This week, KPAC's James Baker and yours truly are working with a group of area high school students, offering them an opportunity to learn the ins and outs of radio production. We'll be recording and interviewing young classical musicians, and editing the material into a final project using the techniques they learn. One of the students, Lennon Maldonado, a recent Thomas Jefferson High School graduate who will be attending San Antonio College in the fall, had this to say about today's experience:
"On my first day at Camp KPAC, I was delighted to meet a group of teenagers whose origins are as diverse as their interests. Whether pursuing music, the sciences, journalism or filmmaking, these teens all have two things in common: ambition and a will to learn. After a brief but intriguing tour of the TPR facility in which we got to witness on the air news updates firsthand, we sat to discuss our main purpose in being there - learning radio technology and how to have any clue what we're doing. To begin, we listened to samples of interviews, both of high production quality, and of disastrously uncooperative interviewees. In doing this, we discovered that deeper layers go into conducting such an interview other than asking questions; there are many methods to it. It was important to get an idea of the types of interviews since we at the camp will assemble our own interview at the end of the week. On that note, we dedicated the better part of an hour to familiarizing ourselves with the audio editing software we would be using to make our interview. Introductions to this software were extremely helpful, so even first time editors were getting the hang of it in minutes. We will be interviewing professional musicians tomorrow, so it goes without saying that we're wasting no time in sitting around just talking about it. The group is eager to practice all that we've learned today in the coming week, so we'll definitely hit the ground running tomorrow!"
Thanks, Lennon! We're looking forward to a great week!
