A CONVERSATION WITH JARED WEISSBROT - AUDIO ENGINEER and EDITOR of SOUNDPRINT
Conversation from Summer 2007 with NPR Liaison to Independent Producers, Paul Ingles

SOUNDPRINT is a long-running radio documentary series that airs long-form (25:30) content on a variety of topics from both station-based and independent producers. For more details about submitting to SOUNDPRINT, visit their submission page: http://www.soundprint.org/radio/produce.php

Jared Weissbrot, audio engineer with Soundprint, is one of the first people who would see a pitch for the program. Well not THE first…

WEISSBROT: We usually have production assistants or interns that usually page through the pitches first. They’ll get rid of the ones that say something like “I want you to do a show about oranges…” Then I’ll handle the one that look appropriate.

INGLES: How would you describe their criteria for letting one through?

WEISSBROT: Basically they're looking for feasability. But if it's a good idea, they'll forward it through to me.

INGLES: What kinds of things make it to Soundprint?

WEISSBROT: We air programs on pretty much anything. We really like science. And history. Recently, we aired two historical American shows. One on the Lincoln assassination and one about Kent State. The next week's show was about business. The next week was a show about The Sound of Music and a show about chickens. Then the next week was about fish in Austrailia and the migration pattern of the Monarch butterflies. If you can glean something out of all that in terms of the kinds of shows we're looking for, you're doing better than I.

INGLES: Well the first thing that comes to mine is if you'll do a program on chickens, why wouldn't you do one about oranges?

WEISSBROT: (laughs) You could be right. We actually did one on tomatoes. The tomato war between Canada and the U.S. We're looking for something that is a really well thought out idea or has the potential to become a well thought out idea.

INGLES: What about arts and culture, musician profiles, artist profiles?

WEISSBROT: Not so much. It depends on how it's pitched. We just did a piece on Van Gogh and Gaugin. It was about the collaboration between Van Gogh and Gaugin.

INGLES: How does it work when you get the pitch in front of you. Are you getting programs that are already produced and the producers are looking for Soundprint to act, in essence, as a distributor?

WEISSBROT: We do get a fair amount of those. We call them acquisitions. Programs that are already produced. Those come straight to me and I'll listen to them for audio tech considerations. And to see if it sounds like a Soundprint. We avoid programs that are ACTS and TRACKS. We're called "Soundprint." We're looking for ambience. We're looking for scenes. We want to place the listeners where things are. We're not looking for someone sitting in a studio talking about oranges. We're looking for someone standing underneath an orange tree talking about oranges.

INGLES: So some of the programs are already produced and may have run on local stations?

WEISSBROT: Yes, I have one right now that aired on a local station and they're looking for national distribution. We're in the process of deciding whether we'll run it. Actually this is an interesting case because in many respects this particular one is very localized. There are a lot of local statistics and local figures. It's well-done and well-produced but we're not sure someone on the west coast is going to care about the crime rate of a small town in Maine, or something.

INGLES: So what are you asking yourself in that example? Are there universal themes in the story?

WEISSBROT: Exactly. That's one of the reasons we do want to air this program. So we'll be talking to the producer and asking them to recut this just a little bit.

INGLES: So we've talked about fully-formed programs or ones that requires just a little bit of tinkering.

WEISSBROT: Ready-to-go programs account for maybe 40% or less of how we work with independent producers. We actually prefer to be in the scripting process, at the very least in an editorial capacity, or more often in the stages of helping discuss who and what goes into the piece.

INGLES: So you also field pitches for completely unproduced pieces?

WEISSBROT: Yes. I just got one today for a program that we're really interested in. Actually they already have their tape.

INGLES: Do they already have their money or funding?

WEISSBROT: Yes. We can talk about that in a minute. They went somewhere as a project and now they're looking to do a bunch of media things including a radio documentary. So I'm listening to tape and going through their outline, helping them develop the sense of where the scenes are going to be, what direction it's going to take. In this particular example I was impressed. It was really well-done.

INGLES: I saw on the Soundprint website something like "some acquisition funds may be available to help a project reach completion." What's available?

WEISSBROT: I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to disclose what the various rates are. It is a complete case-by-case basis. We have rates that we pay for pre-produced pieces. We have rates for pieces that need some tweaking. We have rates that we pay for material that has or has not already aired. We sometimes support programs from start to finish if it's either a really good pitch or sometimes we get our own grants to do work and we go to a producer and say, "hey, would you do this program like such?". If someone needs help finishing something up by getting some tape, sometimes we'll send an engineer out there or we'll help them find an engineer, or someone to do a tape-synch.

INGLES: So what is your advice to producers who feel they have a legitimate idea that is in any stage of development? Just contact Soundprint to see what the possibilities are?

WEISSBROT: Yes.

INGLES: You guys are open to good ideas, then you start shaping a plan based on the circumstances.

WEISSBROT: Exactly.

INGLES: Are there any best practices that you'd like to share about pitching to Soundprint?

WEISSBROT: There are details on the pitch page on our website (www.soundprint.org/radio/produce.php). We DON'T want your full transcript. No more than 5 sentences for a summary. No more than two pages for a proposed story idea. We want to know how you'll tell the stories with voices and sound. That's really important. If it's the story of an 8-year-old going through an operation, is it going to be told by the 8-year old? By the parents? By the doctor? Or by a completely disinterested third-party? Also, I'm interested in learning the person's experience. I love getting tape samples from a proposed story. If the tape sounds really fantastic, that's a really good thing.

INGLES: You mean tape samples from the proposed project?

WEISSBROT: Either. From the proposed project or tape from work that the person has done before.

INGLES: I guess the best case scenario is that you get a little bit of both so that you know the quality of their work and get a sense of what they'd already recorded that might be a part of this piece.

WEISSBROT: Yes. But having tape from the proposed piece is not so important. We're not going to make somebody go out and record their subject first so that we know what it's going to be. Obviously, if they have it, that can help us in the process of deciding. But it's important for us to hear what a reporter sounds like narrating and what their recording skills are.

INGLES: Some of your stations carry an hour-long version of the show, some carry a half-hour, some carry a news-cast version. What is the length of each segment that you're looking for?

WEISSBROT: Everything needs to come in at 25:30. That allows for a lead-in from our host Lisa Simeone, some credits, etc. to fit into a 28:30 slot.

INGLES: Is there anything else that is important in your mind?

WEISSBROT: Did I mention stereo? We like a production that takes advantage of stereo. We like a production that takes advantage of sound. We like the scenes in a piece to last several minutes rather than in short clips. We want the listener to be in the place where the story is being told. We want them to hear the birds chirping. I say that because we have birds chirping outside our window right now.

INGLES: So in other words, if a piece doesn't have birds chirping but needs them, you have easy access to them there?

WEISSBROT: (laughs) Exactly. But we want the listener to be in that spot. For example, we just did a program about Abraham Lincoln. Unfortunately there isn't much tape available from 1865.

INGLES: Yeah, that's a problem.

WEISSBROT: Right, so we had our expert who was talking about it go to the Mary Surratt tavern to talk about it. He could have said the same things in a studio but we wanted him in the place where it happened.

INGLES: And finally then, I understand that you can't talk specifically about money. But tell me if this is a true statement. Soundprint doesn't have tons of money and the best case scenario is for a producer to have found their funding ahead of time before bringing the idea to Soundprint.

WEISSBROT: Yeah. Obviously if they've got their money that's great. But we can help in many ways. Like doing the mixing.

INGLES: So sometimes you're working with reporters who are providing acts and trax and elements and they are sending in their materials in scripted form after working with an editor. And you guys are doing the mix.

WEISSBROT: Yeah.

INGLES: And sometimes you're taking completely mixed programs, checking them for audio excellence, and then they are presented as mixed by the producers.

WEISSBROT: Yes. Again though, more often here at Soundprint, we're involved in the planning and editing. I don't want people to think they have to have an edited script in hand already to approach Soundprint. We're able to help shape a project in many different ways throughout the process.