a first-person story.” “It is important to show an interaction between persons in the story to help make it drama.”