Week 7 Reading: Siobahn McHugh's 'Oral History and the Radio Documentary'

 This reading focuses on the construction of narrative within radio and how audio can be used effectively to develop and strengthen the narrative. Overall, on paper this topic isn't something that will necessarily help with my project this year, however after reading this text I found there are some things that may benefit us in making the documentary. 

One idea I found that could possibly really benefit our project was the information on silence. 'Oral historians and seasoned radio documentary/feature makers know the benefit of silence. It can presage the most precious moments of the interview'. Whether this be a moment of reflection or realisation, the use of silence can be imperative in strengthening a narrative moment, this is why silence is known as 'the compost of deep conversation'. This is something we will definitely want to use for our documentary, especially in moments where we reach the climax and things take a turn in the narrative to a more deeper moment. 

There is also a discussion on the benefit of music in a piece to further the narrative, a similar discussion to one looked at previously in whether or not it should or should not be used. In this discussion the main promotion of using music in a sequence is to 'advance the narrative' which is most certainly true in most cases. This somewhat gives more validation to the idea of using music in a sequence.

Of course throughout this reading everything is being linked to the industry of radio, but after reading through there are definitely elements that can be transferred over to the visual world. Especially due to the fact sound is so important in audio and visual content, so if something works well for radio, it is something to take note of for documentary.

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