The Ira Glass videos were broken down into 4 parts. Part 1 goes over “what is a story in it’s purest form?” The power of the anecdote creates a momentum in itself, so no matter how boring a story may be, you still have a sequence of events that help you feel like you’ve got a destination within the story. Therefore, you keep on wanting to listen. You want to have “bait” and raise questions to keep interest locked in. Also, he discusses a moment of reflection, which explains what’s going on and why you are listening to the story. Part 2 discusses finding the actual story before you get to the editing process. It is important to be able to abandon a story if it is not working and “kill” it. Things are good when people are tough on their work. Failure is a big part of success. Part 3 talks about going through phases of good taste, but stories didn’t have the special something they were hoping for. It’s normal and the most important thing you can do is keep moving forward and working towards being better so your work ends up being as great as your ambitions. Part 4 covers how everything is more compelling if you just talk like yourself. The more you are your own self, the better off you are. The issue with this is if you have a bad personality, like someone who only talks about themselves the whole time. On Radiolab’s video with Jad Abumrad, “How Radio Creates Empathy,” he mentions that the lack of pictures in radio enables your imagination and a sense for co-authorship. You have to be connected and fill the gap where pictures are lacking, which creates empathy. The human voice has a musicality to it and he thinks that may be the reason that radio never dies.
I liked that you were able to break down each part of the videos in a simple and easy way to understand! I also liked how you brought up the fine line between “being your authentic self” and coming off as “full of themselves” because it’s a very important barrier!