Can We Agree on One Thing?

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Written By Dave Davis

(SOAP BOX ALERT)

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I have been teaching and preaching about using natural sound in news and feature stories forever.  It is one of the things high school broadcast students frequently forget.  “NAT SOUND.”  

It is also something that seems to get a pass in national contests.  We have all seen too many stories win recognition, held up as the “best of the best,” with almost no natural sound.  Things happen visually in the story that obviously make noise, but that audio is muted.  All we hear is the reporter voice track.  

Where does that happen in the real world?  Where do you ever go where there is absolutely no sound around you?  Unless you live in a sound proof booth, the answer is no where.  

The emphasis on including NAT SOUND in video stories is pretty universal.  Professionals insist on it.  College professors lecture about it.  The best high school teachers emphasize it.  

So can we all agree that NAT SOUND has to become a consistent expectation, something that automatically separates the top stories from the also-rans?  

Remind students of this: Sound is half of your video.

EXAMPLE?

Here’s an investigative piece two of my students produced about ten years ago.  The NAT SOUND was important for this piece, which could have been very, very dry without it.

http://htvbuzz.com/easy-access/

 

  

Dave Davis

Dave Davis started a Broadcast Journalism class at Hillcrest High School in the fall of 1989. Since then, the school's student-produced show, "HTV Magazine," has become one of the nation's most-honored high school broadcasts.

In an effort to provide valuable, useful, hands-on instruction to broadcast teachers from across the nation, Davis founded ASB Workshop in the summer of 2000. Since then, the week-long workshop has provided training for hundreds of high school and middle school teachers from 47 states, plus Mexico, England, South Korea, and Japan.

In the spring of 2009 he was named the Springfield (MO) Public Schools Teacher of the Year. He lives in Springfield with wife Martha, and has two daughters who live and work in the area.

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