Brad Klein

Brad Klein
(Edited by Sydney Lewis)

• Manifesto pt. 1
• Manifesto pt. 2
• About Brad Klein
• Download this document in PDF
• Brad Klein in Talk

Manifesto Part Two

At the end of Part One, I mentioned that I'd look at the changes that technology is bringing to the audio tour business. I'll take a quick shot at that, and if folks are interested, we can continue that conversation online. I'd also like to review the basic categories of production that we work within, and provide a closer look at the use of oral history collections by museums and other institutions.

The Future

We all know it's a fools errand to predict the future, but I can say a few things about the present. A number of companies around the world, including the one that I work for, provide the hardware that visitors typically use to listen to audio tours. For various reasons, off-the-shelf MP3 players normally won't hold up to commercial use, and so we've arrived at a happy state with institutions buying or leasing heavy duty players and racks to charge and program them.

This equipment is surprisingly expensive, and so there is a strong temptation to simply provide produced audio for visitors to download and play back on their own iPods. This trend works for independent audio producers who can now post audio content without any explicit permission from the museum or other site. A well-publicized example is the production produced by college students as an 'unauthorized' tour of MoMA that you can check out here.

I don't think that these efforts signal the end of companies like my employer, (in fact we offer consulting help to institutions who are interested in creating their own podcasts) but I think they certainly point to a greater diversification of sources for audio production. You can probably imagine many of the possible scenarios, so write in, and we can talk more about them.

No matter who is producing audio tours, most are going to take one of the forms below:

Gallery Lecture: This can still be an effective form, and it certainly has a place. In fact, I sometimes find it particularly soothing to hear a single voice guiding me through the museum. It puts the least demands on the listener, and if the narrator can read a script with intelligence and feeling... so much the better.

Acts And Tracks: As in radio, combining scripted narration tracks with unscripted actuality usually provides the best of two worlds; the spontaneity of an unscripted interview, with the exactitude of a carefully reviewed script.

Artists Voices: As heard in the examples in Part One, this is always my preference when working with living artists.

Candid Conversation: As heard in the NOW example in Part One, the conversational form can be between curator and artist, two curators, or increasingly between 'expert' and 'non-expert'.

Dramatization: Except in 'Family' or Kids tours, this technique can be the problem child of the audio tour business. It's one thing to have a skilled actor reading from a letter or quotation contemporary to the work being discussed. But full theatric dramatizations must be very carefully crafted, or they sound somewhat old-fashioned and stilted. You know...

[SFX: distant hoof beats approaching] Colonist: "Who is that riding toward us? Why it's Paul Revere, the silversmith." PR: "The British are coming..."

Oral History Projects: I'll spend a bit of time and include examples of two productions in this category, since I think it is so interesting, and lends itself to the skills of many in the Transom audience.

Using oral histories to complement museum exhibitions is a wonderful, and underutilized technique. It was used effectively in the Oakland Museum of California's, "What's Going On?—California and the Vietnam Era", produced in 2004-2005. For that exhibition, Acoustiguide played a consulting role, advising the museum on technical and production considerations. Museum staff then spent a year or so collecting their own tape from Vietnam vets and others, documenting the profound effects of the war on the state of California. You can learn more about the exhibition, here.

One portion of the exhibition included the fuselage of a period airplane, and you could sit inside and listen to vets like Charles Benninghoff recall their trip home to the States.

Listen to Audio Clip (MP3)

Jan Wollet was a flight attendant who recalled the controversial 1975 'babylift' of Vietnamese orphans to the United States.

Listen to Audio Clip (MP3)

The museum did a splendid job on a thin budget collecting tape, and we were able to combine that with scripted narration throughout the audio tour. The American Association of Museums recognized the effort with a Muse award, remarking that, "Judges agreed that this was probably the most engaging audio tour they have ever heard."

Another wonderful use of an existing Oral History archive is in the audio tour at Eastern State Penitentiary.

Eastern State is the stabilized ruin of an early 19th century penitentiary in Philadelphia, and well worth a visit. Working in close collaboration with the site's staff, we used both existing oral histories of prisoners and guards, and collected new ones as well. Samples of the audio tour can be found here.

The site's staff is committed to preserving the ambiance of dramatic decay that makes the Penitentiary so haunting, and the audio program brings the building to life, without cluttering it with excess signage.

Thanks for your attention, and for your thoughtful correspondence. I do believe that there is plenty of opportunity in this niche of the audio production market. I hope that I've introduced some new ideas to the Pub Radio crowd, and that you'll continue to share your ideas with me.

Brad Klein - September 11, 2006 - #22

Thanks to all who participated in this discussion during the past month or so. Two parting notes:

I’d like to draw attention to the web site of the Dayton Art Institute. As part of the audio production for, "Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art", a show that opens 24 September 2006, we produced an interview with NGA curator, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. You can listen to it on the 'programs' section of the exhibition's web site.

Although this 2-way doesn’t break new ground from a radio point to view, I think it does indicate a growing willingness on the part of museums to provide content in a wider variety of media. It’s a trend that I hope will grow.

Finally, I hope that I’ve interested more of the ‘radio production crowd’ in producing audio for museums and other location-specific sites. Whether you’re working independently or with a vendor, let me know about your experiences. You can reach me through Acoustiguide or my own website at www.bradleyklein.com.

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